Ecological restoration of degraded rangelands in East Africa: success and failure of traditional enclosure
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Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Rangeland Society of Tanzania (RST)
Abstract
ncreasing rangeland degradation in East Africa due to
alarming land use pressure has created a serious debate
which calls for quick land rehabilitation. Unsustainable
utilization of range resources due to diversification of
human economic activities have resulted to poor rangeland
productivity. The projected increase in human population
by 33% in 2050 implies more demand on scarce range
resources which will intensify rangeland degradation if
restoration measures are not undertaken. Although,
rehabilitation plans have been developed in different
countries within East African region, but implementation
has been slow due to inadequate financial resources, lack
of ecological restoration skills and failure to assimilate
traditional range management practices. Poor integration
of indigenous knowledge with ecological methods has
resulted into limited constructive collaboration between
scientists and local communities toward combating
environmental degradation. Despite the fact that
traditional range management practice using deferred grazing system (enclosure) has successfully conserved
environment and improved the livelihood of some pastoral
communities elsewhere but the practice is poorly adopted
for up-scaling to other communities. Traditional enclosure
has been used as rehabilitation strategy to restore severely
degraded rangeland through quick vegetation recovery
which subsequently reduces soil erosion, increase water
infiltration and provide dry season feeds for livestock. This
paper therefore reviews factors limiting adaptation and
adoption of tradition enclosures for rangeland
rehabilitation and hence recommends the best way for
integration of local knowledge with ecological restoration
methods for sustainable rangeland improvement.
Description
Healthy Rangelands for Sustainable Grazing Land Productivity
Keywords
Rangeland degradation, Enclosure, Rehabilitation, Ngitili, Indigenous knowledge