Grazing pressure is a serious constraint but I’d hesitate to call it THE root problem. There is some evidence (not systematic enough yet — more work needed here) that in some cases that problem is not gross grazing pressure so much as the timing of grazing. Under certain circumstances, pastures can even get too much rest. We have a small project going on now that may add a little to the evidence base on this, but there certainly could be a lot of mileage on such topics.

Jean – I agree with much of what you say. Reseeding of pastures is a gut-reaction based intervention and history shows that it doesn’t really work. The root problem around productivity of rangelands is heavy grazing pressure – there is usually a reasonable seed bank so applying more seed would not really help unless livestock were excluded. Planted forages are also unlikely to be the solution in dry areas. Mobility has evolved for good reasons that relate to the unpredictability of spatial and temporal rainfall patterns in pastoral areas. Trying to get forages to grow under these conditions is challenging unless irrigation is introduced. The answer then must lie in communal agreements about excluding livestock and then sharing the biomass that results – challenging but not impossible – this relates to Lance’s presentation on governance in pastoral systems. Lots of mileage there I suspect.

Thanks for that, Jean. I couldn’t agree more. We have pastoralists in Borana pointing us to Leptothrium senegalense as a high-quality grass that can recover degraded areas (in spite of the ecological/evolutionary contradiction this seems to imply). It seems in moderate such rainfall drylands in Ethiopia, this could be a good species to start with. Do you have much of a sense off-hand of the constraints on re-seeding (production, germination, germplasm)? Perhaps in newly enclosed, highly degraded areas subjected to fire?

Absolutely. I think there are opportunities to borrow a variety of approaches from West Africa, where people have been dealing with similar constraints for centuries, e.g. Faidherbia albida agroforestry and simple, low-cost forage preservation.