The effect of customary grazing management systems on rangeland carbon stock and sequestration in semiarid pastoral ecosystem system of Eastern Ethiopia

Customary rangeland management practices inherent to pastoralism have shaped rangeland environments for millennia and contributed to the mitigation and adaptation of climate changes. However, without generating estimates from site-specific or small-scale studies, it’s impossible to style or to implement sustainable ways of using rangeland resources and therefore the long-term enhancement of carbon sequestration potential. In this study, we have measured carbon stocks and sequestrations in a case study of semi-arid pastoral ecosystems under customary grazing management practices. Data were collected from three customary rangeland management practices of communal open grazing area, private enclosure areas that used for forage reservation in the dry season and communally bush dominated rangelands (Bay in the local name) that used for browser animals. Total carbon stocks including both soil organic carbon and vegetation carbon stocks were significantly (P p< 0.0001) different among the customary rangeland management practices. The positive conditional variance among the three customary management practices for soil organic carbon, woods and herbs were about 21.24, 1.39, 0.06 and 24.16 t C ha-1 respectively. Moreover, a total of about 349, 349, 177 t CO2 ha-1 were sequestered from the atmosphere in the open browsing, enclosure and open communal grazing management practices respectively. Carbon stocks have been possibly maintained by pastoralists’ grazing management practices, which are characterized by enclosures and bush dominated rangelands. Key words: Browsing area, climate change mitigations, ecosystem services, open grazing, pastoral ecosystems, rangeland, soil organic carbon