Effects of Livestock Grazing in Pastures in the Manaslu Conservation Area, Nepalese Himalaya

Sunita Thapa,Ram Kailash Prasad Yadav,John All

doi:10.1659/mrd-journal-d-13-00066.1

Sunita Thapa, Ram Kailash Prasad Yadav + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1659/mrd-journal-d-13-00066.1

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Abstract

Livestock herding is a widespread practice in the mountains of Nepal, and grazing in the forest and pastures within protected areas is a main source of cattle fodder. Given the implications of grazing on biodiversity conservation and the need for sustainable management of pastures in the Manaslu Conservation Area of Nepal, we assessed grazing intensity along an elevational gradient following the Budhi Gandaki valley. The data set consisted of grazing intensities recorded every 250 m along a transect from 1400 to 5200 m above sea level and farmer interviews, after an initial satellite data analysis. Grazing and herd size were found to increase with increasing elevation, reflecting local livelihood dependency on cattle herding. Species richness was then analyzed along a grazing disturbance gradient at 7 goths (summer cattle shed) in heavily grazed areas. Disturbance was found to be moderate at intermediate distances, where species richness was found to be higher; the results agree with the generally accepte...

Highlights

The keeping of livestock has been practiced for millennia in many parts of the world, and it is an important biotic factor that influences grassland ecosystems (Wray 1998; Mayer et al 2006)
In 6 individual grazing intensity maps, 100% grazing had the maximum number of ground control points (GCPs)
Species richness in intensely grazed pastures of the Manaslu Conservation Area (MCA) was carried out at different elevations along 60 m transects calculated from livestock assembly points (6 goths above 3000 m, and 1 at 2400 m), selected after an initial geographic information system (GIS) campaign to map grazing intensities in the entire Budhi Gandaki valley

Summary

Introduction

The keeping of livestock has been practiced for millennia in many parts of the world, and it is an important biotic factor that influences grassland ecosystems (Wray 1998; Mayer et al 2006). Highest plant diversity has been reported at intermediate levels of grazing (Taddese et al 2002; Bhattarai et al 2004; Bustamante Becerra 2006). This further substantiates the intermediatedisturbance hypothesis (Connell 1978; Grime 1979; Huston 1994), which argues that a high number of species with lower biomass but higher productivity results from disturbed vegetation. This hypothesis has not been confirmed everywhere, for example, not in desert rangelands (Gamoun 2014).

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