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Livestock Grazing, Rest, and Restoration in Arid Landscapes
Author(s) -
Curtin Charles G.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
conservation biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.2
H-Index - 222
eISSN - 1523-1739
pISSN - 0888-8892
DOI - 10.1046/j.1523-1739.2002.01212.x
Subject(s) - arid , rest (music) , livestock , citation , grazing , library science , geography , archaeology , forestry , computer science , ecology , biology , medicine , cardiology
The debate over conserving lands in the western U.S. has often centered on the role of livestock ranching in landscape conservation. Critics of ranching cite damage from grazing and advocate the removal of cattle from both public and private rangelands ( Fleischner 1994; Wuerthner 1994; Donahue 1999), whereas others cite the importance of ranching in preserving open space and advocate grass banking and other rest programs to restore rangelands and the economic viability of ranching (Blakeslee 2000; Wilkinson 2000). Implicit to both these arguments is the assumption that removal of cows is the best means of restoring degraded rangelands. Although the notion that a landscape degraded by grazing will naturally recover following removal of cattle is intuitively satisfying, the following evidence illustrates that degraded rangelands do not necessarily recover by rest alone, and that the conservation of grazed lands requires restoring and sustaining natural processes.