11 Facts About Conservation grazing

Conservation grazing or targeted grazing is the use of semi-feral or domesticated grazing livestock to maintain and increase the biodiversity of natural or semi-natural grasslands, heathlands, wood pasture, wetlands and many other habitats.

Conservation grazing is generally less intensive than practices such as prescribed burning, but still needs to be managed to ensure that overgrazing does not occur.

The optimal level of grazing will depend on the goal of conservation, and different levels of grazing, alongside other conservation practices, can be used to induce the desired results.

Intensive Conservation grazing maintains an area as a habitat dominated by grasses and small shrubs, largely preventing ecological succession to forest.

Conservation grazing is usually done with extensive grazing because of the ecological disadvantages of intensive grazing.

However, one danger in Conservation grazing is the potential for invasive species to be enhanced as well as the native biodiversity.

Effects of Conservation grazing can depend on the individual plant species and its response to Conservation grazing.

An experiment done by Kimball and Schiffman showed that Conservation grazing increased the cover of some native species but did not decrease the cover of nonnative species.

Degree of Conservation grazing has a significant effect on the species richness and abundance of insects in grasslands.

Land management in the form of Conservation grazing tends to decrease diversity with increased intensity.

Finally, Conservation grazing has demonstrated use in clearing dry brush to reduce the fire hazard of drought-stricken areas.