Rehabilitating degraded rangelands using enclosures offers various benefits to agro‐pastoral households. However, enclosure benefits cannot be generalized as there are variations across dryland ecosystems and societies. This study assessed the qualitative and quantitative benefits derived from rehabilitating degraded rangelands using private enclosures in Chepareria, West Pokot County, Kenya.

Montado decline has been reported since the end of the nineteenth century in southern Portugal and increased markedly during the 1980s. Consensual reports in the literature suggest that this decline is due to a number of factors, such as environmental constraints, forest diseases, inappropriate management, and socioeconomic issues. An assessment on the pattern of montado distribution was conducted to reveal how the extent of land management, environmental variables, and spatial factors contributed to montado area loss in southern Portugal from 1990 to 2006.

Agro-pastoral decline in European mountain areas has recently caused changes to traditional landscapes with negative consequences on semi-natural grassland conservation and the associated biodiversity and ecosystem services. In the Italian Alps, grassland patches enclosed in a forest matrix are progressively disappearing. Two alpine valleys (Pesio and Pejo), having similar land-use history, were chosen as representative of management conditions of western and eastern Italian Alps, respectively.

Reports of positive or neutral effects of grazing on plant species richness have prompted calls for livestock grazing to be used as a tool for managing land for conservation. Grazing effects, however, are likely to vary among different response variables, types, and intensity of grazing, and across abiotic conditions. We aimed to examine how grazing affects ecosystem structure, function, and composition. We compiled a database of 7615 records reporting an effect of grazing by sheep and cattle on 278 biotic and abiotic response variables for published studies across Australia.

The need to maintain or increase livestock mobility in arid Africa has been widely embraced by ecologists, social scientists, and more recently regional governments. These movements are seen to sustain livestock production under a highly variable and changing climate. At the same time, livestock mobility is threatened by the expansion of agriculture onto rangelands.

Much of the coastal sage scrub habitat in Southern California that existed prior to European settlement has been developed for human uses. Over the past two to three decades, public agencies and land conservation organizations have worked to acquire some of the remaining lands for preservation. Many of these lands are degraded by past intensive livestock grazing, farming, and frequent fires, and the native flora has been replaced by weedy, exotic annual grasses and forbs, mostly of Mediterranean origin.

Since mean nitrate concentration along single river channels increases significantly with percent arable land use upstream of sampling points and autumn/early winter flushes in nitrate concentration are widespread, it is generally concluded that farmers contribute most of the nitrate. For the River Derwent in North Yorkshire, the correlation between nitrate concentration and percent arable land use is much poorer when tributary data are included in the equation, because of greater variations in dilution by water draining upland areas and in other N input sources.

Due to the progressive forest expansion in European mountain areas triggered by agricultural abandonment, semi-natural meadows and pastures of great ecological and aesthetic value are disappearing. The aim of this study is to predict and analyse the future evolution of land use and land cover (LULC) in the Stubai Valley, Central Alps. We propose a computational Population Dynamics P system (PDP) model that incorporates the main LULC change processes like plant production, grazing, abandonment and reforestation.

An International Conference was held in Rome, Italy 27-29 April 2015 to launch the IFAD and EU supported Project ‘Linking agrobiodiversity value chains, climate adaptation and nutrition: Empowering the poor to manage risk’. The event brought together people with different expertise to discuss the role of agricultural biodiversity in fostering more resilient livelihoods and solicit their guidance to refine the methodological framework for the Project.

Lushoto District is part of Tanzania’s most important milk production regions; depending on the village, 25-95% of households own improved dairy cows. However, land pressure is high and both income and food security are low. The aim of this study has been to assess the potential of various forage cultivation intensification strategies (‘scenarios’) to improve physical production and income of smallholder crop-dairy farmers in Lushoto district, Tanzania.