New Approach For Sustainable And Profitable Grazing Systems In Arid Open Lands Of The Northern Negev Desert (Israel)

Abstract

In the past, most of the open lands of arid areas were used as rangelands because of the pivotal role of grazing in the life of the indigenous populace. Currently, because of the competition between grazing and other types of land management (crops’ breeding, urbanisation, etc.) and the seemingly destructive effect of the grazing on the ecosystem, only a reduced part of the open lands is used for grazing. Even in the lands that are allocated to pasture, many restricting’ legislations have been enforced by the authorities. Consequently, these policies have resulted in the dramatic reduction in the profits of the herd owners and a drastic decrease in the rate of grazing, which resulted by ecological catastrophes such as wide spread of fires and invasion of exotic species. In order to achieve a sustainable and profitable utilization of these open lands, we used an alternative approach, which based on the physical interactions of the animals with the ecosystem. This scheme takes into consideration the physical interactions of the bred animals with the ecosystem there, the statutory state of the lands, and the social patterns of the indigenous farmers, as parameters for a holistic solution for arid lands.

Keywords

• animals’ physical interaction model
• open lands
• sustainable and profitable grazing system