Rangeland management (also range management, range science, or arid-land management) is a natural science that centers around the study of rangelands and the "conservation and sustainable management [of Arid-Lands] for the benefit of current societies and future generations". Range management is defined by Holechek et al. as the "manipulation of rangeland components to obtain optimum combination of goods and services for society on a sustained basis".
The earliest form of Rangeland Management is not formally deemed part of the natural science studied today, although its roots can be traced to nomadic grazing practices of the neolithic agricultural revolution when humans domesticated plants and animals under pressures from population growth and environmental change. Humans might even have altered the environment in times preceding the Neolithic through hunting of large-game, whereby large losses of grazing herbivores could have resulted in altered ecological states; meaning humans have been inadvertently managing land throughout prehistory.
Rangeland management was developed in the United States in response to rangeland deterioration and in some cases, denudation, due to overgrazing and other misuse of arid lands as demonstrated by the 20th century "Dust Bowl" and described in Hardin's 1968 "Tragedy of the Commons". Historically, the discipline focused on the manipulation of grazing and the proper use of rangeland vegetation for livestock.
Range management's focus has been expanded to include the host of ecosystem services that rangelands provide to humans world-wide. Key management components seek to optimize such goods and services through the protection and enhancement of soils, riparian zones, watersheds, and vegetation complexes, sustainably improving outputs of consumable range products such as red meat, wildlife, water, wood, fiber, leather, energy resource extraction, and outdoor recreation, as well as maintaining a focus on the manipulation of grazing activities of large herbivores to maintain or improve animal and plant production.
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A ranch (from rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often applied to livestock-raising operations in Mexico, the Western United States and Western Canada, though there are ranches in other areas. People who own or operate a ranch are called ranchers, cattlemen, or stockgrowers.
Rangelands are grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands, and deserts that are grazed by domestic livestock or wild animals. Types of rangelands include tallgrass and shortgrass prairies, desert grasslands and shrublands, woodlands, savannas, chaparrals, steppes, and tundras. Rangelands do not include forests lacking grazable understory vegetation, barren desert, farmland, or land covered by solid rock, concrete and/or glaciers. Rangelands are distinguished from pasture lands because they grow primarily native vegetation, rather than plants established by humans.
Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as "livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The animal species involved include cattle, camels, goats, yaks, llamas, reindeer, horses, and sheep. Pastoralism occurs in many variations throughout the world, generally where environmental characteristics such as aridity, poor soils, cold or hot temperatures, and lack of water make crop-growing difficult or impossible.
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