A cross-sectional serological study was carried out to screen the sheep and goat population of Thessaly, Greece for evidence of infection with Toxoplasma, Toxocara, Leishmania, and Echinococcus and to determine the risk factors related to herd characteristics, herd management practices, farmer status, and the bioclimatic variables associated with these zoonotic parasitic infections. A total of 540 sheep and goat serum samples were examined. The seroprevalence of infection in all examined animals was 24.5% for Toxoplasma, 32% for Toxocara, 0% for Leishmania and 85.9% for Echinococcus.

In this article, we provide a synthesis of the peer-reviewed literature and state and federal policies focused on absentee landowners of forestland, rangeland, or farmland in the U.S. The synthesis indicates absentee owners, as compared to those living on the land, appear to be much more likely to live in urban areas, are less dependent financially upon the land and much more likely to own land for amenity reasons than production purposes.

Understanding ecosystem resilience to human impacts is critical for conservation and restoration. The large‐scale die‐off of New England salt marshes was triggered by overfishing and resulted from decades of runaway crab grazing. In 2009, however, cordgrass began to recover, decreasing die‐off ∼40% by 2010. We used surveys and experiments to test whether plant–substrate feedbacks underlie marsh resilience. Initially, grazer‐generated die‐off swept through the cordgrass, creating exposed, stressful peat banks that inhibited plant growth.

The time-integrated normalized difference vegetation index (iNDVI) provides key remote-sensing-derived information on the interactions between vegetation growth, climatic and soil conditions, and land use. Using a time-series of Landsat imagery obtained for Queensland, Australia, it has been demonstrated how robust geostatistics can be used to predict iNDVI. This approach is novel because it explicitly quantifies the uncertainty of prediction and uses Winsorizing, a data-censoring method, to minimize the distorting effects of outliers.

Recent studies using low-resolution satellite time series show that the Sahelian belt of West Africa is witnessing an increase in vegetation cover/biomass, called re-greening. However, detailed information on local processing and changes is rare or lacking. A multi-temporal set of Landsat images was used to produce land-cover maps for the years 2000 and 2007 in a semi-arid region of Niger, where an anomalous vegetation trend was previously detected.

Rangelands encompass 30-40% of Earth's land surface and support 1-2 billion people. Their predominant use is extensive livestock production by pastoralists and ranchers. But rangelands are characterized by ecological, economic, and political marginality, and higher-value, more intensive land uses are impinging on rangelands around the world. Earth Stewardship of rangelands must address both livestock management and the broader socioecological dynamics that promote land-use changes, fragmentation, and degradation.

This paper analyzes increasingly individualized herding behavior after the implementation of a grazing ban policy in northern China based on empirical research in 12 pastoralist villages. The findings reveal that de-collectivization of pastureland has not necessarily led to direct changes in individual land use strategies.

Arsenic concentrations are reported for the

Researchers of ICARDA are slowly improving towards participatory and community-based approaches to incorporate users’ perspectives. This not only increases the efficiency and effectiveness of agricultural research, but delivers what farmers want. Development of integrated crop-livestock production systems in the low-rainfall areas of West Asia and North Africa has shown the importance of the community approach in the sustainable management of collective property resources, such as rangelands and water. This approach has been widely adopted by national programs in dry areas.

Rangeland scientists and quantitative ecologists have developed numerous methods and monitoring techniques that can be used for vegetation sampling (Barbour et al. 1987). The methods used to position samples (transects, quadrats, lines, and points) vary and can be classed as selective, capricious, systematic, or random. One of the prerequisites for valid statistical inference is that samples are taken randomly. A random sampling procedure implies that all elements or units of the population being studied have an equal chance of being represented in the sample.

La Politique cadre pour le pastoralisme en Afrique, présentée dans ce rapport, est la première initiative de politique à l’échelle d’un continent ayant pour but de sécuriser, protéger et améliorer la vie des pasteurs africains. Les pasteurs effectuent des contributions cruciales – mais souvent sous-estimées – aux économies africaines, grâce à leurs systèmes de production, leur culture, ainsi que leurs ressources animales et végétales. Pourtant, les indicateurs de développement humain et de sécurité alimentaire dans de nombreuses zones pastorales sont parmi les plus bas du continent.

The CCAFS Regional Program for Southeast Asia (CCAFS-SEA) organized a convergence meeting involving CGIAR CCAFS focal persons and selected partners on 11-13 December 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand. About 24 participants from collaborating CGIAR Consortium Centers (Bioversity, CIAT, CIP, ICRISAT, IFPRI, IRRI, IWMI, World Agro-Forestry Center and WorldFish Center), CCAFS-SEA and selected partners participated in this undertaking. The main purpose of this activity was to establish the groundwork for collaborative work on climate change R4D among Centers in SEA.