Pasture Activities, Biodiversity and Pasture Vegetation in the Western Area of Burkina Faso

Abstract

The biodiversity evolution of common access rangelands was studied based on three levels (high, medium, low) of land occupation and grazing pressure in the subhumid area of Burkina Faso. The study was carried out on shrubby savannahs of Detarium microcarpum. These grazed savannahs are very common in the region and are considered as a degraded pattern of the original vegetation. The study showed that vegetal diversity increased with human and grazing pressure. However, this high biodiversity led to the degradation of the shrubby rangeland feed value and of the vegetation in general. A high grazing pressure can reduce the biomass and pasture index by more than half. The palatable part of the biomass was also much affected, because that of species with low fodder value reached 34 to 68% of the measured biomass.