Download or read book Stochastic Modeling in Range Management written by Amitrajeet A. Batabyal and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2004 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although rangelands are one of the most important ecological-economic systems on our planet, researchers thus far have paid scant attention to the study of range management from a theoretical perspective. As such, this book provides a systematic approach to the theoretical study of range management under uncertainty. In particular, the book demonstrates how the theory of stochastic processes and the techniques of stochastic modelling can be used to construct and analyse theoretical models of jointly determined rangelands and thereby shed light on the task of range management. Because specialised grazing systems involving the rotation of animals between pastures have been a major focus of range managers since the 1950s, this book pays considerable attention to questions that arise when specialised grazing systems such as short duration grazing are used to manage rangelands. Specific issues that are analysed in this book include the optimal number of paddocks in short duration grazing, the steady state distribution of animals in short duration grazing. Also, the effect of potential irreversibilities, the choice between the stocking rate and time, herding in ranch operations, and the role of time in range management, is discussed.

Download or read book Grazing and Conservation Management written by Michiel F. WallisDe Vries and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grazing animals enjoy an ambiguous reputation in the field of nature conservation. Livestock are often treated as a scourge, yet native large herbivores form the prime attraction of many a reserve. This book gives the first comprehensive overview of the use of grazing as a tool in conservation management. Considering in turn the ecological and historical background, the impact of grazing on community structure, management applications and future prospects, this book examines issues such as the role of herbivores as keystone species, the assessment of habitat quality and the function of scientific models in advancing grazing management. Large herbivores are shown to be potentially powerful allies in the management of nature reserves, particularly in the maintenance, enhancement or restoration of biodiversity. Grazing and Conservation Management will appeal to conservation biologists and rangeland managers, providing them with a clearer understanding of grazing and conservation management.

Download or read book Range Ecology at Disequilibrium written by Roy H. Behnke and published by Overseas Development Institute (ODI). This book was released on 1993 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Rangeland Systems written by David D. Briske and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-04-12 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book provides an unprecedented synthesis of the current status of scientific and management knowledge regarding global rangelands and the major challenges that confront them. It has been organized around three major themes. The first summarizes the conceptual advances that have occurred in the rangeland profession. The second addresses the implications of these conceptual advances to management and policy. The third assesses several major challenges confronting global rangelands in the 21st century. This book will compliment applied range management textbooks by describing the conceptual foundation on which the rangeland profession is based. It has been written to be accessible to a broad audience, including ecosystem managers, educators, students and policy makers. The content is founded on the collective experience, knowledge and commitment of 80 authors who have worked in rangelands throughout the world. Their collective contributions indicate that a more comprehensive framework is necessary to address the complex challenges confronting global rangelands. Rangelands represent adaptive social-ecological systems, in which societal values, organizations and capacities are of equal importance to, and interact with, those of ecological processes. A more comprehensive framework for rangeland systems may enable management agencies, and educational, research and policy making organizations to more effectively assess complex problems and develop appropriate solutions.

Download or read book Global Rangelands written by A. C. Grice and published by CABI. This book was released on 2002-07-29 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although traditionally defined as areas where natural vegetation is exploited for grazing by domestic and native herbivores, rangelands are used by many different people, for a host of purposes. As well as livestock products, rangelands provide fuels, minerals and water and are used for ecotourism, recreation, nature conservation and as carbon sinks. More than half of the earth's land surface is rangeland and millions of people, both within and outside the rangelands, depend on them. This book addresses the important issues confronting the rangelands and presents new concepts and approaches for the management of rangeland resources. It is relevant to the people who live in or depend on the rangelands, and to the institutions and organisations that support them.

Download or read book Range and Animal Sciences and Resources Management Volume II written by Victor R. Squires and published by EOLSS Publications. This book was released on 2010-07-07 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Range and Animal Sciences and Resources Management is a component of Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Engineering and Technology Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Rangelands comprise over forty percent of the earth's land surface and, as one of the most prevalent land systems on the planet, rangelands are critical habitats for myriad plant and animal species and form many of the world's major watersheds Rangelands are categorized in two distinct ways: (a) as a type of land or (b) a type of (land) use. This theme with contributions from distinguished experts in the field discusses about Range and Animal Sciences and Resources Management in several related topics. These two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.

Download or read book Natural Resources and Sustainability written by Daniel E. Vasey and published by Berkshire Publishing Group. This book was released on 2011-12-08 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural Resources and Sustainability explores how human needs and desires, from sustenance and shelter to recreation and travel, have spurred the consumption of Earth's material resources. Scientists, ecologists, and other expert authors present the historical impact of commercial activities (in industries as varied as fisheries, agriculture, energy, and mineral extraction), discuss the global distribution and use of renewable and nonrenewable resources, and focus on innovative approaches for the future. Readers will learn why renewal doesn't necessarily put a resource beyond harm and why the no-free-lunch adage applies to all natural resources.

Download or read book Ecosystem Function in Savannas written by Michael J. Hill and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2010-11-17 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fascinating and diverse, savanna ecosystems support a combination of pastoral and agropastoral communities alongside wild and domestic herbivores that can be found nowhere else. This diversity has made the study of these areas problematic. Ecosystem Function in Savannas: Measurement and Modeling at Landscape to Global Scales addresses some of the d

Download or read book Land Degradation in Tanzania written by Alemneh Dejene and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World Bank Technical Paper No. 370. Local land users and officials often have conflicting perceptions of and responses to land degradation issues. This causes problems for officials in diagnosing and addressing the issue and is a major constraint on the successful implementation of policies and projects to address land degradation. This study looks at the perception and response gap between officials and land users in the diagnosis and remedy of land degradation. It also examines the dynamics of the loss of soil fertility and low productivity at the village level. The study's findings will help shape investment programs to enhance land productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Download or read book Animal Migration written by E.J. Milner-Gulland and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-13 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Migration is a fascinating phenomenon that can contribute to the fundamental structuring of ecosystems. This seminal volume synthesises insights from both mathematical modelling and empirical research in order to generate a unified understanding of the mechanisms underlying migration.

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 Economies and the Transformation of Landscape written by Lisa Cliggett and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2008 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economies and the Transformation of Landscape explores both the general and specific ways in which local economic ventures around the world, such as mining, ranching, and farming, affect the environment.

Download or read book Food Sovereignty Agroecology and Biocultural Diversity written by Michel. P. Pimbert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-01 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contestations over knowledge – and who controls its production – are a key focus of social movements and other actors that promote food sovereignty, agroecology and biocultural diversity. This book critically examines the kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing needed for food sovereignty, agroecology and biocultural diversity. ‘Food sovereignty’ is understood here as a transformative process that seeks to recreate the democratic realm and regenerate a diversity of autonomous food systems based on agroecology, biocultural diversity, equity, social justice and ecological sustainability. It is shown that alternatives to the current model of development require radically different knowledges and epistemologies from those on offer today in mainstream institutions (including universities, policy think tanks and donor organizations). To achieve food sovereignty, agroecology and biocultural diversity, there is a need to re-imagine and construct knowledge for diversity, decentralisation, dynamic adaptation and democracy. The authors critically explore the changes in organizations, research paradigms and professional practice that could help transform and co-create knowledge for a new modernity based on plural definitions of wellbeing. Particular attention is given to institutional, pedagogical and methodological innovations that can enhance cognitive justice by giving hitherto excluded citizens more power and agency in the construction of knowledge. The book thus contributes to the democratization of knowledge and power in the domain of food, environment and society. Chapters 1 and 8 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Download or read book Risk Management in a Hazardous Environment written by Michael Bollig and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-05-10 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A research focus on hazards, risk perception and risk minimizing strategies is relatively new in the social and environmental sciences. This volume by a prominent scholar of East African societies is a powerful example of this growing interest. Earlier theory and research tended to describe social and economic systems in some form of equilibrium. However recent thinking in human ecology, evolutionary biology, not to mention in economic and political theory has come to assign to "risk" a prominent role in predictive modeling of behavior. It turns out that risk minimalization is central to the understanding of individual strategies and numerous social institutions. It is not simply a peripheral and transient moment in a group’s history. Anthropologists interested in forager societies have emphasized risk management strategies as a major force shaping hunting and gathering routines and structuring institutions of food sharing and territorial behavior. This book builds on some of these developments but through the analysis of quite complex pastoral and farming peoples and in populations with substantial known histories. The method of analysis depends heavily on the controlled comparisons of different populations sharing some cultural characteristics but differing in exposure to certain risks or hazards. The central questions guiding this approach are: 1) How are hazards generated through environmental variation and degradation, through increasing internal stratification, violent conflicts and marginalization? 2) How do these hazards result in damages to single households or to individual actors and how do these costs vary within one society? 3) How are hazards perceived by the people affected? 4) How do actors of different wealth, social status, age and gender try to minimize risks by delimiting the effect of damages during an on-going crisis and what kind of institutionalized measures do they design to insure themselves against hazards, preventing their occurrence or limiting their effects? 5) How is risk minimization affected by cultural innovation and how can the importance of the quest for enhanced security as a driving force of cultural evolution be estimated?

Download or read book The Politics of Scale written by Nathan F. Sayre and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-03-23 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steeped in US soil, this first global history of rangeland science looks to the origin of rangeland ecology in the late nineteenth-century American West, exploring the larger political and economic forces that - together with scientific study - produced legacies focused on immediate economic success rather than long-term ecological well-being. Neither scientists nor public agencies could escape the influences of bureaucrats and ranchers who demanded results, and the ideas that became scientific orthodoxy - from fire suppression and predator control to fencing and carrying capacities - contained flaws and blind spots that plague public debates to this day. The Politics of Scale identifies the sources of these conflicts and mistakes and helps us to see a more promising path forward, one in which rangeland science is guided less by capital and the state and more by communities working in collaboration with scientists. -- from back cover.

Download or read book International Sheep and Wool Handbook written by D. J. Cottle and published by Nottingham University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-01 with total page 775 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering a broad range of topics relevant to the sheep and wool industry, this newly expanded edition—containing 11 new chapters and a more international scope—discusses future developments in all areas and provides an in-depth review of the meat aspects of the market. Separated into five distinct sections, the comprehensive survey summarizes the major world sheep and wool industries, biological principles, management, production systems, and the preparation, processing, and marketing of meat and wool. References and web links at the end of each chapter present further sources of information. From paddock to plate and farm to fabric, this overview is a must-have for all those involved in the trade, including producers, brokers, exporters, and processors.

Download or read book Decolonizing Nature written by William (Bill) Adams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-04-27 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British imperialism was almost unparalleled in its historical and geographical reach, leaving a legacy of entrenched social transformation in nations and cultures in every part of the globe. Colonial annexation and government were based on an all-encompassing system that integrated and controlled political, economic, social and ethnic relations, and required a similar annexation and control of natural resources and nature itself. Colonial ideologies were expressed not only in the progressive exploitation of nature but also in the emerging discourses of conservation. At the start of the 21st century, the conservation of nature is of undiminished importance in post-colonial societies, yet the legacy of colonial thinking endures. What should conservation look like today, and what (indeed, whose) ideas should it be based upon? Decolonizing Nature explores the influence of the colonial legacy on contemporary conservation and on ideas about the relationships between people, polities and nature in countries and cultures that were once part of the British Empire. It locates the historical development of the theory and practice of conservation - at both the periphery and the centre - firmly within the context of this legacy, and considers its significance today. It highlights the present and future challenges to conservationists of contemporary global neo-colonialism The contributors to this volume include both academics and conservation practitioners. They provide wide-ranging and insightful perspectives on the need for, and practical ways to achieve new forms of informed ethical engagement between people and nature.