Tag Archive for: Land Restoration

Restoration of Degraded Grasslands Can Benefit Climate Change Mitigation and Key Ecosystem Services

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New research has demonstrated how, in contrast to encroachment by the invasive alien tree species Prosopis julifora (known as Mathenge -in Kenya or Promi in Baringo), restoration of grasslands in tropical semi-arid regions can both mitigate the impacts of climate change and restore key benefits usually provided by healthy grasslands for pastoralists and agro-pastoralist communities.

A team of Kenyan and Swiss scientists, including lead author Ms.Purity Rima Mbaabu, affiliated to Kenya Forestry Research Institute, Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation of University of Nairobi and Chuka University and Dr. Urs Schaffner from CABI’s Swiss Centre in Delémont, assessed how invasion by P. julifora and the restoration of degraded grasslands affected soil organic carbon (SOC), biodiversity and fodder availability.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, revealed that degradation of grasslands in Baringo County, Kenya, has led to a loss of approximately 40% of SOC, the most important carbon pool in soils. These findings confirm that  degradation significantly contributes to the release of greenhouse gasses and thus to .

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Plant Biodiversity Suffers Without Livestock Grazing, Says Expert

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On the back of a recent European Commission-funded report which called for nuance in the livestock vs environment debate, EURACTIV took a look at the importance of EU grasslands and the role of livestock in maintaining them.

The report, published in October, comes amidst increasing debates over the role of livestock and the sustainability of the agricultural sector.

Although it does not shy away from pointing out the significant contribution of the livestock sector to environmental issues, the report highlights that the debate over meat is not a clear cut one, stressing the need to avoid “oversimplification”.

“The study invites the reader to avoid oversimplification of the debate around the livestock sector and its impact,” the executive summary of the report reads, concluding that it is not possible to consider livestock as a whole.

“Livestock plays a key role in land use that can be either positive or negative at local and global level,” it adds.

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El manejo holístico ya muestra sus bondades productivas y ambientales

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De a poco, la ganadería se asoma a un nuevo paradigma. Ya no alcanza con producir la carne más rica del mundo, ahora hay que hacerlo reduciendo la huella ambiental: lo piden los consumidores y los mercados. En ese camino hay investigadores y productores de todo el país midiendo, probando y corrigiendo manejos.

En el noreste, por ejemplo, donde los pastizales cubren alrededor del 40 por ciento del área total y están compuestos por especies estivales -en el invierno el crecimiento es muy bajo a nulo-, la gran pregunta es cómo aprovechar mejor esa oferta forrajera despareja para mejorar los índices productivos al tiempo que se mejoran los servicios ecosistémicos.

En ese sentido, el establecimiento “El Rincón de Corrientes” está obteniendo algunos resultados muy interesantes. Pasando una parte de su rodeo del manejo tradicional con pastoreo continuo a lo que llaman un “manejo holístico” lograron aumentar la carga animal y mejorar los índices de destete al tiempo que capturaban más de dos toneladas de carbono por hectárea extra por año.

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Restaurar la naturaleza: el secreto contra el cambio climático

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La restauración extensiva de los ecosistemas se considera cada vez más fundamental para conservar la biodiversidad y estabilizar el clima de la Tierra. Aunque se han establecido ambiciosos objetivos nacionales y mundiales, aún no se han identificado áreas de prioridad mundial que tengan en cuenta la variación espacial en los beneficios y costos, ¿por dónde empezar?

Un estudio de la Universidad Católica de Rio de Janiero (Brasil) y publicado en la revista Nature, identificó las áreas prioritarias para la restauración en todos los biomas terrestres y estima sus beneficios y costos.

De acuerdo con los investigadores, restaurar el 15% de las tierras convertidas en áreas prioritarias podría evitar el 60% de las extinciones que se esperan para 2050, y secuestrar 299 gigatoneladas de CO2, el 30% del aumento total de CO2 en la atmósfera desde la Revolución Industrial.

Como señala Nature, solo alrededor del 1% de la financiación dedicada a la crisis climática global se destina a la restauración de la naturaleza, pero el estudio encontró que tales “soluciones basadas en la naturaleza” se encontraban entre las formas más baratas de absorber y almacenar dióxido de carbono de la atmósfera, siendo los beneficios adicionales los protección de la vida silvestre.

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Land Restoration, One Paddock at a Time

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SISTERS — Regenerative grazing has become a recent buzzword among social media savy ranchers and is seen as an eco-friendly way to produce beef. The Sisters Cattle Co. is out to prove the hype really can help Central Oregon’s grasslands.

Hobbs Magaret, the 34-year-old owner of the fledgling company, is raising beef cattle in Sisters in a way that not only avoids all chemicals, fertilizers and corn, but also leaves the grazing fields in a healthier state compared to when he started, using only cows to improve the land.

As unlikely as that sounds, his method of ranching — regenerative grazing — is becoming more widespread in the U.S. and other countries. After just 18 months in production, Magaret said he has improved 200 acres of land in the Sisters area.

What’s regenerative grazing? It’s a method of raising livestock that not only produces food for people but also regenerates grassland that has been degraded by extractive practices or poor land management.

 

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Los científicos urgen recuperar una naturaleza salvaje para mitigar la crisis climática

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Restaurar los ecosistemas dañados por la sobreexplotación humana puede ser una de las maneras más efectivas y baratas para combatir el cambio climático mientras permitiría a la vez dar un gran impulso a las poblaciones de las especies de la vida salvaje.

Si un tercio de las áreas del planeta más degradadas fueran restauradas y esta protección se extendiera a áreas que aún están en buenas condiciones, se podría almacenar el equivalente a la mitad del carbono generado por las emisiones de gases invernadero causadas por el hombre desde la revolución industrial. Estos cambios evitarían el 70% de las extinciones de especies, según una investigación publicado en Nature.

Volver a su estado natural bosques, pastos, matorrales, zonas húmedas y ecosistemas áridos específicos, que fueron en gran parte reemplazados por tierras de cultivo, permitiría absorber 465.000 millones de toneladas de dióxido de carbono y salvaría la mayoría de las especies con base terrestre de mamíferos, anfibios y aves en peligro de extinción.

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Restoring Depleted Soils with Cattle

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Michael Thiele’s mission today is to acquaint more farmers and ranchers with a holistic view of agriculture.

Thiele grew up on a farm west of Dauphin, Man., just north of Riding Mountain National Park. His father had a small grain farm and a few cows.

“We were busy trying to farm and make a living and like all the other farmers around us, we were creating a monoculture of grain crops — mostly wheat, canola, oats and barley,” says Thiele.

“When I went to university, I thought soil was simply dirt,” he says. People didn’t realize how alive soil is, teeming with life and activity, and how much we depend on a healthy soil system. Now Thiele is trying to help producers understand that the way we farmed created unhealthy soil.

In his part of Manitoba there were rich, fertile soils with 10 to 14 per cent organic matter. “But those soils are now between two and four per cent. 

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Ethiopia’s farmers fight devastating drought with land restoration

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Author: Duncan Gromko

Ethiopia is in the midst of the worst drought in 50 years, affecting over half of the country’s 750 districts. Earlier this month, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), called Ethiopia’s condition “a deteriorated humanitarian situation”.

Environmental degradation has played a big role. Ethiopia has long been a victim of land degradation, driven by increased human use of land and unsustainable agricultural practices. Grazing of animals and collection of firewood haven’t helped – with less cover and protection against erosion, soil is more easily washed away.

Now, Ethiopia is drawing on its business community and public sector to do something about it. Earlier this year, the country agreed to join the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), a country-led effort to bring 100m hectares of land in Africa into restoration by 2030. The initiative was launched formally at COP21 in Paris.

AFR100 will see governments working together with regional institutions, public and private sector partners and international development programs to restore productivity to deforested and degraded landscapes, mostly through restoring forests and planting trees on agricultural land. “AFR100 seeks to realize the benefits that trees can provide in African landscapes, thereby contributing to improved soil fertility and food security, improved availability and quality of water resources, reduced desertification, increased biodiversity, the creation of green jobs, economic growth, and increased capacity for climate change resilience, adaptation and mitigation,” the group’s mission states.

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Over-grazing and desertification in the Syrian steppe are the root causes of war

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Author: Gianluca Serra

Civil war in Syria is the result of the desertification of the ecologically fragile Syrian steppe, writes Gianluca Serra – a process that began in 1958 when the former Bedouin commons were opened up to unrestricted grazing. That led to a wider ecological, hydrological and agricultural collapse, and then to a ‘rural intifada’ of farmers and nomads no longer able to support themselves.

Back in 2009, I dared to forecast that if the rampant desertification process gripping the Syrian steppe was not halted soon, it could eventually become a trigger for social turmoil and even for a civil war.

I was being interviewed by the journalist and scholar Francesca de Chatel- and was feeling deeply disillusioned about Syrian government’s failure to heed my advice that the steppe, which covers over half of the country’s land mass, was in desperate need of recuperation.

I had just spent a decade (four years of which serving a UN-FAO project aimed at rehabilitating the steppe) trying to advocate that livestock over-grazing of the steppe rangelands was the key cause of its ecological degradation.

However, for the Syrian government’s staff, it was far too easy to identify and blame prolonged droughts (a natural feature of this kind of semi-arid environment) or climate change (which was already becoming a popular buzzword in those years). These external causes served well as a way to escape from any responsibility – and to justify their inaction.

In an article on The Ecologist, Alex Kirby writes that the severe 2006-2010 drought in Syria may have contributed to the civil war. Indeed it may – but this is to disregard the immediate cause – the disastrous over-exploitation of the fragile steppe ecosystem.

Before my time in Syria, as early as the 1970s, international aid organizations such as the UN-FAO had also flagged the dire need to not apply profit-maximization principles and to therefore not over-exploit the fragile ecosystem of the Syrian steppe.

KEEP READING IN THE ECOLOGIST