Rangeland management practices in changing environment: implications for land use and climate change in selected African countries
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Date
2023-04
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Rangeland Society of Tanzania (RST)
Abstract
Rangeland Management entails rangeland resource management
for improved animal production and other ecosystem services.
While Africa is endowed with spectacular rangelands which
support biodiversity, animal production and people's livelihoods,
they face pressure from anthropogenic activities such as
overgrazing which leads to land degradation and conversion of
rangelands into other land uses. Furthermore, the quality of
pastures fed to livestock has implications on feed efficiency and
methane gas emission. Rangeland management interventions
which enhance the carbon sequestration function of rangelands
and reduce enteric methane emission from livestock have a
potential of mitigating global warming and climate change. This
paper reviews different rangeland management approaches for
animal production and assesses their contribution to climate
change in some African countries. Such approaches include (i)
Community Based Natural Resource Management; (ii) Land and
water use planning; (iii) marketing and alternative income;
and(iv) wildlife and nature tourism. The findings suggest that, the
adoption of SRM approaches is very low with less than 25 cases
across Africa. This suggests that the existing SRM interventions
have had little contribution to climate change mitigation. The
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implementation of approaches such as village land use planning,
legalization of the customary land right to grazing areas,
establishment of mini ranches and the establishment of improved
pasture species with low GHG emission will significantly
contribute to sustainable range management and climate change
mitigation in Africa.
Description
Healthy Rangelands for Sustainable Natural Resource Productivity
Keywords
Environment, Land use, Climate change, African countries