The Influence of Protection From Grazing on Cholistan Desert Vegetation, Pakistan

Abstract

• The information from this study is important for helping promote a more sustainable use of resources, such as grasses and shrubs, and in increasing an understanding of the utilization dynamics and their impact on potential recovery in the study area and beyond. • This study contributes insight toward ensuring the achievement of conservation measures outside protected areas to restore biodiversity in degraded habitats, through comparing the plant characteristics between a protected and unprotected site. • This study substantiates other findings,which suggest that using protected areas is one of several strategies that need to be adopted for recovering lost biodiversity and ensure their effective management. • This study improves our understanding of how shifts in vegetation characteristics resulting from land use change and management can modify the recovery of, in the case of Cholistan, previously grazed vegetation. Keywords: rangeland rehabilitation, vegetation growth, biodiversity, species composition Rangelands 40(5):136—145