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Research and achievements in combating
land degradation and desertification for
sustainable rural development
Satoshi Tobita, Takeshi Matsumoto, Yukio Okuda, Kenta Ikazaki and Akinori Oshibe,
Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences
T
he Japan International Research Center for
Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) is a national
research and development agency of Japan which
plays a role in international collaboration in the field of
agriculture, forestry and fisheries research. One of its
research directions is the development of agricultural
technologies based on sustainable management of the
environment and natural resources in developing regions.
Under this direction, several projects have been implemented
to fight land degradation and desertification. There follow
some examples of JIRCAS’s achievements in Mongolia,
Uzbekistan and Niger, which are the highest priority sites in
the world in terms of land management.
Pasture-use planning in Mongolia
Nomadism thrives in Mongolia through the utilization of its
vast natural grasslands, which account for approximately
72 per cent of its land area. Nomads usually graze their
livestock while moving from pasture to pasture seasonally
several times a year. It is said that Mongolia’s transition
from planned economy to market economy in the early
1990s has led unemployed people to become nomads and
caused a rapid increase in livestock herd size due to the
privatization and liberalization of livestock ownership.
Furthermore, grasslands continue to experience extensive
and localized overgrazing due to uneven distribution of
usable wells and the concentration of nomads in nearby
cities or around the main roads.
A vegetation survey on the pasture by nomads, to evaluate and estimate the degree of degradation and grazing capacity
Image: T. Matsumoto
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