Journal of Rangeland

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Iranian government supports qualitative and quantitative development of medicinal plants because illegal and severe harvesting have seriously damaged their production in natural areas. This study aimed to evaluate the tendency of local communities for producing medicinal plants in forest and rangeland of Kamalan region, Golestan province. Interviews and questionnaires from the specific group of people familiar with medicinal plants including range managers, farmers, and villagers were used to collect the data. The validity and reliability of the questionnaires were approved by a panel of experts and calculating the Cronbach alpha coefficient, respectively. The tendency status of local for producing medicinal plants was regarded as an independent variable, while the age, occupation, secondary job, education level, farm area, and responsibility in the community were considered as dependent or predicted variable. The Logistic regression was used to explore the relationship between independent and dependent variables using SPSS 23. Results indicated that knowledge about the effects of medicinal plants on diseases, and land ownership had a positive (B= 12/12) and negative relation (B= -11.27) to the tendency of locals for producing medicinal plants, respectively. The result showed that the main positive and negative effective factors on local communities tendency for producing medicinal plants were knowledge of medicinal plants properties and land ownership, respectively (p <0.05). Providing facilities, extension workshops, and investing in cultivating medicinal plants can engage more people to medicinal plant industry. Policymakers can use the result of this study to monitor and enhance the tendency status of locals for producing medicinal plants.

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Role of local communities’ awareness on the economic value of Atriplex canescence in terms of carbon sequestration on the maintain and even improvement of their rangelands is the scope of this study. In the first stage of the study the economic value of rangeland was measured. Carbon capture method was used to calculate the carbon uptake. Burning methods in the electric furnace was used for direct value of carbon sequestration while carbon tax policy method and the carbon emission cost for its’ shadow value. Pre and post knowledge transfer on participatory range management in sake of rangelands maintenance and improvement was assessed. Conditional valuation method and two-dimensional double-choice questionnaire were used for the study. As results showed training have had a significant effect on the willingness of local people to pay for conservation of pasture. In terms of monetary value, the average willingness to pay for pre-training condition was 45680/02 rials per month for the post training however, it was 89,600 rials. These results indicate that the effect of environmental awareness on participation of the local communities for maintenance of rangelands is significant.

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This research conducted with overall objective of collecting the Strategic data for Sustainable use of the rangelands. The statistical population are experts from the Department of Natural Resources and Watershed Management in Kerman province. Based on the results of the research, the most important strengths and weaknesses of sustainable exploitation of rangelands were lack of organization for that restorion of exploitation cooperatives is of the ways that promotes the sustainability of the use. Results also suggest that deed the rangelands to them under certain monitoring system could be useful. Of the weakness of the system is the low cultureal understanding of sustainability among the local communities. Overgrazing is one the reason of the weakness. Opportunities and threats in this field were ‘Coherent, long-term, goal-oriented, and verifiable stage-and-end planning to ensuring the successful implementation of the natural resource sub-projects. The treats are known as reduction of economic power and poverty among local communities due to the droughts and pressure on rangelands. Appropriate strategies using quantitative matrix management (QSPM) were determined. The most important strategies were ‘keeping the agricultural land values low in suck away that rangelands do not change to cultivated lands, land use change. Identification of land users and determination of stocking rates as it has been recoded in their grazing licences.

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Owing to premium properties such a transformation of forage with low quantity and quality into high quality dairy and meat products, compromising with arid and semi-arid rangeland and resistance against diseases, camel has basic function in extensive grazing systems. These properties have made camel herding as one of the strategies in sustainable development in natural resources management and sustainable livelihood of local communities. Nevertheless, camel herding is facing various challenges in Iran. This study aimed to strategic analysis of camel herding systems from Kalkooyi nomads and rangeland experts’ viewpoints in Qom Province. In this order, strength, weakness, opportunity and threat factors were identified using semi-structured interview. Then, weighting factors was done through designing and completing questionnaire based on two stakeholders. Data analysis was done using SWOT framework in Microsoft Office Excel. Result showed that the most important internal factors affecting camel herding in strength criteria was positive attitude and the interest and motivation towards camel herding among Kalkooyi nomads and in weakness criteria was shortage in suitable water sources for livestock drinking from both nomads and experts’ viewpoints. Also, between external factors as opportunity criteria, positive attitude of community members towards camel and its products and in threat criteria lack of comprehensive planning and roadmap for camel herding were the most important factors. Strategic position of camel herding was determined as offensive (SO) from nomads’ viewpoint with weights of 3.502 and 3.407, respectively. This position was determined as competitive (WO) from experts’ view point with weights of 2.073 and 2.517, respectively. Since both stakeholders assigned high weights to opportunity factors, the ultimate emphasis is on providing the condition for using opportunities of camel herding as well as strengthening the strengths and reducing the weaknesses. The result of this study helps executive managers and policy makers to plan and adjust camel herding roadmap with providing more information.

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Backgrounds: The conditions in which an individual or society is under tension due to social, economic, and environmental changes are called vulnerability. Vulnerability of rangeland beneficiaries and subsequent poverty of beneficiaries has caused unsustainable operation of rangelands. On the other hand, the degree pf vulnerability of rangeland beneficiaries in areas with more rainfall restrictions and its side socio-economic influencing factors is not completely known. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the level of socio-economic vulnerability of the rangeland beneficiaries in the dry region of Yazd province and to examine the convergence of beneficiaries' and experts' opinions on their influencing factors.
Methodology: The study area of this research is the pastures located in the Yazd-Ardakan Plain and the local communities that benefit from it. The research tool in this study was a researcher-made questionnaire that was completed by 97 farmers and local experts in the pasture sector (n=97). In this research, in order to measure the degree of socio-economic vulnerability, the formula proposed by Me-Bar and Valdez was used and to check the convergence of the opinions of experts and beneficiaries in two dimensions of social and economic, Mann-Whitney and Independent t-Student statistical tests were used using SPSS software.
Results: The results of the research showed that among the social factors, the parameter of the demographic characteristics of the beneficiaries with a value of 17.46 has the greatest impact on the level of vulnerability. Among the economic parameters, the parameter of providing support inputs with a value of 17.80 showed the greatest impact on reducing the level of vulnerability. The degree of socio-economic vulnerability of the beneficiaries of this study was calculated as 7.19, which indicates a high degree of vulnerability of pasture land users. The results of the convergence of opinions showed that there is a significant difference between the opinions of experts and users in the field of economic parameters affecting vulnerability. The area of ​​the rangeland and the limitation of the customary system were recognized as the most important parameters of the difference between the two groups in the economic dimension. Also, the results showed that the most agreement between the opinions of experts and operators is related to the parameters of livestock insurance and other productive parts of the pasture, incomes outside the exploitation of the pasture. In the social dimension, no significant difference was found between the opinions of experts and beneficiaries. Separately, in the social dimension, the parameter of access to resources and easy access to information became significant and was introduced as the parameter that the two groups had the most disagreement on in terms of impact on vulnerability.
 Conclusion: According to the earned results, solutions such as supporting farmers in crisis situations, cash and non-cash investments in the restoration and exploitation of pastures, teaching the correct way of exploitation in line with sustainable livelihood It is suggested to plan to increase the agreement between the beneficiaries and increase their participation in the field of revitalization and proper exploitation of the pastures in order to reduce the vulnerability of the pastures. The results of the convergence of the opinions of beneficiaries and experts showed that the mentality of beneficiaries and experts on economic factors affecting vulnerability is different. The important result of this research is to reveal the need to improve the knowledge of government officials about parameters that harm the livelihood of pasture beneficiaries in areas with dry geography. Also, the development of pastures requires a review of the economic factors that reduce the damage to the livelihood of local beneficiaries.