A Question of Balance: USU Researcher Edits Book on World's Rangelands

Nearly 40 percent of the Earth’s surface is identified as rangelands, those rolling landscapes of grass, trees and shrubs that stretch far beyond the horizon. Ancient storytellers to contemporary country crooners wax poetic on these terrains in narratives as seemingly limitless as the landscapes themselves. Yet dramatic social, economic, climatic and ecological changes are actually causing these fragile ecosystems to shrink in all corners of the globe.

 

“It is within rangelands that humans first arose, in which the genome we carry with us was selected and in which wild ungulates were first domesticated to begin the livestock breeds of today,” says Johan du Toit, professor and head of Utah State University’s Department of Wildland Resources. “But wild rangelands are rapidly disappearing and losing their capacity to support wildlife and livestock, as well as to provide the ecosystem services — water, food, fuel, carbon storage — on which millions of humans depend.”

 

In response, du Toit and colleagues assembled an internationally recognized and diverse group of ecologists, economists and sociologists involved in rangelands research to write Wild Rangelands. Commissioned as a joint venture of the Zoological Society of London and the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, the book was published and released January 2010 in a special series on conservation and practice by Wiley-Blackwell of Oxford, England.

 

Wild Rangelands provides discussion of the challenges of conserving wildlife while maintaining livestock communities in ecosystems considered wild; that is, areas without complete human control. The book also offers ideas and perspectives for decision makers involved in planning, approval and funding of projects that influence rangeland ecosystems on all continents, as well as researchers, conservation practitioners, educators and students.

 

du Toit, who serves as lead editor and a contributing author of the book, says rangelands include deserts, tundra and “most of what lies between,” though the book’s emphasis is on semi-arid ecosystems.

 

“By definition, semi-arid ecosystems are moisture-limited, but humans have devised ways to provide drinking water to livestock and irrigation water to crops,” he says. “As a result rangelands have undergone dramatic human-driven changes in the distribution, timing and intensity of herbivory, coupled with conversion to croplands.”

 

Globally, wildlife resources are decimated in most rangelands outside of protected areas, du Toit says, because of hunting by humans and to eliminate competition with, and predation on, livestock.

 

“Habitat change and loss then follow, closing options for wildlife populations to return to their former numbers and natural ranges,” he says.

 

He notes that, in an effort to “satisfy the ever-hungry machinery of modern life,” rangelands also face mounting development pressure as sources for oil and gas extraction as well as lands for biofuel crop cultivation.

 

“Above everything, global warming is forcing change across all socio-ecological systems that currently represent rangelands with advancing aridity in most rangelands and increasing climatic variability across all,” du Toit says.

 

While he acknowledges that no “silver bullet” solutions exist to tackle these challenges, the book offers a wealth of ideas and information to stakeholders who can influence the alternative futures of the world’s rangelands.

 

“There’s increasing concern and debate about the appropriate or inevitable uses of rangelands, including livestock, wildlife, both or neither,” du Toit says. “It’s a debate that is likely to remain unsettled because of the diverse value judgments that are involved. But for the debate to be rational, it requires a synthesis of current ideas and knowledge.”

 

 

Contact: Johan du Toit, 435-797-2837, johan.dutoit@usu.edu