Deriving scalable measures for restoration of communal grazing lands

Abstract

Participatory action research in communal grazing lands can inform end users on cost-effective methods for restoring land to improve local livelihoods and environmental quality in terms of reduced degradation and enhanced ecosystem services. A multi-stakeholder process involving producers, development practitioners, and researchers is demonstrated for conducting action research to restore degraded communal grazing lands in East Africa. Producer-managed trials provided actionable evidence on brief resting durations and reseeding in pastoral rangelands in Kenya, and on improved forages and weeding in grazing exclosures in the Ethiopian highlands. The usefulness of this evidence is demonstrated through quantitative data and stated or revealed preferences of livestock producers. Local land management institutions and government and civil society practitioners confirmed the utility of the results to land management practice and policy, while spontaneous local up-scaling of improved forages in exclosures affirmed their scalability. These results are attributable to elements of the action research process, including prioritization of practical producer needs, close involvement of local institutions able to take action, collaborative design of producer-managed trials, and generation of evidence applicable in scaling. Among the restoration options tested, those more successful in trials and preferred by producers tended to have moderate (or low) costs, complexity, time to returns, and risk, suggesting possible optimization of trade-offs among options, such as between the potential performance of an option and its risk. Robust options that balance consistency with effectiveness may be good candidates for scaling. In communal grazing lands facing varied constraints to restoration, using research methodology responsive to institutional stakeholders at and above local level is an effective strategy for deriving scalable restoration approaches for win-win gains in livelihoods and the environment.

Keywords

• action research
• communal land
• exclosure
• grazing
• local institutions
• rangeland
• research-in-development
• resting
• scaling