Download or read book Pastoral systems in marginal environments written by J.A. Milne and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-08-28 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pastoral systems are some of the most fragile human ecosystems that exist and are under threat from the expansion of cultivation, changes in social patterns and climate change. These ecosystems are of major importance since they contain a rich biological and cultural diversity. The aim of the book is to take a holistic view of pastoral systems by bringing together papers written by specialists in plant and animal ecology with an interest in the application of their research with papers taking an economic and social perspective. The focus is on marginal environments where the issues are in greatest relief with the papers tackling key issues in semi-arid and disadvantaged temperate areas. The key issues relate to identifying the biological constraints of these pastoral systems, understanding soil/plant/animal relationships, exploring biodiversity, landscape and social issues in multi-functional systems and providing solutions to constraints through a number of case studies. By comparing and contrasting these two environments, the book will be taking a completely new approach to understanding how pastoral systems function and how they will evolve in the future. The book is of value to all those with an interest in pastoral systems by providing an up-to-date account of current understanding of these multi-functional systems and new insights into how they function and how they will develop in the future.
Download or read book Optimisation of nutrient cycling and soil quality for sustainable grasslands written by S.C. Jarvis and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-08-28 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together two aspects of grassland soil management which, by and large, have hitherto been considered separately. Issues related to nutrient cycling and soil quality have dominated research directed towards aiding broad and local scale policy issues for improving land use. Protecting the environment and maintaining/preserving natural habitats and biodiversity, tend to be considered separately. In this book we attempt to bring what are, in reality, inseparable aspects of grassland soil characteristics together and consider physical, chemical and biological components of soils, their interrelations and the way that they influence nutrient transformations and flows and soil quality. Keynote discussions will be lead by the following experts: Physical constraints and drivers: Professor Iain Young, Abertay University, Scotland Biological aspects: Professor Tim Seastedt, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA Chemical aspects: Dr Mike Beare from Crop and Food, Research, Lincoln New Zealand Over-arching synopsis of these issues: Professor Richard Bardgett, Lancaster University, UK. Bringing together international expertise and experience does much to progress understanding and points ways forward to maintain what is a base resource, our soils, whether it be for production targets, environmental benefit or for maintenance of natural ecosystems for future generations. This volume is useful to all those interested in soils and their function, and all grassland managers, whether their aims are directed at producing food, forage or fibre of sustainable quantity and quality or at maintaining, restoring or encouraging above and below ground biodiversity. The international perspective on this is very important so that experiences in wide ranging circumstances can be cross-referenced and used to the advantage of all.
Download or read book Pastoral Systems in Marginal Environments written by John Milne and published by Brill Wageningen Academic. This book was released on 2005 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pastoral systems are some of the most fragile human ecosystems that exist and are under threat from the expansion of cultivation, changes in social patterns and climate change. These ecosystems are of major importance since they contain a rich biological and cultural diversity. The aim of the book is to take a holistic view of pastoral systems by bringing together papers written by specialists in plant and animal ecology with an interest in the application of their research with papers taking an economic and social perspective. The focus is on marginal environments where the issues are in greatest relief with the papers tackling key issues in semi-arid and disadvantaged temperate areas. The key issues relate to identifying the biological constraints of these pastoral systems, understanding soil/plant/animal relationships, exploring biodiversity, landscape and social issues in multi-functional systems and providing solutions to constraints through a number of case studies. By comparing and contrasting these two environments, the book will be taking a completely new approach to understanding how pastoral systems function and how they will evolve in the future. The book is of value to all those with an interest in pastoral systems by providing an up-to-date account of current understanding of these multi-functional systems and new insights into how they function and how they will develop in the future.
Download or read book Pastoralism and Development in Africa written by Andy Catley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once again, the Horn of Africa has been in the headlines. And once again the news has been bad: drought, famine, conflict, hunger, suffering and death. The finger of blame has been pointed in numerous directions: to the changing climate, to environmental degradation, to overpopulation, to geopolitics and conflict, to aid agency failures, and more. But it is not all disaster and catastrophe. Many successful development efforts at ‘the margins’ often remain hidden, informal, sometimes illegal; and rarely in line with standard development prescriptions. If we shift our gaze from the capital cities to the regional centres and their hinterlands, then a very different perspective emerges. These are the places where pastoralists live. They have for centuries struggled with drought, conflict and famine. They are resourceful, entrepreneurial and innovative peoples. Yet they have been ignored and marginalised by the states that control their territory and the development agencies who are supposed to help them. This book argues that, while we should not ignore the profound difficulties of creating secure livelihoods in the Greater Horn of Africa, there is much to be learned from development successes, large and small. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars with an interest in development studies and human geography, with a particular emphasis on Africa. It will also appeal to development policy-makers and practitioners.
Download or read book Agroecosystems in a Changing Climate written by Paul C.D. Newton and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2006-09-01 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agroecosystems in a Changing Climate considers the consequences of changes in the atmosphere and climate on the integrity, stability, and productivity of agroecosystems. The book adopts a novel approach by bringing together theoretical contributions from ecologists and the applied interpretations of agriculturalists. Drawing these two approa
Download or read book Farming Systems and Poverty written by John A. Dixon and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2001 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.
Download or read book Livestock in a Changing Landscape Volume 1 written by Henning Steinfeld and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-03-06 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rapidly changing nature of animal production systems, especially increasing intensification and globalization, is playing out in complex ways around the world. Over the last century, livestock keeping evolved from a means of harnessing marginal resources to produce items for local consumption to a key component of global food chains. Livestock in a Changing Landscape offers a comprehensive examination of these important and far-reaching trends. The books are an outgrowth of a collaborative effort involving international nongovernmental organizations including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Swiss College of Agriculture (SHL), the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), and the Scientific Committee for Problems of the Environment (SCOPE). Volume 1 examines the forces shaping change in livestock production and management; the resulting impacts on landscapes, land use, and social systems; and potential policy and management responses. Volume 2 explores needs and draws experience from region-specific contexts and detailed case studies. The case studies describe how drivers and consequences of change play out in specific geographical areas, and how public and private responses are shaped and implemented. Together, the volumes present new, sustainable approaches to the challenges created by fundamental shifts in livestock management and production, and represent an essential resource for policy makers, industry managers, and academics involved with this issue.
Download or read book Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia written by Michael David Frachetti and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-01-05 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a fresh archaeological interpretation, this work reconceptualizes the Bronze Age prehistory of the vast Eurasian steppe during one of the most formative and innovative periods of human history. Michael D. Frachetti combines an analysis of newly documented archaeological sites in the Koksu River valley of eastern Kazakhstan with detailed paleoecological and ethnohistorical data to illustrate patterns in land use, settlement, burial, and rock art. His investigation illuminates the practical effect of nomadic strategies on the broader geography of social interaction and suggests a new model of local and regional interconnection in the third and second millennia B.C.E. Frachetti further argues that these early nomadic communities played a pivotal role in shaping enduring networks of exchange across Eurasia.
Download or read book Benchmarks database development the Badia research site written by and published by ICARDA. This book was released on with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sustainable Intensification written by Jules N. Pretty and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-06-25 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Continued population growth, rapidly changing consumption patterns and the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds worldwide. These pressures are likely to be substantial across Africa, where countries will have to find innovative ways to boost crop and livestock production to avoid becoming more reliant on imports and food aid. Sustainable agricultural intensification - producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts - represents a solution for millions of African farmers. This volume presents the lessons learned from 40 sustainable agricultural intensification programmes in 20 countries across Africa, commissioned as part of the UK Government's Foresight project. Through detailed case studies, the authors of each chapter examine how to develop productive and sustainable agricultural systems and how to scale up these systems to reach many more millions of people in the future. Themes covered include crop improvements, agroforestry and soil conservation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, horticulture, livestock and fodder crops, aquaculture, and novel policies and partnerships.
Download or read book The End of Desertification written by Roy H. Behnke and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question in the title of this book draws attention to the shortcomings of a concept that has become a political tool of global importance even as the scientific basis for its use grows weaker. The concept of desertification, it can be argued, has ceased to be analytically useful and distorts our understanding of social-environmental systems and their resiliency, particularly in poor countries with variable rainfall and persistent poverty. For better policy and governance, we need to reconsider the scientific justification for international attempts to combat desertification. Our exploration of these issues begins in the Sahel of West Africa, where a series of severe droughts at the end of the 20th century led to the global institutionalization of the idea of desertification. It now seems incontrovertible that these droughts were not caused primarily by local land use mismanagement, effectively terminating a long-standing policy and scientific debate. There is now an opportunity to treat this episode as an object lesson in the relationship between science, the formation of public opinion and international policy-making. Looking beyond the Sahel, the chapters in this book provide case studies from around the world that examine the use and relevance of the desertification concept. Despite an increasingly sophisticated understanding of dryland environments and societies, the uses now being made of the desertification concept in parts of Asia exhibit many of the shortcomings of earlier work done in Africa. It took scientists more than three decades to transform a perceived desertification crisis in the Sahel into a non-event. This book is an effort to critically examine that experience and accelerate the learning process in other parts of the world.
Download or read book Building Resilience of Human Natural Systems of Pastoralism in the Developing World written by Shikui Dong and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume summarizes information about the situational context, threats, problems, challenges and solutions for sustainable pastoralism at a global scale. The book has four goals. The first goal is to summarize the information about the history, distribution and patterns of pastoralism and to identify the importance of pastoralism from social, economic and environmental perspectives. The results of an empirical investigation of the environmental and socio-economic implications of pastoralism in representative pastoral regions in the world are also incorporated. The second goal is to argue that breaking coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism leads to degradation of pastoral ecosystems and to create an analysis framework to assess the vulnerability of worldwide pastoralism. Our analysis framework provides approaches to help comprehensively understand the transitions and the impacts of human-natural systems in the pastoral regions in the world. The third goal is to identify the successful models in promoting coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism, and to learn lessons of breaking coupled human-cultural pastoralism systems through examining the representative cases in regions including Central Asia, Southern and Eastern Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, the European Alps and South America. The fourth goal is to identify the strategies to build the resilience of the coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism worldwide. We hope that our book can facilitate the further examination of sustainable development of coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism by providing the summaries of existing data and information related to the pastoralism development, and by offering a framework for better understanding and analysis of their social, economic and environmental implications.
Download or read book Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research written by Gertrude Hirsch Hadorn and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-12-15 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transdisciplinary Research (TR) is an emerging field in the knowledge society for relating science and policy in addressing issues such as new technologies, migration, and public health. This handbook provides a structured overview of the manifold experiences gained in these fields. In the first part, 21 projects from all over the world present their research approaches. In the second part, cross-cutting challenges of TR are discussed in reference to the same projects.
Download or read book Valuing Variability written by International Institute for Environment and Development and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Tropical Forage Legumes written by John R Lazier and published by CABI. This book was released on 2016-07-25 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of legume use in agricultural production in the tropics lags far behind the temperate areas and extensive research over recent decades has aimed to rectify the lack of available leguminous fodder species available for heavy clay soils. This book draws together that research and explores the importance of heavy clay soils to agricultural productivity in the tropics and subtropics and the identification of adapted, productive forage legumes for these environments. Providing an invaluable example of how a global search for adapted and productive forage germplasm has been - and can be - undertaken, and allowing access to a significant body of knowledge that was acquired before the digitalization of reports, this book will be a key resource for new scientists and experienced researchers in the areas of agriculture and forage agronomy.
Download or read book Social Network Analysis of Disaster Response Recovery and Adaptation written by Eric C Jones and published by Butterworth-Heinemann. This book was released on 2016-09-09 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social Network Analysis of Disaster Response, Recovery, and Adaptation covers systematic social network analysis and how people and institutions function in disasters, after disasters, and the ways they adapt to hazard settings. As hazards become disasters, the opportunities and constraints for maintaining a safe and secure life and livelihood become too strained for many people. Anecdotally, and through many case studies, we know that social interactions exacerbate or mitigate those strains, necessitating a concerted, intellectual effort to understand the variation in how ties within, and outside, communities respond and are affected by hazards and disasters. - Examines the role of societal relationships in a disaster context, incorporating theory and case studies by experts in the field - Integrates research in the areas of social network analysis and inter-organizational networks - Presents a range of studies from around the world, employing different approaches to network analysis in disaster contexts
Download or read book Migration Agriculture and Rural Development written by Michele Nori and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access short reader looks into the dynamics which have reshaped rural development and human landscapes in European agriculture and the role of immigrant people. Within this framework it analyses contemporary rural migrations and the emergence of immigrants in relation to the incorporation of agrarian systems into global markets, the European agricultural governance (CAP), and the struggle of local territories as differentiated practices in constant stress between innovation and resilience. It specifically explores the case of immigrant shepherds to describe the reconfiguration of agriculture systems and rural landscapes in Europe following intense immigration and the related provision of skilled labour at a relatively low cost. Being written in a very accessible way, this reader is an interesting read to students, researchers, academics, policy makers, and practitioners.
