Investigating the effect of overgrazing on rangelands

Climate change and overgrazing are believed by policy makers to have been the drivers of grassland degradation in most pasture all around the world. Overgrazing is a phenomenon that is exactly what the term suggests, when land used for pasture and grazing for livestock is overly grazed, resulting in poor vegetation growth. This occurs because the grass and native vegetation does not have enough recovery time to replenish itself. The research in this paper is based on library research and study what are the consequences and effects of overgrazing as the main cause of pasturelands degradation specially in arid and semi arid lands. Some solutions to the problem of overgrazing would be livestock rotation and the planting of warm-weather grasses along with cool weather grasses. Livestock should be rotated to other pasturelands to give the vegetation enough time to recover and grow back. Also, the planting of cool weather grasses will take off the pressure from warm weather grasses and give a longer production period for vegetation to grow. In tropical grasslands and savannas overgrazing induced desertification is considered the greatest threat to the integrity of these ecosystems. Moreover, in arid and semi-arid drylands around the globe overgrazing is the major cause of desertification

Keywords:

Overgrazing , Rangelands and Rangeland Degradation