Assessment of management actions to combat desertification based on stakeholders’ opinions

Desertification is an important environmental and socio-economic problem that affects much of the world’s drylands, resulting in a significant loss of biological and economic productivity. Responding to desertification by improving the efficiency of land and resource management represents a crucial step towards social welfare in drylands. While science has made noticeable progress in aiding our understanding of the drivers and processes of desertification, the assessment of the practices to combat desertification, the exchange of experience and knowledge, and the incorporation of the social dimension in the solutions often remain limited. An answer to the above problem was attempted to be given by the European research project PRACTICE. The purpose of this study was to assess certain actions to combat desertification which are applied in the degraded public forest lands of the Lagadas County, northern Greece over the last 30 years. They included: a) moderate grazing by livestock (1 sheep equivalent/ha/year) b) overgrazing by livestock (3 sheep equivalents/ha/year) c) no management (grazing or reforestation) d) partial reforestation with pines and e) full reforestation with pines. For their assessment, the integrated protocol developed by PRACTICE was applied involving the participation of stakeholders and based on biophysical data collected from the study area. The assessment showed that moderate grazing was the best management practice followed by partial reforestation. No management was considered to be the third best practice. The above results suggest that moderate grazing is a top management option for rangeland restoration of the Lagadas County.