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A cognitive approach to the post-Soviet Central Asian pasture puzzle: new data from Kyrgyzstan
Abstract
(Full paper now available to view here: http://rdcu.be/GVA4)
Despite internationally recognized definitions, there remains debate over what constitutes ‘actual’ degradation in various agro-pastoral contexts. This contention is especially pronounced in post-Soviet Central Asia. In this paper, we report on new interview data from the post- Soviet Kyrgyz Republic. These data evidence greater diversity of local perceptions of pasture degradation than previously reported. We then demonstrate how considering the role of well-documented aspects of human cognition demystifies the otherwise puzzling inconsistency in local pasture degradation narratives. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of this analytical approach for management.
... Without shared definitions, and shared mental models, effective self-organized collaboration can be difficult (Standifer and Bluedorn 2006). Levine et al. (2017) and Liechti (2012) have published initial qualitative findings on how and why there is such low apparent consensus on degradation amongst academically trained experts and locals. One clear proximate cause is disparate, self-serving interpretations of the oft-invoked Soviet-era Russian term for rangeland degradation, "деградация / degradatsiya" . ...
... PCs and PMs need more reliable data about the more ambiguous features of their assigned terrain . They also need a clearer understanding of how their pasture users perceive and make decisions on the landscape (e.g., Levine et al. 2017). ...
... Our summer 2015 efforts comprised a remote sensing component, a vegetation survey component, and both structured and open-ended interview components. The results of the former two methods are reported in Eddy et al. (2017), while the results of the open-ended interviews are reported in Levine et al. (2017). In this paper, we report on the methods and findings of the structured interview component. ...
Consensus on the state of rangelands is often elusive. This is especially true in the primarily agropastoral former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. Some argue Kyrgyz rangeland is being rapidly degraded by overgrazing. However, poor data and climatic changes confound this assessment. Thus there is contention amongst researchers, state officials, and local agropastoralists about the etiology and appropriate degree of concern regarding changes in flora and landscape patterns. This lack of consensus makes pasture management difficult for local elected managers. In this study, we use audiovisual primes, structured interview tasks, and consensus analysis to examine the degree of agreement among local agropastoralists of Naryn oblast about (a) the nature of several degradation-ambiguous plant and landscape types found in the area, and (b) indicators of "good" pasture. We find relatively little interparticipant agreement on high-resolution details, but a pattern of consensus regarding (i) a refutation of select species as indicators of degradation, as well as (ii) apparent shared heuristics for determining what makes for good, versus bad, pasture. We consider socio-historical and cognitive drivers of these patterns, and close with a discussion of implications for management.
... Increasing grazing pressure on Kyrgyz pastures is a current object of concern (Hoppe et al. 2016a, b;Levine et al. 2017). Kyrgyzstan was subjected to fundamental political, economic and agricultural changes in the last century, in particular after the occupancy by the Soviet Union and after independence in 1991 (e.g. ...
... During this period, the return to a subsistence lifestyle was, for most of the Kyrgyz people, the only possibility to Plant species diversity of pastures in Kyrgyzstan sustain their livelihood (Borchardt et al. 2011;Dörre 2012;Zhumanova et al. 2016). As a result of this new way of life, livestock numbers increased again in the further course of post-Soviet transformation and recently rebounded toward Soviet era levels with 15 million animals in 2014 (Levine et al. 2017). But the dissolution of the institutionalized organizations was accompanied by the loss of the annual migratory herd movements. ...
... The herders are nowadays rarely able to organize the migration of livestock themselves because of long distances and a weak state of infrastructure which resulted in severe changes of traditional pasture practices (Crewett 2012;Kreutzmann 2013). In consequence, summer pastures at higher altitude experience increasing abandonment, while winter pastures which are close to settlements and exposed to intense grazing pressure, are subject to vegetation and soil degradation (Hoppe et al. 2016a, b;Shigaeva et al. 2016;Levine et al. 2017). According to recent estimates, degradation processes affect between 45 and 75% of Kyrgyz pasture areas (Robinson 2016;Levine et al. 2017). ...
Traditional pastoral practices in Kyrgyzstan have been transformed into more intensive forms of pastoral land use during the Soviet colonial period, and once again modified after independence in 1991. Kyrgyz winter pastures close to settlements are subject to degradation processes, while remote summer pastures are less affected. It is largely unknown to what extent current grazing regimes, repeatedly modified during the post-Soviet transformation process, have influenced plant species diversity of mountain pastures. This paper aims to analyze inventory (a) and differentiation () diversity of pastures in the Naryn Oblast, where winter pastures are subject to increased grazing pressure. We used a non-asymptotic approach in order to infer Hill numbers, i.e. the effective number of species at different levels of q (where q = 0: species richness, q = 1: Shannon diversity, q = 2: Simpson diversity) to make fair comparisons among assemblages of winter and summer pastures. We established sample-size-based rarefaction (interpolation) and prediction (extrapolation) curves, and assessed beta diversity by implementing an ANOSIM and by calculating Jaccard and Sorensen indices. We also inspected the occurrence of rare endemic plants, which might play a key role in local ecosystem processes and are important for biodiversity conservation. Increased grazing pressure on winter pastures mainly results from abandoned seasonal livestock migration and unbalanced grazing intensity between seasonal pastures. Our results show that inventory diversity is higher on summer pastures and that species composition between summer and winter pastures differs significantly. Winter pastures are less species-rich but have a higher percentage of rare endemic species. © 2018 Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde zu Berlin. All rights reserved.
... According to the official data, about 70% of Kyrgyzstan's natural pastures are now degraded (Pasture Department 2015). The extent of the degradation and even the understanding of the term are questioned by some authors (Levine et al. 2017). However, the degradation has also been confirmed by independent normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)-based studies using remote sensing (Mirzabaev et al. 2016). ...
... However, the degradation has also been confirmed by independent normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)-based studies using remote sensing (Mirzabaev et al. 2016). Levine et al. (2017) also confirmed that NDVI data largely supports the incidence of degradation with few caveats and reported that the analysis could benefit from the use of local ecological knowledge. This paper refers to the degradation as the loss of pasture productivity. ...
Abstract The loss of land productivity is one of the key challenges facing land use policy-makers worldwide. Pastoralist societies are particularly vulnerable to the loss of land productivity due to their dependence on pastures to raise livestock. Decreasing this dependence through the diversification of livelihood strategies could potentially reduce the vulnerabilities of such societies, with the added benefit of reducing livestock pressure on pastures. This study examines on-pasture income diversification strategies among Kyrgyz pastoralist societies and aims to identify which factors lead to tourism engagement as a non-livestock pasture-related income source. Both individual household and regional (rayon) features associated with diversification are investigated, as are factors such as the perceived high levels of pasture productivity loss. The results show that the income diversification among households differs depending on the number of head of livestock a household owns, regional differences and whether a household manages livestock belonging to others. In addition, the study found no statistically significant result that would show that high perception of pasture degradation would lead to adoption of non-livestock livelihoods, i.e. tourism.
... The methodology used to measure degradation is a controversial issue not only at national level, but even in international academic circles. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, this confusion is accentuated by the major discrepancy of opinion on the causes of degradation between local pasture users, who see climate as the main factor, and experts, who show that grazing practices are predominantly responsible (Levine et al. 2017). The legal mechanism developed to overcome the assumed misuse of pasturelands is based on the elaboration and implementation of pasture plans for use and management by the community-based institutions, and locally funded by pasture use fees. ...
... Moreover, it maintains the gap between the understanding of local users and experts regarding the primary cause of pasture degradation (Liechti 2012), although having shepherds or livestock keepers formally involved in data collection and monitoring can lead to building a common vision and improved monitoring of the resource (Levine et al. 2017). This gap in understanding is accentuated by the focus on access infrastructure. ...
Abstract: The new community-based pasture management introduced in Kyrgyzstan at the municipality level in 2009 intended to renew long distance transhumance, which had been significantly reduced after the end of the Soviet Union. Kyrgyzstan is characterized by a mountainous geography and a long history of agro-pastoralism. In this paper we explore how the new formal management model influences the mobility of herds and households at the local level. The conceptual framework used for the analysis is based on the principles for the management of common-pool resources designed by Ostrom and reviewed by Cox. Because municipalities are not homogenous, different groups of stakeholders have different interests in mobility and different access to decision-making in the newly created community-based institution. The main result of this research is that, although the formal institution responsible for pasture management
does not focus on participation and representation, informal pasture management groups develop their own mechanism to lobby their interests. Mobility meets the needs of the different groups, or at least actions to prompt mobility are not conducted at the expense of any group.
Keywords: Common-pool resources, agro-pastoralism, Central Asia, governance, post-Soviet era
... Overgrazing can lead to substantial vegetation biomass loss and change in species composition (Borchardt et al., 2013(Borchardt et al., , 2011(Borchardt et al., , 2010Dörre and Borchardt, 2012) as well as soil degradation (Kulikov et al., , 2016. Multiple studies have considered pasture management issues and their impact on vegetation in Kyrgyzstan (Dörre, 2015;Hoppe et al., 2017Hoppe et al., , 2016aHoppe et al., , 2016bIsaeva and Shigaeva, 2017;Shigaeva et al., 2016;Zhumanova et al., 2018Zhumanova et al., , 2016, however, these findings are the privy of academics and there is still little consensus on pasture management among local practitioners (Levine et al., 2019(Levine et al., , 2017. Finding alternative income sources and developing more job opportunities and added value products can provide for a more sustainable local economy (Shigaeva et al., , 2007 and create more climate resilient communities (Xenarios et al., 2018). ...
This research provides an insight into historical development of runoff of the Isfara River with evaluation of influence climatic factors have on it. It further analyzes modern data on vegetation, runoff, precipitation and temperature to quantify their interrelation. Then it analyzes the perception local communities have about natural resources and their dynamics. The research was conducted between February and November 2019 in Batken province of Kyrgyzstan within the framework of the project "Reducing conflict over water and pastures in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan". This Research report was prepared with support from the British Embassy in Kyrgyzstan.
... In 2009, the Kyrgyz Parliament passed the Pasture Law (Crewett 2012;Levine et al. 2017). This important law provided the main framework for common-pasture governance and introduced a number of crucial innovations. ...
For thousands of years, pastoralism was the primary economic resource of millions of people, and today it is one of the major activities in many rural communities. This case study uses Elin Ostrom's (2009) eight principles to analyse the impact of the Kyrgyz pasture law on nomadic communities and promote sustainable and equitable management of livestock and pastures. The results show that the pasture-user unions have contributed significantly to the good governance of common-pasture resources, the improvement of the condition of pasture users and the reduction of pasture degradation (0.75±0.09). However, the case study also reveals that there is a need to enhance the use of remote pastures, to improve rotation plans, to ameliorate the monitoring and assessment mechanism (0.65±0.10) and to increase animal health conditions. To further improve pastoral livelihoods, relevant authorities and institutional stakeholders should make increased efforts to ameliorate governance (0.55±0.11) and trust among pasture users, pasture-committee members, veterinarians and local and national institutions.
... Providing alternative and cognitive frameworks, as well as appealing for actions, could be a more effective way to enhance herders' self-concept and produce positive outcomes (Cohen, 2001;Korman, 2012). For example, pasture managers could provide local herders with jobs like paid environmental monitors and data collectors, so herders can obtain extra income and be encouraged to co-create pasture conservation initiatives (Levine et al., 2017). Furthermore, it is worthwhile to explore the policies of livestock international trade, which conduces to promoting national economic development. ...
Livestock husbandry is a key indicator of economic development, environmental protection, and food security in the world, which is vulnerable to environmental changes and economic shocks. In our study on Kyrgyzstan, we quantified the effects of socio-economic and environmental factors on the dynamics of livestock sales, self-consumption, and inventory from 2006 to 2020 using a two-period livestock production model and spatial panel model. The results showed that from 2006 to 2020, more than 50% livestock were stocked annually, which means that herders in Kyrgyzstan preferred to preserve their animals as assets to deal with unknown risks. Additionally, to gain greater profit, Kyrgyz herdsmen would expand or downsize their livestock business, tailor self-consumption, and manage inventory based on the livestock market price, loan on livestock, non-herding income, and its current stock. Our study found that the development of animal husbandry in seven oblasts of Kyrgyzstan had spatial spillover effects, which indicated that the dynamics of the animal husbandry market and environment not only affected the scale of local animal husbandry but also had an important impact on adjacent oblasts. Our research contributes to ensuring the income for herdsmen and the sustainable development of animal husbandry, thereby promoting high-quality economic development in developing countries with animal husbandry as a pillar industry.
... So far, only the grain harvest is sufficient for the country's own needs. After independence, three quarters of the pasture and arable land was given to private farmers and a quarter to municipal administrations as part of the land reform (Levine et al., 2017). In connection with the riots in 2010, there were violent land occupations. ...
Central Asia is regaining the importance it used to have, due to individual collaborations between the ex-Soviet states, but above all due to the integration or special role as a bridge between Asia and Europe in the course of the Belt and Road Initiative. Not only is the transcontinental and transnational cooperation increasingly offered in the course of the Silk Road Initiative, but certain countries are rediscovering themselves, and reviving forms of life that were in part prohibited. The Soviet command economy has had its day in the period of the independent states’ self-discovery, as well as during the structural crisis. The survivability of nomadism is particularly evident in the countryside, where it became important again after its prohibition. Nevertheless, adaptation to the new circumstances and economic opportunities, and challenges, is necessary. The Silk Road is a symbol that officially stands for a lively, functioning political, social and economic ecosystem – whether it works depends on everyone involved. The present text presents the historical and current economic and social situation of the individual Central Asian ex-Soviet republics and their path in the future.
... Our findings suggest potential degradation in pasture areas as indicated by lower PHs closer to villages, but our analysis cannot rule out functional degradation arising from an increase in the coverage of nonpalatable species that can enhance NDVI without providing accessible forage [8,13,19]. Furthermore, what constitutes degradation in a particular socio-ecological system is frequently more subjective and culture-bound than is typically acknowledged [13,[53][54][55]. ...
Degradation in the highland pastures of the Kyrgyz Republic, a small country in Central Asia, has been reported in several studies relying on coarse spatial resolution imagery, primarily MODIS. We used the results of land surface phenology modeling at higher spatial resolution to characterize spatial and temporal patterns of phenometrics indicative of the seasonal peak in herbaceous vegetation. In particular, we explored whether proximity to villages was associated with substantial decreases in the seasonal peak values. We found that terrain features—elevation and aspect—modulated the strength of the influence of village proximity on the phenometrics. Moreover, using contrasting hotter/drier and cooler/wetter years, we discovered that the growing season weather can interact with aspect to attenuate the negative influences of dry conditions on seasonal peak values. As these multiple contingent and interactive factors that shape the land surface phenology of the highland pastures may be blurred and obscured in coarser spatial resolution imagery, we discuss some limitations with prior and recent studies of pasture degradation
... These different metrics may also reflect differing perceptions of degradation between scientists, policy makers and pasture users. For example in Kyrgyzstan users' assessments of pasture condition tend to be more positive than those of scientists or policy makers (Levine et al. 2017, Liechti 2012. This difference may be explained by loss of knowledge or alienation of users from the natural resource, or it may be because they are more interested in output of livestock products from the system, rather than pasture quality per se. ...
The SDG nexus Network (SDGNN) establishes a common research framework for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), supporting research, networking and capacity building of scientists in Latin America and Central Asia. This report examines the livestock sector in Central Asia as one of the main research areas of the SDGNN. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature to date, we distinguish five major SDG trade-offs that we expect in three key areas: 1. Agricultural commercialisation may exclude smallholder farmers, and rising incomes may lead to dietary change with negative health outcomes, implying a trade-off between poverty reduction and zero hunger (SDGs 1 & 2) on the one hand and decent work and economic growth (SDGs 8 & 9) on the other. 2. More productive small livestock farmers may degrade environmental resources, and more diverse and nutritious diets through meat and milk products may overexploit feeding resources, implying a trade-off between poverty reduction and zero hunger (SDGs 1 & 2) on the one hand and water availability (SDG 6), life on land (SDG 15) and climate action (SDG 13) on the other. 3. At a sectoral scale, economic growth may put pressure on key resources for livestock husbandry, implying a trade-off between economic growth (SDGs 8 & 9) on the one hand and water availability (SDG 6), life on land (SDG 15) and climate action (SDG 13) on the other. We investigate the potential synergies and trade-offs within eight topical sections: farm restructuring and land reform; sustainable grazing systems; fodder production and irrigation; livestock species, genetic improvement and animal health; value chain development; human diet and health; livestock production and climate change; and services and policies for agriculture. We identify key research gaps in each area and thus present a research agenda for the SDG Nexus project in the area of livestock husbandry in Central Asia.
... At the same time, the priority was to maximize livestock numbers, rather than ensure long-term pasture health (Liechti, 2012). Recent field research also has ascertained that despite a partial return toward community-based resources management, some aspects of Soviet-era mindsets and development goals are still prevalent among many sectors of society (Isaeva and Shigaeva, 2017;Levine et al., 2017). Another consequence of the Soviet legacy is that many herders have become accustomed to managing livestock with little rotation between pastures, and instead concentrating livestock grazing in 'easy-to-access' pastures. ...
Mountains are dynamic landscapes that are home to rich natural and human heritage. However, climatic variability, globalisation and increasing ecomomic integration are making these landscapes more fragile with implications for present and future development. Using a pathways lens, we examine development trajectories in mountains and relate these to environmental and social-economic change currently taking place. We analyse and compare pathways in three case studies in Peru (Andes); Nepal (Himalayas); and Kyrgyzstan (Tien Shan). The paper highlights that development pathways in fragile mountain regions may be shifting in new directions, but because they emerge out of complex socio-environmental and historical contexts, there are also social risks associated with the articulation of future pathways, particularly in terms of social equity and sustainability. Building on different pathway approaches with their various strengths and weaknesses, this study examines the role of human agency and power, the role of historical and present context and feedbacks between social and ecological features in shaping future development pathways of mountain landscapes.
... 5). Narrative is a unit of analysis in this research as it allows to understand the reasoning of people which may otherwise appear senseless or difficult to explain [79]. ...
Abstract: This article investigates how the “constructivist turn” in public policy and international
political economy informs the interaction of global ideas and local practice in water governance.
We use the implementation of ideas associated with IntegratedWater Resources Management (IWRM)
in the Lower Mekong river basin. This article provides some explanation of the attitudes in the
villages in Cambodia due to the Sesan 2 Dam, which would see the relocation of thousands of people,
damage fisheries, and inflict high coping costs on villagers. Based on 24 in-depth interviews with
villagers, commune heads and local community leaders, we find diverse narratives which transcend
the “pro or anti” dam narrative. We find four narrative types—myths, stories, noise and informed
opinion, which relate to each other in degrees of social meaning and ideational force. Of these,
the first two are more likely to be useful in terms of mobilization and policy-making. This typology
provides a framework for analysis of social change in the studied villages and other contexts of policy
translation. We should state that these four types are not separate from each other but are linked
along two axis which together conscribe the four types of narratives outlined.
... 5). Narrative is a unit of analysis in this research as it allows to understand the reasoning of people which may otherwise appear senseless or difficult to explain [79]. ...
This article investigates how the “constructivist turn” in public policy and international political economy informs the interaction of global ideas and local practice in water governance. We use the implementation of ideas associated with Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the Lower Mekong river basin. This article provides some explanation of the attitudes in the villages in Cambodia due to the Sesan 2 Dam, which would see the relocation of thousands of people, damage fisheries, and inflict high coping costs on villagers. Based on 24 in-depth interviews with villagers, commune heads and local community leaders, we find diverse narratives which transcend the “pro or anti” dam narrative. We find four narrative types - myths, stories, noise and informed opinion, which relate to each other in degrees of social meaning and ideational force. Of these, the first two are more likely to be useful in terms of mobilization and policy-making. This typology provides a framework for analysis of social change in the studied villages and other context of policy translation. We should state that these four types are not separate from each other but are linked along two axis which together conscribe the four types of narratives outlined.
Net primary productivity (NPP) is an essential indicator of ecosystem function and sustainability and plays a vital role in the carbon cycle, especially in arid and semi‐arid grassland ecosystems. Quantifying trends in NPP and identifying the contributing factors are important for understanding the relative impacts of climate change and human activities on grassland degradation. For our case study of Kyrgyzstan, we quantified from 2000 to 2014 the spatial and temporal patterns in climate‐driven potential NPP (NPPP) using the Zhou Guangsheng model specifically developed for Asian grasslands, and actual NPP (NPPA) using the globally‐calibrated MOD17A3 NPP data product. By calculating the difference between NPPP and NPPA, we inferred human‐induced NPP (NPPH) and thereby characterised changes in grassland NPP attributable to anthropogenic activities. The results showed that grassland NPPA in Kyrgyzstan experienced a slight decrease over time at an average rate of ‐0.87 g C·m‐2·yr‐1 but patterns varied between provinces. Nearly 60% of Kyrgyzstan's grasslands experienced degradation mostly in the northern parts of the country, while grassland NPPA increased over more than 40% of the study area, occurring mostly in the south. Climate change, in particular change in precipitation was the dominant factor driving grassland degradation in the north but human pressures also contributed. In the south however, human activities were associated with extensive areas of grassland recovery. The results provide important contextual understanding for supporting policy for grassland conservation and restoration under future climate change and intensifying human pressures.
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This paper examines the roles of the state, international organisations and the public in pastoral land reform in the Central Asian republics and Mongolia. In recent years new legislation has been passed in most of these countries, often driven by environmental concerns. In the development of these laws, international organisations tend to promote common property regimes, whilst governments usually emphasise individual security of tenure, each using environmental arguments taken from quite diferent bodies of theory. With the exception of Mongolia, pressure for reform from users themselves has been weak and focussed more on social and economic issues than on environmental problems. Across the region informal grazing practices facilitate the matching of stocking pressure to forage resources; legal frameworks which build on these are most likely to lead to sustainable pasture management. Keywords: Central Asia, environment, land degradation, livestock, pastoralism, property rights. © 2017 Editions de EHESS: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. All rights reserved.
https://journals.openedition.org/etudesrurales/11728
Abstract : This article describes the evolution of Kazakh techniques of animal husbandry from the nomadic pastoralism practised in the 19th century, through Soviet rationalisation and professionalisation, to the crisis of this sector due to decollectivisation and to its recover in the 21st century. Two field studies carried out between 1994 and 2013 in two Kazakh auls, a sedentary village and a nomadic summer camp, show on a micro scale how ways of acting on and with livestock, especially sheep, reflect a transformation of the relationship with nature : loosening of the control over animal reproduction and mobility, decline of zootechnic interventionism, in favour of more opportunistic forms of actions, but without returning to the previous versatility of species uses or to a more extensive system. If pastoralism can be a model of sustainable exploitation of the steppes, Kazakh pastoralists practise it not for ecological reasons, but to maintain the essential relationship between livestock and people.
This article aims to analyse the effects of the diversity of the concepts of environment in the pasture management decentralisation process. In this respect, we use the conceptual framework developed by Agrawal and Ostrom. In Kyrgyzstan, the implementation of local community-based institutions for pasture management reinvigorated the discrepancies between the concepts of environment of the governmental, non-governmental and international stakeholders. At the local level, pasture user associations appropriate these concepts selectively in order to define their interactions with non-agropastoral users and organize themselves to influence national-level stakeholders.
The authors regret a citation error referencing authorship of an article by Hoppe et al. (2016) as having been authored by Franziska et al. (2016). The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Rangelands are among the most extensive anthropogenic landscapes on earth, supporting nearly 500 million people. Disagreements over the extent and severity of rangeland degradation affect pastoralist livelihoods, especially when impacts of drought and over-grazing are confounded. While vegetation indices (such as NDVI, or Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) derived from remotely sensed imagery are often used to monitor rangelands, their strategic integration with local ecological knowledge (LEK) is under-appreciated. Here, we explore these complementary approaches in Kyrgyzstan’s pasture-rich province of Naryn, where disagreements regarding pasture degradation could greatly benefit from additional information. We examine a time series of MODIS satellite imagery (2000–2015) to characterize browning trends in vegetation as well as to distinguish between climate- and grazing-induced trends. We also compare and contrast measured trends with LEK perceptions of pasture degradation. To do so, we first examine statistical trends in NDVI as well as in NDVI residuals after de-trending with meteorological data. Second, we use participatory mapping to identify areas local pasture managers believe are overgrazed, a particularly useful approach in lieu of reliable historical stocking rates for livestock in this region. Lastly, we compare the strengths and weaknesses of LEK and remote sensing for landscape monitoring.
The culture movement challenged the universality of the self-enhancement motive by proposing that the motive is pervasive in individualistic cultures (the West) but absent in collectivistic cultures (the East). The present research posited that Westerners and Easterners use different tactics to achieve the same goal: positive self-regard. Study 1 tested participants from differing cultural backgrounds (the United States vs. Japan), and Study 2 tested participants of differing self-construals (independent vs. interdependent). Americans and independents self-enhanced on individualistic attributes, whereas Japanese and interdependents self-enhanced on collectivistic attributes. Independents regarded individualistic attributes, whereas interdependents regarded collectivistic attributes, as personally important. Attribute importance mediated self-enhancement. Regardless of cultural background or self-construal, people self-enhance on personally important dimensions. Self-enhancement is a universal human motive.
Positive illusions are associated with unrealistic optimism about the future and an inflated assessment of one’s abilities. They are prevalent in normal life and are considered essential for maintaining a healthy mental state, although, there are disagreements to the extent to which people demonstrate these positive illusions and whether they are beneficial or not. But whatever the situation, it is hard to dismiss their existence and their positive and/or negative influence on human behavior and decision making in general. Prominent among illusions is that of control, that is “the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events.” This paper describes positive illusions, their potential benefits but also quantifies their costs in five specific fields (gambling, stock and other markets, new firms and startups, preventive medicine and wars). It is organized into three parts. First the psychological reasons giving rise to positive illusions are described and their likely harm and benefits stated. Second, their negative consequences are presented and their costs are quantified in five areas seriously affected with emphasis to those related to the illusion of control that seems to dominate those of unrealistic optimism. The costs involved are huge and serious efforts must be undertaken to understand their enormity and steps taken to avoid them in the future. Finally, there is a concluding section where the challenges related to positive illusions are noted and directions for future research are presented.
Agropastoral systems in Kyrgyzstan have undergone dramatic change in recent decades. In large part, change has resulted from the introduction of legislation that devolves authority and responsibility for the management of common-pool agropastoral resources to community-level pasture users associations. By applying Ostrom's principles of common resource governance, this paper analyzes the institutions and norms that currently shape local management practices in rural areas of Naryn Province in Kyrgyzstan and the views of different actors on pasture governance, including points of disagreement. Our research and analysis reveal that the community-initiated and -owned systems of pasture governance that were expected to develop and mature under the new Pasture Law have not yet been entirely realized. Decentralization occurred without the participation or awareness of most local resource users. As a consequence, users are creating and reinforcing their own community-defined practices and internal rules, leaving official management plans largely ignored and unenforced. Resource users tend to perceive the government-sanctioned pasture users associations not as public or democratic organizations that represent their interests, but rather as agencies that aim primarily to control the use of resources, exclude some people from decision-making, or impose taxation. Sustainable management of pasturelands therefore may best be served when community perspectives are more suitably integrated-from the planning phase through to collaborative governance and implementation of locally agreed upon management options. © 2016 Shigaeva et al.This open access article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Self-enhancement is a positive bias in self-perception, which may imply error. However, conventional measures of self-enhancement are difference scores that do not distinguish a positive bias from a self-enhancement error, that is, they fail to identify those individuals who hold an irrationally or inaccurately positive view of themselves. We propose 2 new measures to separate error from bias. In the domain of personality judgment, we estimate a defensible bias and an enhancement error from individuals' actual and perceived similarity with others. In the domain of performance, we adapt a decisiontheoretic framework to distinguish those who falsely believe to be better than average from those who actually are better. We illustrate the properties of these measures in 3 empirical studies and computer simulations. Implausibly high majorities of people consider themselves to be above average on various dimensions.
People display unrealistic optimism in their predictions about countless events, believing that their personal future outcomes will be more desirable than can possibly be true. We summarize the vast literature on unrealistic optimism by focusing on four broad questions: What is unrealistic optimism, when does it occur, why does it occur, and what are its consequences? Unrealistic optimism can be operationalized in multiple ways; is commonplace yet has well-established boundary conditions; occurs for a variety of reasons; and has consequences for affect, decision making, and behavior.
Originally posted on the Central Eurasian Scholars Media Initiative (CESMI) blog.
The article looks into lowest-level policy implementers' (street-level bureaucrats') role in donor-initiated natural resource governance reforms. The article employs an institutional analysis framework with a specific policy implementation focus. A multiple case study reviews a resource user information campaign during the early phase of a community-based pasture management reform in Kyrgyzstan. It finds implementation rule simplification by policy implementers at the expense of full resource user involvement as a result of an insufficient contextual fit of the formal information rules. The results emphasize the need of well-designed implementation rules in order to ensure full and equitable resource user involvement in community-based natural resource management (CBNRM).
This article reports on a qualitative case study about pasture governance practices in Naryn oblast in Kyrgyzstan. It investigates the relationship between shifts in pasture legislation and herders' mobility. The article describes a study of the outcomes of 2002 pasture management legislation that introduced pasture lease agreements. It specifically looks at the implications of dispersed administrative responsibility for livestock mobility. Contrary to what other studies have found, results of this study suggest that, in the case study, municipality, administrative hurdles were not a major cause of the abandonment of seasonal migration. Based on this finding, the results of the study suggest that a second reform approach, which started in 2009 and replaced the previous administrative arrangement with community-based pasture management would not necessarily improve the sustainable use of pastures and boost livestock mobility. The author points to the importance of designing effective local enforcement mechanisms for seasonal migration.
Soil erosion and land degradation are serious problems in tropical Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, where they are widely recognized as more serious problems than in non-tropical areas. Sub-Saharan Africa experiences deleterious levels of soil erosion, largely due to the interaction between harsh climates of high erosivity, fragile soils of high erodibility, steep slopes, and poor natural resource management. The fundamental challenge is to separate purely background-level soil erosion due to biophysical, geomorphic, topographic, and climatic conditions from what is caused by humans. This review shows that the human-induced causes of soil erosion and land degradation in Sub-Saharan Africa are not fully understood and some of the commonly listed causes may not always stand the test of critical scrutiny. The popular views of human-induced soil erosion and land degradation not only fail to take into consideration the fact that land degradation is primarily a physical process, but also they do injustice to adaptive ecosystem management by the local inhabitants. The review specifically questions the stereotypes of overpopulation, overgrazing, deforestation, overstocking, and general rangeland degradation due to human resource use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Empirical evidence suggests that biophysical factors including soil properties, climatic characteristics, topography, and vegetation can sometimes interact among themselves to yield high soil erosion and degradation rates independent of anthropogenic impacts.
Several assumptions about the levels and causes of rangeland degradation in Mongolia are widely accepted by a range of stakeholders. These assumptions have become important in terms of guiding strategies and policy directions. This paper provides a critical analysis of five 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) the relative increase in goat numbers has led to desertification; (iii) rainfall is declining; (iv) there is declining pasture biomass; and (v) Mongolian rangelands are degraded. Biophysical and social data from the Dundgobi and Omnogobi desert steppe areas suggest not all of these assumptions are supported all of the time, and that the processes upon which these assumptions are based are often more complex or dynamic than is commonly recognised. In designing policy and programs, more attention to these dynamics and complexities is needed.
Vast grasslands are found in the walnut-fruit forest region of southern Kyrgyzstan, Middle Asia. Located above the worldwide
unique walnut-fruit forests and used for grazing, they play a pivotal role in the mixed mountain agriculture of local farmers.
Accordingly, these pastures are subject to an increasing utilization pressure reflecting the changing political and social
conditions in the transformation process from a Soviet republic to an independent state. A first detailed analysis of mountain
pasture vegetation in the Ferghana Range answers the following questions: What are the main plant community types among Kyrgyzstan’s
mountain pastures? What are the main environmental gradients that shape their species composition? Which phytogeographical
distribution types are predominant? How does grazing affect community composition and species richness in these grasslands?
Species composition was classified by cluster analysis; underlying environmental gradients were explored using DCA. A dataset
of 395 relevés was used for classification, and a subset of 79 relevés was used in a DCA to analyze the correlation between
vegetation, environment, and grazing impact. The investigated pastures were classified into four distinctive plant communities.
The site factors altitude, heat load, inclination and grazing impact were found to be the major determinants of the vegetation
pattern. A significant overlap between floristic composition and structural and spatial properties was shown. The majority
of the species pool consisted of Middle Asian endemics and Eurosiberian species. However, disturbance-tolerant species played
a significant role with respect to species composition and coverage of the herbaceous layer in vast areas of southern Kyrgyzstan’s
mountain pastures. In general, an intense grazing impact is clearly reflected by both species composition and structural variables
of plant communities. The highly diverse and unique ecosystem is modified by an increasing utilization pressure. In order
to maintain vital processes and functioning of this valuable ecosystem — in both economical and ecological terms -, it is
indispensable to adopt appropriate pasture management strategies.
KeywordsCentral Asia–Classification–Endemics–Gradient Analysis–Grazing impact–Middle Asia–Pasture Management–Ruderals–Transformation Process–Walnut-fruit forest
We are doomed to formulate conceptual structures that are much simpler than the complex phenomena they are attempting to account for. These simple conceptual structures shield us, pragmatically, from real-world complexity, but also fail, frequently, as some aspect of what we did not take into consideration makes itself manifest. The failure of our concepts dysregulates our emotions and generates anxiety, necessarily, as the unconstrained world is challenging and dangerous. Such dysregulation can turn us into rigid, totalitarian dogmatists, as we strive to maintain the structure of our no longer valid beliefs. Alternatively, we can face the underlying complexity of experience, voluntarily, gather new information, and recast and reconfigure the structures that underly our habitable worlds.
The introduction of communism into Central Asia brought agricultural transformation on a massive scale. Irrigation projects, expansion of livestock numbers and ploughing of the northern steppe modified vegetation and soils. Despite initial censorship, in the late Soviet period resources available for the study of land degradation processes were substantial and large scale mapping projects defined uniform criteria for degradation type and severity. Scientists found that degradation of vegetation cover from grazing was widespread, although productivity losses were slight in many areas. Tighter regulation led to stabilization of forest cover. Perhaps the most acute form of degradation was soil salinization, and the related Aral Sea disaster. Independence brought economic crisis: privatization turned salaried workers into subsistence farmers, dependant on local resources for survival. The early years were characterized by ploughing of marginal land in the mountains; abandonment of steppe fields for want of machinery; collapse in livestock inventories; and increasing reliance on wood for fuel. These changes led to a new mixture of degradation and recovery processes. Yet these were poorly documented, as funding for science collapsed and trained personnel migrated or retired. Institutes came to depend on environment-focussed development projects, so incentives to keep degradation on the agenda became strong. Such projects fund little basic science—so most statistics used to justify them were based on data from the 1980s or on more recent national data unaccompanied by documentation of methodology. Some research funding became available through international scientific collaborations, which have improved our understanding of specific processes such as grazing, soil erosion and deforestation. But much of this research is case-study based and cannot be scaled up. Studies at the national or regional scale often involve time-series analysis of remotely sensed vegetation indices. These have revealed responses to climatic factors, but so far have provided only speculative documentation of anthropogenic degradation processes over large areas.
The nomadic culture is deeply ingrained in Central Asia and has been part of the lifestyle of its peoples for millennia. This chapter traces the transformation of the land relations, evolution of the perception of pasturelands, and the various forms of the property rights from the time before colonization by Russia in the nineteenth century to the present day. The effects of socio-ecological transformations such as climate change, the collapse of the Soviet empire, and civil war are examined. In recent years, the transition to sedentarization, the privatization of land, and the conversion of rangeland for cropping has become important.
This chapter considers changes in land relations during the following historic periods: precolonial period (from the beginning of nineteenth century to the end of the nomadic influence), colonial epoch of the Russian empire (the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries), the socialist period (1917–1991), and the post-Soviet period. The current situation in the context of post-Soviet restructuring and the transition to a market economy has been analyzed.
Pasture use in the Kyrgyz Republic has changed significantly as a result of fundamental political, economic, and societal changes following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent changes in people's livelihoods. Government institutions criticize current land use patterns as unsustainable and the cause of degradation. But at the local level, pasture quality is rarely seen as a major problem. This article uses a qualitative approach to examine the tension between these views and addresses current land use practices and related narratives about pasture degradation in rural Kyrgyzstan. By focusing on meanings ascribed to pastures, it shows how people closely relate current practices to the experiences and value systems of the Soviet period and to changing identities emerging in the post-Soviet transformation process. It argues that proper understanding of resource degradation issues requires adequate consideration of the context of meaning constructed by local resource users when they make sense of their environment.
It is widely recognized that changes in livestock grazing in Mongolia after the early 1990s has increased concerns regarding land management and a need for better management strategies. Traditional knowledge and experiences of the Mongolian pastoralists should be used for such strategies. If pastoralists recognize the seriousness of 'overgrazing' or signs of overgrazing, management can be guided to use this traditional ecological knowledge to develop more effective strategies. This paper describes vegetation changes caused by grazing and how pastoralists assess these changes. We have found that pastoralists use certain types of plants as indicators to assess vegetation changes. They consider 'nariin' (narrow) plants, which often include short grasses and sedges, as good because livestock prefer them. However, most of the interviewed pastoralists thought that the main reason for vegetation degradation is temperature increase, not overgrazing. This case study suggests the usefulness of such interviews together with vegetation surveys.
The question of pastoral land use in colonial Central Asia is set against the goals and assumptions of present-day laws and regulations in Kyrgyzstan. In order to highlight the main choices of the colonial administration and their consequences on the local level the analysis is focused on three dyads: territorial divisions versus clan divisions, ownership versus administration and administration versus self-government. By pointing out that the colonial reforms on nomads were mainly driven by the phantoms of ‘clans’ and ‘custom’, this article argues that certain misconceptions of nomadism are characteristic of any modernization programmes, be they those of colonial Russia or those that are currently being implemented. In Kyrgyzstan the recently introduced ‘grazing committees’ as the main actors in the management and control of pastures perpetuate the myths of self-government and tradition among nomads. In conclusion the article advances the thesis that the reliance on ‘custom’ and ‘tradition’ and the dismissal of real social relations of pastoral land use are among the most important reasons for the failure of pastoral land reforms in the past and in the present.
Heuristics are efficient cognitive processes that ignore information. In contrast to the widely held view that less processing reduces accuracy, the study of heuristics shows that less information, computation, and time can in fact improve accuracy. We review the major progress made so far: (a) the discovery of less-is-more effects; (b) the study of the ecological rationality of heuristics, which examines in which environments a given strategy succeeds or fails, and why; (c) an advancement from vague labels to computational models of heuristics; (d) the development of a systematic theory of heuristics that identifies their building blocks and the evolved capacities they exploit, and views the cognitive system as relying on an “adaptive toolbox;” and (e) the development of an empirical methodology that accounts for individual differences, conducts competitive tests, and has provided evidence for people’s adaptive use of heuristics. Homo heuristicus has a biased mind and ignores part of the available information, yet a biased mind can handle uncertainty more efficiently and robustly than an unbiased mind relying on more resource-intensive and general-purpose processing strategies.
Mobile pastoralists are subject to potentially conflicting needs for secure resource tenure and socially and spatially flexible patterns of resource use. This paradox of pastoral land tenure poses problems for the application of common property theory to the management of pastoral commons. The vagueness, permeability, and overlap of boundaries around pastoral resources and user groups complicate the implementation of formal tenure regimes designed to address insecure pastoral tenures and unsustainable land use patterns. A case-study from postsocialist Mongolia is used to illustrate the problem of spatial and social boundaries for managing pastoral commons. Three solutions to the paradox are evaluated: tenure formalization, rangeland comanagement, and regulation of herders' seasonal movements. An approach that develops and tests institutions to coordinate pastoral movements is recommended over formal tenure for pasturelands, which should be approached with caution in Mongolia.
The rangelands of Kazakhstan were historically used for nomadic pastoralism, with long migrations to make best use of the seasonal availability of pasture. In Soviet times, livestock production was intensified. From the 1970s concerns were raised in the Soviet literature about rangeland degradation, but very little was written about Kazakhstan's rangelands in the Western literature. Rangeland science in the Soviet system uses rather different methodologies to those in the West; this needs to be taken into account when comparing the two literatures. Here we use literature reviews, fieldwork and modelling to assess the likelihood that Kazakhstan's rangelands were overgrazed in Soviet times. We conclude that the extent of degradation of the pastures in our case study areas was probably lower than suggested in the literature, but that seasonal stock movement was essential to avoid degradation. Since independence, stock numbers have collapsed and stock movements are now limited. Recent field assessments suggest that the rangelands are in good condition. Kazakhstan's rangelands present a rare opportunity for the study of rangeland dynamics under dramatically changing stock numbers.
Land degradation is always with us but its causes, extent and severity are contested. We define land degradation as a long-term decline in ecosystem function and productivity, which may be assessed using long-term, remotely sensed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data. Deviation from the norm may serve as a proxy assessment of land degradation and improvement - if other factors that may be responsible are taken into account. These other factors include rainfall effects which may be assessed by rain-use efficiency, calculated from NDVI and rainfall. Results from the analysis of the 23-year Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) NDVI data indicate declining rain-use efficiency-adjusted NDVI on ca. 24% of the global land area with degrading areas mainly in Africa south of the equator, South-East Asia and south China, north-central Australia, the Pampas and swaths of the Siberian and north American taiga; 1.5 billion people live in these areas. The results are very different from previous assessments which compounded what is happening now with historical land degradation. Economic appraisal can be undertaken when land degradation is expressed in terms of net primary productivity and the resultant data allow statistical comparison with other variables to reveal possible drivers.
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