Living Land

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Sustainable management of rangelands requires innova-

tive solutions to manage the high levels of climatic risk

that are experienced over these landscapes and to address

the many other unique features of dryland ecology. While

such innovations are often found in customary manage-

ment practices, these practices have often been undermined

by inadequate development and policy interventions.

Re-enabling customary practices and supporting them to

adapt and flourish in a modern economy is central to SRM.

Local institutions are vital for rangeland development and

effective solutions tend to be grounded in improvements in

local governance and communal resource rights.

This approach to SRM requires a rethinking of orthodox

investment paradigms and the role of the private sector. Local

rangeland users already invest heavily in terms of labour and

social capital to produce a wide array of environmental and

economic benefits; new investments should be responsive to

these existing investments and the risk management strate-

gies of these local rangeland users. Innovation is needed

in designing clever investment options and capturing the

interest of investor groups to provide appropriate rangeland

management solutions. Moreover, enabling investments may

be required to establish conditions for improved asset invest-

ment and to put in place necessary safeguards.

An alternative approach is indeed needed that focuses

on the optimization of investment returns in a variety of

ecosystem services through greater capture of local bene-

fits and reward for positive externalities. Advancing this

investment approach requires improved local governance,

stronger consultation with rangeland users, better informed

decision-making and the facilitation of financial flows,

possibly through payment for ecosystem services (PES) or

other compensation for environmental benefits. Progress

towards these targets requires greater motivation within

government agencies in particular, to establish enabling

investments for sustainable growth, and also within the

private sector to strengthen value chains and to target

appropriate asset investments.

Priorities for intervention include strengthening commu-

nal management of rangeland resources through the revival

and strengthening of local institutions, adaptation of

traditional governance practices according to the chang-

ing environmental and political context, and more secure

communal resource management rights.

It is also important to improve local decision-making

in the rangelands; better informed decision-making can

be achieved through more inclusive, stronger participa-

tion of local rangeland users in public planning, improved

The world’s rangelands

Source: Society for Range Management

There is considerable disagreement over how rangelands should be defined which leads to divergent estimates of their extent. According to the World

Resources Institute (1986) rangelands cover 51 per cent of the total land area of the world. This shows that rangelands are not confined only to

drylands, but the majority of rangelands are in drylands and the majority of drylands are rangelands.

Shrubland

Woodland and Savanna

Grassland

Desert

Rangelands

Non-rangelands

Forest

Tundra

Rocks and ice

Lakes

iving

and