History
For historic grasslands, grazing animals, herbivores, were a crucial part of the ecosystem. When grazers are removed, historically grazed lands may show a decline in both the density and the diversity of the vegetation. The history of the land may help ecologists and conservationists determine the best approach to a conservation project.
Historic threats to grasslands primarily began with land conversion to crop fields. However, this threat shifted to improper land management techniques and more recently to the expansion of woody species of plants due to a lack of management, and to climate change. These threats hinder the ecological importance of grassland communities. Grasslands are a carbon sink, and benefit livestock. Ecologically, if managed properly, conservation grazing can help to restore these historic ecological assets. However, if the grazing levels reach too high, shrubs will persist over grassland.
In 1985, the US established the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which gave money to farmers to leave land fallow, instead of using it for crops or grazing. It was argued that exclusion or use of moderate grazing would be an important factor in future decisions as to what to do with the land that was a part of the CRP program. The land could have varied uses in the future. The minimization of the effects of climate change has a lot to do with the sequestering of carbon, and expansive grasslands may play an essential role in this process. But also it could be used for the rotation of crops to the benefit of wildlife populations.
Read more about this topic: Targeted Grazing
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“These anyway might think it was important
That human history should not be shortened.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)