IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/endesu/v20y2018i2d10.1007_s10668-017-9907-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Livestock foraging behaviour on different land use classes along the semi-arid to sub-humid agro-ecological gradient in West Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Nouhoun Zampaligré

    (University of Kassel and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
    Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA)
    Centre International de Recherche Développement sur l’Elevage en zone Subhumide (CIRDES))

  • Eva Schlecht

    (University of Kassel and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

Abstract

This study compared the use of different land use classes and major foraging activities of pastoral and agro-pastoral livestock in the southern Sahelian, northern and southern Sudanian zone of Burkina Faso by monitoring three herds each of cattle, goats and sheep in three village territories during a 1-year cycle. Grazing routes were tracked using a Global Positioning System; coordinates logged every 10 s were overlaid on maps from where time and activity allocated to different land use classes were derived. Results indicate that daily distance travelled by cattle and goat herds was similar across agro-ecological zones (AEZs; p ≥ 0.05), whereas sheep travelled shorter distances in the southern Sudanian zone than in the two more northern zones (p ≤ 0.05). Daily pasturing time of cattle and sheep was longer (p ≤ 0.05) in the southern Sahelian and northern Sudanian zone than in the southern Sudanian zone. For goats, no significant difference was found between the two Sudanian zones, where their pasturing time was shorter than in the southern Sahelian zone. Except resting for cattle, browsing for goats and walking for sheep, time spent on different foraging activities by each species was similar across AEZs. Main areas for feeding across AEZs and species were degraded lands, fallows and harvested crop fields, as well as shrub and tree savannahs in the two Sudanian zones. To safeguard the nutrition of grazing livestock herds, interventions should focus on conserving still-existing pasture lands and regional livestock migration corridors to enable use of the remaining, often highly dispersed, pasture resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Nouhoun Zampaligré & Eva Schlecht, 2018. "Livestock foraging behaviour on different land use classes along the semi-arid to sub-humid agro-ecological gradient in West Africa," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 731-748, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:20:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s10668-017-9907-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10668-017-9907-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-017-9907-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10668-017-9907-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mccarthy, Nancy & Di Gregorio, Monica, 2007. "Climate variability and flexibility in resource access: the case of pastoral mobility in Northern Kenya," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 403-421, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Russell Toth, 2015. "Traps and Thresholds in Pastoralist Mobility," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(1), pages 315-332.
    2. Kabubo-Mariara, Jane, 2009. "Global warming and livestock husbandry in Kenya: Impacts and adaptations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1915-1924, May.
    3. Robinson, S. & Kerven, C. & Behnke, R. & Kushenov, K. & Milner-Gulland, E.J., 2016. "The changing role of bio-physical and socio-economic drivers in determining livestock distributions: A historical perspective from Kazakhstan," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 169-182.
    4. Liu, Min & Dries, Liesbeth & Heijman, Wim & Zhu, Xueqin & Deng, Xiangzheng & Huang, Jikun, 2019. "Land tenure reform and grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia, China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 181-198.
    5. Alary, Véronique & Lasseur, Jacques & Frija, Aymen & Gautier, Denis, 2022. "Assessing the sustainability of livestock socio-ecosystems in the drylands through a set of indicators," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:20:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s10668-017-9907-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.