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Full Version: Livestock as a means of de-desertification
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I don't know if that's really a word or not, but a lot of folks in the green movement have had strong vegetarian impulses from the start, and, in the past, this has led to the assumption that meat eating and animal husbandry have been major contributing factors to habitat destruction. In reality, the opposite is true, and attempts to remove livestock have unanimously led to once lush fields becoming dry, baron and infertile. 




As with wildlife conservation, any effort to get people to accept environmental protection works best when the local people see such to their economic benefit. (In effect locals make more money leading tourists to see the zebras than by poaching zebras). Livestock grazing may be far from the perfect solution to environmental problems, but people living in desert biomes don't want to give up such food production as they have for the perfect solution (for environmentalists) of expanding the savanna a couple hundred kilometers. So there is some crop-growing and livestock grazing in the mix; people need food. Expanding the wildlife-rich savanna so that people can do more herding or planting is still a win-win for all concerned.

Win-win propositions work. One-sided, top-down decisions usually fail.