Natural resources conservation and livestock interface
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Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Rangeland Society of Tanzania (RST)
Abstract
Natural resources conservation and livestock interface is
conspicuous in areas adjacent to protected areas where
interactions among wildlife, human and livestock commonly
occur inside and around protected areas. The interactions
commonly result in conflicts mainly the Human- Wildlife
Conflict (HWC) and between Livestock and Wildlife with both
negative and positive consequences that exist between them.
The conflicts are stemmed on competition for limited natural
resources when human, livestock and wildlife share the
environment. Economic processes influence agricultural and
wildlife-based enterprises as sources of income for communities
while ecological processes influence the relative efficiencies of
livestock and wildlife species in utilizing available natural
resources. It has been observed that when livestock and wildlife
share the same area, wildlife tend to disappear when livestock
production is so specialized where irrigated and fertilized
improved pastures, feed supplementation and fenced paddocks
are put in place to support livestock production while wildlife
left to exist naturally. This consequently result in Human-
Wildlife Conflict as both livestock kept by human and wildlife
tend to trespass the boundaries that separate them. The
negative impacts associated with conflicts between Human and
Wildlife compels the governments, wildlife managers, scientists and local communities to find solutions. Principally there are
two main approaches in managing human wildlife conflicts that
include prevention and mitigation. In addition, there is a new
socio-economic approach in alleviating conflict which is based
on changing attitudes of communities to wildlife conservation
through education and ensuring that affected communities and
individuals are active participants in, and enjoy tangible
benefits from wildlife conservation. Analysis of the situation of
natural resources conservation and livestock interface in
Tanzania indicate that continuous livestock grazing system
shows signs of rangeland deterioration in communal grazing
lands adjacent to protected areas. It was envisaged that the
situation might entangle livestock keepers in a vicious cycle of
poverty due to losses of livestock under deteriorated
rangelands.
Description
Healthy Rangelands for Sustainable Grazing Land Productivity
Keywords
Wildlife conservation, Protected areas, Livestock interface, Grazing lands