A Herder's eye view: Traditional ecological knowledge based indicators for monitoring rangeland conditions in Thal, Pakistan

Abstract

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of the rangeland inhabitants plays an important role in range resource management. It complements other scientific tools of rangeland monitoring by filling the gaps in the information needed to assess rangeland condition. Local herders in extensive rangelands have developed certain ecological indicators that are used for assessing rangeland condition and resources availability. The current study was conducted to understand the traditional ecological indicators used by the herders for the assessment of grazing resource in Thal rangelands of Punjab province, Pakistan. An ethno-ecological interview-based survey was conducted. We carried out in depth interviews and focal group discussion with 60 herders in Thal rangelands. The herders were asked about the indicators they used for determining the quality of forages, health of animals and degradation of rangelands. The results showed that all the local herders were using similar indicators for assessing rangelands resources. It was observed that indicators used by the herders could be classified into four categories: a) vegetation indicators, b) soil indicators, c) animal indicators and d) environmental indicators. Among vegetation indicators 78% of the respondents used biodiversity of palatable species for determining the quality of vegetation. About 78.3% of the herders utilized dung shape to evaluate the health of animals ultimately describing the health of rangeland. Majority of the herders (58.3%) used loss of litter to assess land degradation thus reassessing grazing site and strategy. These results show promise for developing integrated indicators and monitoring protocols and highlight the importance of developing a common language of monitoring terminology shared by herders, governmental and non-governmental organizations, monitoring agencies, and researchers.