One of the objectives of grazing management projects is to prevent the under- or over-utilization of specific areas of rangeland. Approaches to this vary according to the problems encountered. For example, badly degraded lands may need to be rested for some time; for under-utilized areas, a coordinated rotational grazing plan may need to be introduced; if there is uncertainty of land tenure, fencing may be a viable option (although, in pastoralist production systems, fencing inhibits mobility and often leads to conflict); or, if there are simply too many animals on the pasture, a destocking initiative will be required before any grazing management programme can become effective.

The land-resting technique involves setting aside a particular area so as to allow the land to regenerate vegetative cover. However, one potential problem related to land resting is that its success ultimately depends on the degree of pressure on the area’s feed resources. Land resting as an intervention requires full community support. Therefore, in localities facing severe feed shortages due to climatic or population pressure, it may well prove very difficult to implement. Used in combination with other techniques, land resting has proved more viable. For example, in the Livestock and Pasture Development Project in the Eastern Region in Morocco, it was combined with rotational grazing.

Rotational grazing technology involves continuously moving livestock among pasture areas so that no one site is overgrazed — a traditional practice among some pastoralist groups. For instance, most Al-Taysiyah Bedouins practise a rotational grazing pattern that is determined both by the number of camps in a given area and by the spatial distribution of different plant species. Herds are moved in one direction one day and then in the opposite direction the following day, and so on in a circular fashion until they return to the original spot. When the pasture grasses have been exhausted, the family scouts nearby areas to determine whether or not the camp should be relocated. Given that rotational grazing often has strong customary traditions, community compliance tends to be higher than with land resting.

Several IFAD projects have attempted to introduce rotational grazing, with varying degrees of success. As a general rule, the successful implementation of rotational grazing schemes depends on a number of external factors — notably, the existence of associations or institutions that are sufficiently strong to enforce rules and access rights to resources. Hence, successful rotational grazing schemes require both high levels of community participation and strong local-level institutions to enforce grazing strategies.

As pasture fencing limits the mobility of animals, it is generally used to control over-stocking in communally grazed rangelands. Fencing does not necessarily equate to legal ownership of a piece of land, but it may guarantee the regular access of a household or group of households to a specific area. For example, a rotational grazing scheme was introduced in the Livestock and Pasture Development Project in the Eastern Region in Morocco. Credit schemes that allowed farmers and herders to purchase fencing have also been offered in a number of projects, including the Northern Pasture and Livestock Development Project and the Qinghai/Hainan Prefecture Agricultural Development Project, both in China. IFAD has gained useful experience from combining old rangeland-use traditions with new practices.

From a number of perspectives, however, fencing as a range management tool is problematic. For instance, it is likely to have a negative impact on the poor, who are particularly dependent on communal range resources. Richer herders, who can more easily afford to pay for better land and fencing material, are in a position to capture both private and public benefits. In many cases, the first herders to fence off their lands have continued to exploit the communal range resources and save their own lands for times of low pasture availability. The overall losers in this type of scenario are the poor, who face increased competition for forage resources from reduced pasture. Since fencing also limits the mobility of herds, it may well prevent access to vital dry-season grazing reserves. Policies and projects that inhibit pastoral mobility are likely to damage livestock production systems in the long term owing to their negative impact both on the vegetation (under-utilization) and on livestock productivity.

Relevant IFAD Projects