Assessment of Dust Impact on Rangeland and Livestock Production According to Ranchers Opinion (Case Study: Andimeshk District, Iran)

Natural resources have been attracted a great deal of attentions and have been frequently exploited for many years. Dust is one of natural disasters mainly in recent years; here, in south west of Iran, it had destroyed the rangelands. The dust has detrimental effects on the rangelands, livestock and livestock production. High concentrations of dust may lead to the coughing, nasal discharge, wheezing and increased effort to breathe. Dust can weaken the immune system and expose livestock to infectious diseases and bacteria and eventually cause death. In order to assess the dust impact on rangeland and livestock production, this study was conducted according to the pastoralist opinions. The statistical population involved the pastoralists of Andimeshk with a grazing license in south west of Iran. According to Natural Resources Department, 474 pastoralists had grazing license. 110 people for the samples were selected. The reliability of questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α=0.82). Pastoralists believed that the greatest impact of dust is on the forage palatability in a way that livestock avoided grazing the dusty plants. Pastoralists believed that dust in winter has a greater impact on the plant than that in summer because in most tropical regions, the vegetative growth is occurred in winter. In this study, the pastoralist score given as 4.33 out of 5 implies that dust can cause the deterioration and destruction of livestock teeth due to grazing dusty plants so that the teeth get worn out over time resulting in the fact that young livestock may be removed from herds. Most of people in the desired region did not issue livestock insurance due to cost effectiveness. 67% of pastoralists believe that dust reduces the rangeland production and has some devastating impacts on it. 68% of pastoralists believe that dust reduces the livestock production and has some devastating impacts on it.