Rangelands in north Africa and the near east in general provide numerous goods and services that have great economic, social, cultural, and biological values. For centuries, inhabitants of rangelands have engineered pastoral and farming systems that have sustained their livelihoods in these harsh and dry environments. Unfortunately, these rangelands have undergone profound socio-economic changes where traditional grazing systems (transhumance and nomadism) which had historically allowed for grazing deferment were abandoned.

Woody plant encroachment—the conversion of grasslands to woodlands—continues to transform rangelands worldwide, yet its causes and consequences remain poorly understood. Despite this being a coupled human-ecological phenomenon, research to date has tended toward ecological aspects of the issue. In this paper, we provide new insight into the long-term relationships between human demographics and woody plant cover at the landscape scale.

Governance plays a key role in rangeland management. In China, all rangeland, including pastoral land and agro-pastoral land, is owned by the State. Since 1980, use rights have been granted to households by the Chinese government extending the household contract responsibility system (HCRS). But in the agro-pastoral areas of northwestern (NW) China, the rangeland degradation is more severe than that in pastoral areas. The HCRS is difficult to implement because the limited and fragmented grazing land cannot be contracted to individual households.