14: Livestock, biodiversity and the environment

This lecture discusses some of the controversies about the relationships between livestock, biodiversity protection and environmental conservation. The lecture emphasises the importance of understanding rangelands as non-equilibrium, open ecosystems. All rangelands have co-evolved with large herbivores and fire, both of which are ‘natural’, essential elements of such ecosystems.

There are various ways that extensive, mobile livestock can enhance biodiversity, including creating connections between fragmented patches through transhumant corridors, the spreading of seeds through mobile livestock, the importance of key resources for both livestock grazing and as important wildlife habitats, the value of livestock systems for rare ‘keystone species’ and the value of local genetic resources and breeding systems for biodiversity.

herders in Laikipia — Herders with animals in Laikipia

Instead of top-down, control-oriented environmental protection – such as mass tree planting or exclusionary ‘rewilding’ – the lecture argues for a collaborative, ‘convivial’ form of conservation that sees people and livestock as central to environmental protection.

Watch the lecture

Questions

What are the key ecological characteristics of rangelands? How do these characteristics differ from other ecosystems, such as closed forests?
What are the disadvantages of mass tree planting in rangelands?
What are the ways that pastoralism can enhance biodiversity?
What are the differences between conventional approaches to conservation and more collaborative alternatives? How does this affect pastoralists?

Readings

PASTRES produced a series of briefings in advance of the biodiversity COP in 2022. These six briefings offer an overview of the key arguments, as well as further references.

A short summary article is also available here: How pastoral farming can help to avoid a biodiversity crisis (theconversation.com)