Environmental degradation of pasture areas in the Qilian Mountains (Gansu province, NW China) has increased in recent years. Soil erosion and loss of biodiversity caused by overgrazing is widespread. Changes in plant cover, however, have not been analysed so far. The aim of this paper is to identify plant communities and to detect grazing-induced changes in vegetation patterns. Quantitative and...

Landmines are one of the most environmentally destructive aftermaths of war facing the world today. The global landmine problem has transcended both humanitarian and sociological concerns to bring about environmental damage. Disruption of land’s stability, pollution and loss of biodiversity constitute major ecological repercussions of landmine crisis. This paper aim to emphasise how landmines a...

The development of land for modern agriculture has resulted in losses of native prairie habitat. The small, isolated patches of prairie habitat that remain are threatened by fire suppression, overgrazing, and invasion by non-native species. We evaluated the effects of three restoration practices (grazing only, burning only, and burning and grazing) on the vegetation characteristics and butterfl...

Overgrazing has caused vegetation destruction and soil degradation in Leymus chinensis grassland, the widely distributed type of grassland in northern China. To restore the degraded ecosystem, grazing exclusion was implemented in 1979, 1999, and 2004. However, changes in the vegetation and soil organic carbon (SOC) in different years of grazing exclusion have not been thoroughly elucidated. Thi...

The NGO Terre Verte pursues the realisation of bocage perimeters (wégoubri in the mooré language) in Burkina Faso. They are an innovative concept of rural development that has been established in the 1990s in the experimental farm of Guiè and is now adopted in other experimental farms in Burkina Faso. The deterioration of the rural landscape in the Sahel region has worsened in the last decades,...

Based on the physico-biophysical considerations, mathematical analysis and some approximate formulations generally adopted in meteorology and ecology, an ecological dynamic model of grassland is developed. The model consists of three interactive variables, i.e. the biomass of living grass, the biomass of wilted grass, and the soil wetness. The major biophysical processes are represented in para...

Prescribed fires are used to manipulate and manage rangelands, but effective monitoring techniques are needed to ensure that management goals and objectives are being met. The application of an effective fire program on rangelands is not a simple task. Overgrazing by livestock since the early development of the livestock industry has altered the vegetative complex on most rangelands with an inc...

Lycium chilense, a deciduous perennial shrub, is one of the endangered native species of Patagonia due to sheep overgrazing. Chances of recolonization by seeds are scarce due to the limited density of propagules in the soil and very specific requirements for germination. The objective was to develop an in vitro propagation protocol that would help to perform reestablishment of this species in d...

The national herd is important and diverse with an estimated ruminant population of 9 091 000 cattle, 9 278 000 sheep and 13 891 000 goats [2]. Livestock activities are carried out by more than 80% of households who derive all or part of their income [3]. Cattle are the savings account of the family business, while small ruminants constitute the current account that allows smallholder farmers t...

In Sahel, land and resources are used, depending on the season, by various actors with interests that are sometimes difficult to reconcile. The competition for space and time for access to natural resources induces a set of processes, including overgrazing and conflicts over access to water. In such a complex agrosylvopastoral context, acquiring and formalizing knowledge about the practices and...