Dying grasses in “conservation area” that are not grazed.
Brittle areas need rumen – the stomachs of large herbivores – to provide a moist and warm environment for bacteria that digest plant material; brittle areas need animal poop so new plants can germinate; brittle areas need hoof impact to destroy crusting and lay down dead plants, allowing the litter to soak up moisture and cool the top soil. Without animals, plant materials are hardly degraded in brittle areas but slowly oxidize in the air, turning gray (see photo). Something that is hard to fathom in Europe or Ontario but so real in most of the world.
This photo shows a dying grass in a “conservation area” where grazing is prohibited to “protect nature and let it do its thing”. For a few years, things looked great and biodiversity went up after destructive grazing practices. The only problem: the area now desertifies. Natural prairies – the thing that conservationists are striving for — were grazed regularly and then trampled by tens of millions of bison. Today, these bison are missing… so conservationists create an artificial “resting state” that slowly turns our planet into sand.
Around 60-70% of all terrestrial lands are considered “brittle” to a relevant extend. Brittle areas, if not grazed, turn into deserts. Since humans have decimated large predators and large ruminant herds, this impacted much of this earth: the Middle East, the Sahara and Sahel, the mid-west of the US and Argentina’s pampa, and the stretch from Mongolia, north China, to Turkey. Some conservation actions exist, mostly “planting trees” in ecoregions where trees don’t grow.
What is especially shocking is that nature, if left alone, cannot recover in these areas unless (1) large ruminants and predators are returned, or (2) humans artificially intervene with planned grazing. Doing nothing is not an option.
Having understood and witnessed brittleness and desertification – only now after almost two decades in formal education – I am deeply puzzled. How can conservationists not recognize the ESSENTIAL role of livestock in maintaining grasslands and preventing the spread of deserts? How can we let our own ecological context of “forest climax” let us ignore different realities and treat brittle areas as if we were in central Europe? How can politicians promote a trade system where we grow protein feed in tropical areas to fatten ruminants in feedlots, while natural grasslands remain under-grazed and turn into deserts?
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