Effect of Protection on the Productivity and Botanical Composition of Vegetation in North Kordofan Gireigikh Council

Abstract

This work was conducted at Gireigikh Rural Council, Bara Province in North Kordofan State. The objectives of the study were to investigate the effect of protection, through enclosure, on productivity and quality of range. The parameters measured and used as indicators in the evaluation of range were biomass production, botanical composition, density of herbaceous and browse plants, cover, frequency and available browse production. The measurements were done at two sites Eyal Ali which has an enclosure and Mereikha which has no protected site and was open to grazing and other human activities.

A socioeconomic survey was also conducted with the objective to shed light on the prevailing production systems and ways of living which hopefully will provide an explanation for some of differences in the results that may be found between communities that had access to the project and thereby have enclosures and those that were not part of the project and have only open access land.. A questionnaire was developed and was implemented through group discussions with ten selected communities five with an enclosure and five without.

The results obtained from this study showed that biomass production of rangeland from the herbaceous layer in the enclosure was 635 kg DM /ha compared with 439kg DM /ha for the open access site. Plant cover was 75.6 and 29.4% in the protected and open access sites respectively. The available browse production was 1,538 and 209 kg/ha in each of the sites respectively. The density of herbaceous plants was 642 plant/ in the protected site and 216 plant / m² in the unprotected site. The densities of trees and shrubs in the two sites were in the range of 129 and 34 trees / ha respectively. The diversity of species composition was limited in the protected site compared with the unprotected site (Four vs. seven species respectively). This may be explained by the fact that while no reseeding was practiced in the enclosure, new seeds were always introduced in the open access area through animals and various human activities.

From the socioeconomic survey it was found that the project intervention was manifested mainly in the provision of services such as education, water, health and the enclosures that maintained their animals in dry season (summer). Lands of the communities under the common system (unprotected) were suffering from overgrazing, desertification, encroachment of sand dunes and shortage of forages and water during dry season. The area of the enclosure of 18 ha was intended for piloting. It does not give a good demonstration for the communities as an alternative that provides sufficient feed for their livestock. Future attempts should consider areas large enough to provide feed that sustains a larger portion of the community’s livestock.

It can be concluded that the enclosure system contributed positively to improving the rangeland resources while the open access resulted in severe deterioration of rangeland resources. Enclosures are a better tool for sustainable management of rangeland resources compared with open access systems.