Degradation in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert: not as straight forward as assumed J. Addison A,B . M. Friedel A. C. Brown C. J. Davies A. S. Waldron A. A c /o CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, PO Box 2111, Alice Springs, NT, 0871, Australia B Corresponding author:
[email protected] C School of Agriculture and Food Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld, 4067, Australia Short title: How applicable are degradation assumptions to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert? Abstract Assumptions about the levels and causes of rangeland degradation in Mongolia have become embedded amongst a range of stakeholders. This paper explores the applicability of five such widely-held assumptions about rangeland degradation in Mongolia to the more specific case of the rangelands of the Gobi Desert. These assumptions are: i) there are too many animals; ii) goats have proportionally increased and this is causing desertification; iii) rainfall is declining; iv) there is less pasture now; and v) Mongolian rangelands are degraded. Biophysical and quantitative social data from the Dundgobi and Omnogobi desert-steppe areas suggest not all of these assumptions are supported mechanistically all of the time, and that the information upon which these assumptions are based is more complex than is commonly recognised. Caution in designing policy and programmes based on current understandings of rangeland condition is necessary. 1 Additional keywords : rangeland, Gobi Desert, livestock, goats, climate Introduction Rangeland theory and the understanding of causal mechanisms behind rangeland dynamics have changed significantly over the last century. The largely static ‘climax community’ of Clementsian succession (Clements 1916) has been replaced by ideas of more dynamic multiple stable and non-equilibrium states (Holling 1973; Noy-Meir 1975), thresholds (Friedel 1991), and states and transitions models (Westoby et al .