Enormous swaths of land are covered in carpets of grass and scrub, flat and stark. The grasslands are known by several names- savannahs, steppes, pampas- but they are defined by vegetation that holds the earth secure from winds and water that would carry the soil away otherwise.
The grasslands support unrecognized biodiversity, and massive human populations across an astonishing range:
Grasslands are one of the major ecosystems of the world, covering close to one-third of the Earth's terrestrial surface (Suttie et al. 2005, Lemaire et al. 2011). Extensively managed grasslands are recognized globally for their high biodiversity (Habel et al. 2013), and together with other rangelands, they often contribute to agricultural production through livestock grazing on forage that cannot be used directly by humans (Erb et al. 2016). Three major types of grasslands can be distinguished within agricultural production systems: natural, semi-natural, and improved grasslands (Bullock et al. 2011, Lemaire et al. 2011).
Like every other habitat, the grasslands are evaporating under the pressure of development and climate change:
In southern Africa (SA), more than 20% of the grassland biome has been cultivated, 60% is irreversibly transformed to other land uses (Fairbanks et al. 2000), and most of the remainder is used as rangeland for livestock (O'Connor and Bredenkamp 1997). Over 90% of the semi-natural grasslands in northern Europe have been lost since the 1930s (Eriksson et al. 2002, Bullock et al. 2011, Pe'er et al. 2014).
Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas and shrublands
World Wildlife Fund
Large expanses of land in the tropics do not receive enough rainfall to support extensive tree cover. The Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands are characterized by rainfall levels between 90-150 centimetres per year.
However, there may be great variability in soil moisture throughout the year. Grasses dominate the species composition of these ecoregions, although scattered trees may be common. Large mammals that have evolved to take advantage of the ample forage typify the biodiversity associated with these habitats.
These large mammal faunas are richest in African savannas and grasslands. The most intact assemblages currently occur in East African Acacia savannas and Zambezian savannas comprised of mosaics of miombo, mopane, and other habitats. Large-scale migration of tropical savanna herbivores, such as wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) and zebra (Equus zebra), are continuing to decline through habitat alteration and hunting.
They now only occur to any significant degree only in East Africa and the central Zambezian region. Much of the extraordinary abundance of Guinean and Sahelian savannas has been eliminated, although the savannas in the Sudd region are one of the last places where large-scale migrations of Ugandan Kob still occur.
In Kenya and Niger, the countries that we call home, the land is hurting. Across Africa, land degradation is threatening the health of 1 billion people, eroding opportunity just as it erodes the soil. That crisis is compounded by the impact of COVID-19, which could push a further 49 million people into extreme poverty.
But this is not the future that we foresee for Africa’s vital landscapes. We see thousands of communities healing forests, farms, and pasture across 100 million hectares of land, an area the size of Egypt, by 2030…
investors increasingly understand that restoring landscapes is a nature-based solution that pays off, providing $7-30 in benefits for every $1 invested. At the One Planet Summit in January, they committed over $14 billion USD to restore the Sahel through the Great Green Wall.
The sheer size of the Kazakh steppe is difficult to comprehend. The wide, relatively flat plains stretch across an area roughly as big as Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Austria combined. Kazakhstan is, after all, the eighth-largest country in the world.
But these seemingly boundless wildlife havens were not always devoid of human activity. Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, hundreds of thousands of people have vacated the grasslands. Unprofitable farms once relied on money from the Soviet regime to survive. When the funds dried up, many people were forced to look elsewhere for work.
The Kazakh steppe is not an untouched wilderness but, rather, an abandoned one – a place that is halfway to being “rewilded”. And by land area, it's possibly one of the largest spaces on Earth returned to nature in recent years.
The grazing patterns across the region are shaped by institutional regulations. Mongolia continues to allow the free movement of grazing livestock in line with traditional nomadic grazing practices. As a result, the majority of herders in Mongolia continue to adhere to nomadic and seminomadic lifestyles (Sneath, 1998; Wang et al., 2013). In contrast, livestock producers in China conduct sedentary grazing under the policy of the household responsibility system, under which the land-use rights of croplands and grasslands are allocated to individual households, and producers can graze animals only on their own lands. Moreover, the Chinese government has implemented various ecological protection measures, such as the fencing policy since 2000, which further regulates the grazing patterns of livestock (Wang et al., 2013). The rationale behind these policies has been to avoid common-pool resource problems (Gardner, Ostrom, & Walker, 1990), that is, to prevent land degradation and desertification caused by the excessive grazing of unmanaged grassland resources. The Chinese government considered the vicious circle of resource degradation in a situation that can best be characterized as 'open-access' as a severe threat to the sustainable development of the livestock sector. Ironically, the reduction of livestock mobility through the individualization of land-use rights is suspected to have contributed to a higher degree of grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia and thus may have jeopardized the long-term welfare of local herders (Sneath, 1998). However, to date, it remains unclear to what extent the reduction in livestock mobility has affected the grassland greenness in Inner Mongolia compared to that in Mongolia, where no such policies have been implemented…
Our findings reveal the dominant role of climate variables on the NDVI dynamics on the Mongolian Plateau from 1982 to 2015. Although we used the most detailed data available on livestock numbers, we found no measurable effect of increasing agricultural intensification in the form of higher grazing densities per unit of grassland on the NDVI dynamics. This finding sheds light on the complex dynamics of how grassland greenness in the Mongolian Plateau is shaped by environmental factors and human activities. We provide quantitative evidence that changes in precipitation and, to a lesser extent, in temperature play a dominant role in shaping the grassland greenness, while a rising grazing intensity has also contributed to greening, particularly in Inner Mongolia. Our results hence question the widespread belief of a degradation spiral imposed by increasing livestock numbers in one of the world's largest grassland biomes.
However, the increasing uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere by terrestrial ecosystems may soon be outweighed by the negative effects of climate change (Peñuelas et al., 2017). Climate-induced reduction of vegetation growth and the associated potential desertification trends may jeopardize the integrity of the grasslands on the Mongolian Plateau in the future (Mu, Li, Yang, Gang, & Chen, 2013; Sternberg, Tsolmon, Middleton, & Thomas, 2011).
Everywhere there are grasslands, humans have domesticated the herd animals that, when well tended, thrive in open plains:
Pampas Grasslands of Argentina
arcgis
According to the Argentina Wildlife Foundation roughly 164479.52 sq. miles of the Pampas has been replaced by agriculture, forest plantations, and urbanization. This was a large concern when looking at habitat and wildlife in the area…
The Pampas in Argentina are most well known for the great biodiversity in the area. These South American grasslands hold roughly 400 species of birds and around 100 different species of terrestrial mammals (Argentine Wildlife Foundation). Some bird species include the yellow thrush (Xanthopsar flavus), the collar yetapa (Alectrurus risora), the white chest cappuccino (Sporophila palustris), and the golden cachirla (Anthus nattereri), all of which are species that are threatened with extinction.
THE SOUTH AMERICAN CAMPOS ECOSYSTEM
Olegario Royo Pallarés (Argentina), Elbio J. Berretta (Uruguay) and Gerzy E. Maraschin (Brazil)
The South American Campos is an ecological region lying between 24°S and 35°S, which includes parts of southern Brazil, southern Paraguay and northeastern Argentina, and the whole of Uruguay (see Figure 5.1), covering an area of approximately 500 000 km2. The term Campos refers to grasslands or pastures with a vegetation cover comprising mainly grasses and herbs; scattered small shrubs and trees are occasionally found, generally by the banks of streams…
Natural grasslands are the main basis for meat and fibre production in the region, and are also a huge reservoir of valuable grass and legume species, which it is necessary to select and screen under cultivation. Only with deep knowledge of the behaviour of native species will it be possible to conserve and improve the natural grasslands and protect the soil from erosion and degradation. Research in the region suggests that the potential of natural grasslands is very high, close to cultivated pastures, with better persistence.
Studies on natural grassland dynamics with several management -controlled factors reflect ongoing changes that occur slowly, with seasonal variations more important than grazing effects. Over longer periods, high continuous grazing and a high sheep:cattle ratio encourages pasture degradation and lower primary production. Quite often, high stocking rates are maintained for economic and social reasons, but ultimately lead to poorer animal production. Higher stocking rates may increase short-term economic returns, but they increase operational risks. Continuous and deeper studies of native grasslands and native forage species will increase understanding of the factors that promote high secondary productivity - meat and wool in this case - through primary production increases related to better use and conservation of forage.
When stocking rates are adjusted to grassland potential and grazing methods include rest periods, grasslands can be maintained, with variations due to seasonal changes. These prairie ecosystems are highly stable and are capable of recovering after severe impacts, such as droughts.
As is seen across the world, the inexorable encroachment of modernity is causing lifestyles of people who call grasslands home for generations to vanish:
Riding with the gauchos of Argentina
Amanda Barnes/The Guardian
19 Apr 2019
San Antonio de Areco in La Pampa feels like a faded gaucho heartland. Here, the gaucho tradition ran so strong it inspired poetry and novels throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. But today, just 80km from the cosmopolitan capital of Buenos Aires, real work in the campo is drying up.
Estancias are turning to soybean production rather than cattle, and the true gauchos – who can read a horse but not words on paper – are left without work...
In the depths of the Patagonian steppes and mountains, the gaucho is also a dying breed. Land conservation favours tourism over cattle rearing. Sheep processing plants are abandoned, with only the entrenched odour of sheep faeces as testimony to the Patagonian estancia heyday. Patrons are allowed to have perhaps a hundred cattle for their own use, but the days of gauchos working in estancias with herds of thousands are over.
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