Abstract
Participatory action research in communal grazing lands can inform end users on cost-effective methods for restoring land to improve local livelihoods and environmental quality in terms of reduced degradation and enhanced ecosystem services. A multi-stakeholder process involving producers, development practitioners, and researchers is demonstrated for conducting action research to restore degraded communal grazing lands in East Africa. Producer-managed trials provided actionable evidence on brief resting durations and reseeding in pastoral rangelands in Kenya, and on improved forages and weeding in grazing exclosures in the Ethiopian highlands. The usefulness of this evidence is demonstrated through quantitative data and stated or revealed preferences of livestock producers. Local land management institutions and government and civil society practitioners confirmed the utility of the results to land management practice and policy, while spontaneous local up-scaling of improved forages in exclosures affirmed their scalability. These results are attributable to elements of the action research process, including prioritization of practical producer needs, close involvement of local institutions able to take action, collaborative design of producer-managed trials, and generation of evidence applicable in scaling. Among the restoration options tested, those more successful in trials and preferred by producers tended to have moderate (or low) costs, complexity, time to returns, and risk, suggesting possible optimization of trade-offs among options, such as between the potential performance of an option and its risk. Robust options that balance consistency with effectiveness may be good candidates for scaling. In communal grazing lands facing varied constraints to restoration, using research methodology responsive to institutional stakeholders at and above local level is an effective strategy for deriving scalable restoration approaches for win-win gains in livelihoods and the environment.
Highlights
Degradation affects many communal grazing lands, and is most feasibly reversed through collective restoration by resource users seeking an ample and consistent livestock feed supply
We demonstrate a “research-in-development” (Coe et al 2014) approach to action research for scaling restoration in communal grazing lands, in which research trials are conducted in the course of ongoing government or non-governmental organization (NGO) initiatives
We demonstrate how action research with local institutions yielded information practically applicable in scaling cost-effective measures for (i) rehabilitating dry pastoral rangelands, and (ii) enhancing the productivity of grazing exclosure in the Ethiopian highlands, and apply these experiences to examine how collaborative research can generate scalable restoration measures for win-win improvements in livelihoods and the environment in the demanding contexts of communal grazing lands
Summary
Degradation affects many communal grazing lands, and is most feasibly reversed through collective restoration by resource users seeking an ample and consistent livestock feed supply. Facilitative approaches for improving grazing management such as community-based rangeland management (Reid et al 2014) and participatory rangeland management (Flintan and Cullis 2010) focus on facilitating local institutions to lead collective action to restore communal grazing lands All of these strategies— exclosure, stocking at carrying capacity, and facilitative approaches—are viable in a variety of agro-livestock systems. Each strategy has constraints in communal grazing systems, for example, exclosures displace grazing elsewhere and require labor and transport for cut-andcarry, low and high stocking rates respectively create opportunity costs and degradation risks, and coordinating large herds with many owners incurs transaction costs These constraints may seem overwhelming in pastoral rangelands, yet local institutions can rapidly improve forage availability, through even partial or incremental measures applied to large areas (Sircely and Seidou 2018). In light of the promise these lands hold for both economy and environment, governments and civil society often struggle to identify and implement practical measures for restoring communal grazing lands
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