Curbing Overgrazing

You must be wondering how this is connected to climate change, right? Well, livestock clear vegetation cover which leads to desertification and erosion. It’s the desertification that see the change in rainfall patterns. Look at it this way, trees attract rainfall and if it comes to a point where these animals have exhausted the natural grass they feed on, they’ll turn to tree leaves and soon before we realize it, we’ll have a bare ground without no green vegetation in the vicinity.

This is happening at a time when pastoralists together with the number of livestock’s greatly increasing. Telling the pastoralists to practice rotational methods of livestock keeping such as paddocking is also impossible. With the large number of cattle and poverty levels, purchasing animal feeds as well as building the ranches will prove to be an elephant task. That aside, even the land to do that is unavailable!

So, what can be done to minimize overgrazing? First, we must understand that the root cause of this act is insufficient pasture. Therefore, our solution must be geared towards increasing pasture production. Whether done through planting of various feeds or increasing the volume of manufactured livestock feeds annually, increasing pasture remains the ultimate goal.

I think it’s only this that will help the pastoralist communities have an end to the struggles of long distance walks in search of pasture as well as reduce desertification which is one of the contributors of  climate change adversely affecting us today!