Overview of study sites in grazing land

Authors: Conceptión Alados, Erea Paz, Frederico Filliat, Maite Gartzia, Constantinos Kosmas, Ahmed El Aich

Editor's note 14Jun2012: Text extracted from D711 section 8.4

To analyze the main drivers and responses to LEDD in grazing lands three grazing land study sites have been selected: Asterousia Mountains, Crete (Greece), Middle Atlas (Morocco) and Central Pyrenees (Spain).

Locations of the LEDDRA grazing land study sites

The Asterousia study site is located in the central southern part of Crete island (Greece) covering an area of 56,147.4ha, where livestock is important part of the environment and contributes significantly to the economy of the area. The climate is semi-arid characterized by an annual rainfall changing from 500 in the lower elevation areas to up to 1250 mm in the upper mountainous areas. Natural vegetation in the area is threatened not only by overgrazing but also by deliberate or accidental forest fires. Under these conditions of poor vegetation cover in combination with the steep slopes and shallow soils, soil erosion is a major issue of land degradation and desertification in the area.  Moderate erosion characterizes a great part of the area, while some areas are characterized as severely or very severely eroded. The majority of the Asterousia Mts are characterized as fragile to desertification (51.4% of the total area), while almost all the rest of the area is characterized as critical to desertification. The population of Asterousia has decreased steadily over the last 60 years changing from 9,000 in 1961 to 6869 people in 2001. Population density has decreased from 23.2 inhabitants per km² in 1961 to 17.7 inhabitants per km² in 2001. The primary sector is the most important economic sector in the area although its importance is decreasing. Tourism activities are increasing in the rural and coastal areas.  Only 3.4% of the total population has a university degree, while 43.9% have primary education only.

The Spanish Central Pyrenees study area is located in the Pyrenees mountain ranges, north of Spain, covering an area of 138,364 ha. Average annual precipitation ranges from 1270 mm precipitation under 1200 m to 1520 mm above it. Grazing activity was very common in the area since the Middle Ages. The grazing system was based on the extensive exploitation of summer grasslands and the movement of the livestock to the Middle Ebro valley in winter (transhumance), which allowed the optimum use of pastures. The study area has one of the lowest population density (4.45 inh. km-²) in Spain, and much lower than the Aragón Community area (28.20 inh. km-²). Between 1930 and 1990 the population declined significantly, although the last decade (since 2000) it has increased due to the enhancement of rural tourism activity. These changes are causing important alterations in the land cover; mainly, growth of the forest area and reduction of the natural grass and cultivated area, which, according to farmers, are significant problems.

Comparisons between municipalities with and without ski resorts revealed a population increase of 60.4 percent between 1970 and 2008 for those municipalities with ski resorts, while the municipalities without ski resorts have lost 26.6 percent of their population in the same period (Lasanta 2010). A loss of 43 percent of livestock was also reported for the same period in municipalities with ski resorts, as opposed to an increase in livestock of 31.8 percent in municipalities without ski resorts. Competition between stockbreeding and tourist development has been reported in the Pyrenees in the (Laguna and Lasanta 2003), where movement of workers from the primary sector into tourism was observed. The GDP from agriculture, industry and services declined in the study area in the last 10 years. In the last 20 years the service sector has increased and it constitutes the main economic activity.

The Timahdit study site is located in the Middle Atlas (Morocco). It covers an area of 58,780ha. Breeding of small ruminants in the Middle Atlas is carried out using extensive methods basing their foraging on free pastoral resources of forest and common lands. In the study site, 53.2 percent is collective land, 21.3 percent is privately owned, and 25.5 percent is nationally owned forestland. The collective lands are covered generally with shrub and grassland vegetation types and provide excellent summer pasture. However, these lands are commonly used throughout the entire year. The study area includes four fractions (tribal subdivision): the Ait M’Hamed, Ait Hcine ou Hand, Ait Ben Hcine and Ait Ben Yacoub. The constant and excessive grazing is a major range problem leading to overutilization and depletion of forage resources. Indeed, historically, the ecological integrity of the Middle Atlas pastoral system depended on mobility that relied on institutions developed by people living in these areas to regulate land utilization (Benchrifa 1990; El Aich and Waterhouse 1999). Institutional changes that led to the conversion of the region to open access systems resulted in an increase in the duration of use of the grazing areas. In addition, under demographic pressures and economic changes, these systems are becoming more sedentary. Sedentarisation in the summer rangelands of the LEDDRA study site Ait Arfa du Guigou is a consequence of the break down in the double transhumance that regulated the use of the land resources (Bourbouze 1999; El Aich and Waterhouse 1999). In the past, the double transhumance concerned the lowlands in winter and the highlands during summer. Conversion to agriculture of the lowlands reduced the grazing areas and caused a breakdown of the double transhumance system. Consequently, herders reduced their mobility and settled in the summer on high grazing lands. Surveys conducted to assess the history of the settlement of herdsmen on Ait Beni Yacoub rangelands indicated that settling started early in the century, but it was during the period 1960-1970 that the first pick of the settlement was observed. Even though settlements on rangelands were forbidden to preserve natural resources by government law, herdsmen continued to construct camps on rangelands with a higher rate during the last 30 years.  The settlement of herders had a large negative impact on rangeland resources since it increased the duration of the grazing season and, thus, the grazing pressure. Grazing pressure reported for these rangelands varies between 1.6 and 6.3 ewes per hectare depending on the grazing location (Belkhou 2002; Laroussi 2000). The management of most herds is oriented towards subsistence rather than towards optimization of the production. Economic performance is weak.

Table 1. Environmental and socio-economic characteristics of the three study sites

The data obtained from the study sites will be used to assess the interactions between biophysical and socio-economic components in grazing land. Social and economic factors together with physical and climatic conditions are the main driving forces of landscape changes and biodiversity conservation (Turner et al. 1996), especially in human-dominated landscapes such as rangelands, where livestock pressure is a key factor for vegetation community dynamics. But the influence of livestock management on LEDD is not homogeneous. The differential use of preferred areas results in uneven distribution of animal impact, causing heavier impact on preferred areas and lower or even no impacts on more inaccessible areas (Pueyo et al. 2006; Pueyo and Alados 2007). In consequence, the study of drivers, impact and responses require of a spatial approach to be fully understood. Based on the available data collected, the key variables and processes that determine the stability and resilience of the SES will be identified. In order to do that, it is necessary to introduce a historical perspective, allowing the comparison of different scenarios of land use and management practices on landscape dynamics. The evolution of social (traditional knowledge, social networks, etc), ecological (biodiversity, productivity of natural resources, e.g. biomass) and economic (income, economic structure, etc.) factors is investigated across temporal scales and in relation with socio-ecological resilience.

Table 2. Important land and ecosystem degradation and desertification (LEDD) issues identified in the grazing land study sites

Table 3. Important planned and unplanned responses to LEDD in the grazing land study sites