Meeting Name: Near East Forestry and Range Commission (NEFRC)
Meeting symbol/code: FO:NEFRC/2015/7.1
Session: Sess. 22

Meeting Name: Near East Forestry and Range Commission (NEFRC)
Meeting symbol/code: FO:NEFRC/2015/7
Session: Sess. 22

Meeting Name: Near East Forestry and Range Commission (NEFRC)
Meeting symbol/code: FO:NEFRC/2015/11
Session: Sess. 22

Настоящая серия отчетов «Основные аспекты исследования четырех секторов отрасли жи- вотноводства в Казахстане» подготовлена Инвестиционным центром ФАО в сотрудничест- ве с Аналитическим центром экономической политики в агропромышленном комплексе (АЦЭП АПК) при АО «КазАгроИнновация» Министерства сельского хозяйства Республи- ки Казахстан. Финансирование исследования осуществлялось полностью за счет ФАО.

Meeting Name: Near East Forestry and Range Commission (NEFRC)
Meeting symbol/code: FO:NEFRC/2015/8
Session: Sess. 22

In this study, a land use/land cover change analysis method was developed to examine patterns of land use/land cover conversions of cropland to urban uses and conversions of rangeland to cropland uses in the United States (US) Midwest region. We used the US 2001 and 2006 National Land Cover Datasets (NLCD) for our spatial analyses of these conversion trends.

Defining rangelands as anthromes enabled Ellis and Ramankutty (2008) to conclude that more than three-quarters of Earth’s land is anthropogenic; without rangelands, this figure would have been less than half. They classified all lands grazed by domestic livestock as rangelands, provided that human population densities were low; similar areas without livestock were excluded and classified instead as ‘wildlands’. This paper examines the empirical basis and conceptual assumptions of defining and categorizing rangelands in this fashion.

Residents of Southern Africa depend on rangeland for food, livelihoods, and ecosystem services. Sustainable management of rangeland ecosystems requires attention to interactive effects of fire and grazing in a changing climate. It is essential to compare rangeland responses to fire and grazing across space and through time to understand the effects of rangeland management practices on biodiversity and ecosystem services in an era of global climate change.

Agricultural expansion has eliminated a high proportion of native land cover and severely degraded remaining native vegetation. Managers must determine where degradation is severe enough to merit restoration action, and what action, if any, is necessary. We report on grassland degraded by multiple factors, including grazing, soil disturbance, and exotic plant species introduced in response to agriculture management. We use a multivariate method to categorize plant communities by degradation state based on floristic and biophysical degradation associated with historical land use.

The status of grazinglands in the USA is increasingly dynamic with large areas being converted to cropland in response to demands for increased crop production. Here we focus on two types of grazinglands: rangelands and pasturelands. Rangelands are usually defined as natural ecosystems in which the native vegetation is predominantly grasses, grass-like plants or shrubs, and are generally used for grazing livestock and wildlife. Pasturelands are areas specifically managed for the production of forage (native or introduced) for grazing livestock.

The limited amount of studies addressing the long‐term effectiveness of restoration actions to combat land degradation is a constraint for current landscape restoration planning and implementation. Remote sensing data provide a unique opportunity for gathering information on the spatial and temporal variability of restoration processes and may contribute to fill this knowledge gap.