Grazing practices and rangeland conservation: towards output‐based contracts to improve relevance and enhance technical innovation
Conservation of natural vegetation in grazing systems has traditionally been achieved by restrictive contracts or permits.A typical grazing permit specifies the number of animals to be grazed, in and out dates, and infrastructure, but does not specify resource goals.Grazers are evaluated relative to their adherence to permit conditions, not resource objectives.These contracts are often stable for long periods and do not account for seasonal and annual variation in plant production, composition, and resulting changes in the suitability of landscapes for domestic and wild animals.While little effort is spent on monitoring grazing impact, there is even less effort devoted to evaluate the appropriateness of specific practices (input) with respect to resource goals (output).From a scientific standpoint, a review of the ecological literature shows many studies that evaluate the impacts of grazing compared with no grazing, but very few studies that evaluate the impacts of timing, duration, utilization rate, class of animal.In stark contrast to contracts or permit administration and ecological research, progressive practitioners know that successfully achieving resource objectives requires managing the dynamic interaction between flock behavior, individual animal performance, and the natural history of the existing and desired plant community.With this in mind, the concept of targeted grazing, as defined by Launchbaugh (2006) as the application of a specific kind of livestock at a determined season, duration and intensity to accomplish defined vegetation or landscape goals, has received much attention.Implementing these concepts requires important changes in administrative frameworks, technical management of the flocks, as well as monitoring and control procedures.The work reported in this paper explores implementing grazing contracts that explicitly specify the expected landscape results,rather than focusing solely on implementing practices (Léger et al., 1999).
grazing management output‐based contracts rangelands environment performance
AGREIL Cyril HASKELL Jocelyn HASKELL John MEURET Michel PROVENZA Fred
INRA UR767 Dpt SAD,Agroparc,84 914 Avignon cedex 9,France Diamond J Resource Mgt.LLC.,PO Box 250 Woodruff UT 84086. Department of Wildland Resources,Utah State University,Logan,UT 84322.
国际会议
呼和浩特
英文
2008-06-29（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）