The Tibetan highlands have a special significance both as a grazing ecosystem and global carbon store. Furthermore, it plays a key role in the formation of the monsoon and supplying of potable water for a fifth of the earth’s population. An international research team from Kiel University (CAU), together with the universities of Göttingen and Hanover and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has for the first time identified, on a microbiological basis, the critical threshold of grazing in the Central Asian landscape above which pasture degradation becomes irreversible. The researchers found that smaller areas are already irretrievably lost. But: The majority of the grazed area could still be saved upon condition that the keeping of livestock is reduced. The scientific journal Nature Communications has published the findings in its latest edition.
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Source: Phys.org