The authors briefly review how microbial biotechnology can contribute to improve activities aiming to restore degraded drylands and to combat their desertification, which are an integral part of the Sustainable Development Goal 15 of the 2030 Agenda. Microbial biotechnology offers notable promise to improve restoration actions based on the use of biocrust‐forming engineered cyanobacteria, which play key roles in maintaining ecosystem structure and functioning in drylands worldwide.

Objectives

In Tanzania, ongoing land insecurity is a structural cause of food insecurity particularly for
pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and small-scale crop farmers leading to land use conflicts,
compromised access to resources including grazing and water and rangeland degradation.
Land tenure security and management can be improved through village land use planning (VLUP)
and land certification – namely the issuing of certificates of customary rights of occupancy
(CCROs). In situations where villages share resources such as grazing areas and water, joint village

The objective of this study was to determine the practicality of using linear body measurement traits to predict live weight of goats and sheep under communal grazing in three districts of Botswana, namely Central, Kweneng, and Kgalagadi. Pairwise (Pearson) correlations were estimated using bodyweight (BW) and morphological trait measurements, namely heart girth (HG), shoulder height (SH), and body condition score (BCS) for a sample of 1447 goats and 588 sheep. These ranged from 0.19 to 0.94 for goats and 0.44 to 0.94 for sheep, and were statistically significant.

Even if preliminary results have shown that a protection period of 3 years is not sufficient for disappeared species to appear nor for succession to reach a next stage, mainly in the degraded Stipa tenacissima community, the reintroduction of the rest “gdal” practice seems to be beneficial and a suitable tool to manage sustainably the arid rangelands under changing climate. Thus, the evidence suggests that, during short-term rest from grazing (2 years), vegetation cover, density, rangeland production and carrying capacity can be improved.

Background

Date: Septembre 2017

Source: Foncier & Développement

Par: Frédéric Bazin, Ibrahima Hathie, Jamie Skinner, Jérôme Koundouno

Ce nouveau rapport GWI synthétise les résultats de quatre années de recherches sur trois barrages et périmètres rizicoles existants : Sélingué au Mali, Bagré au Burkina Faso et Anambé au Sénégal.