Balancing livestock production and environmental outcomes in northern Australia’s tropical savanna under global change
Livestock systems face sustainability challenges, but modeling shows that reducing stocking rates and using early dry‑season burning improves profits, prevents land degradation, and cuts GHGs by 23%. Integrating climate, economic pressures, and management options reveals a viable path to balance production with environmental outcomes.
Subject Tags
- Climate adaptation
- Agriculture
- Grassland
Abstract
Livestock production is an integral part of the global food system and the livelihoods of local people, but it also raises questions of environmental sustainability due to issues such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, biodiversity decline, land degradation, and water use. Further challenges to extensive livestock systems may arise from changes in climate and the global economy (particularly variation in prices for livestock and carbon). However, significant potential exists for both mitigating these impacts and adapting to change via altering stocking rates, managing fire, and supplementing cattle diets to reduce methane emissions. We developed an integrated, spatio-temporal modelling approach to assess the effectiveness of these options for land management in northern Australia’s tropical savanna under different global change scenarios. Performance was measured against a range of sustainability indicators, including environmental (GHG emissions, biodiversity, water intake, and land condition) and agricultural (profit, beef production) outcomes. Our model shows that maintaining historical stocking rates is not environmentally sustainable due to the accelerated land degradation exacerbated by a changing climate. However, planned early dry season burning substantially reduced emissions, and in our simulations was profitable under all global change scenarios that included a carbon price. Overall, the balance between production and environmental outcomes could be improved by stocking below modelled carrying capacity and implementing fire management. This management scenario was the most profitable (more than double the profit from maintaining historical stocking rates), prevented land degradation, and reduced GHG emissions by 23%. By integrating the cumulative impacts of climate change, external economic drivers, and management actions across a range of sustainability indicators, we show that the future of rangelands in Australia’s savannas has the potential to balance livestock production and environmental outcomes.
Citation
Runting, R.K., King, D., Nolan, M., Navarro, J., Marcos-Martinez, R., Rhodes, J.R., Gao, L., Watson, I., Ash, A., Reside, A.E. and Álvarez-Romero, J.G., 2024. Balancing livestock production and environmental outcomes in northern Australia’s tropical savanna under global change. Environmental Research Letters, 19(10), p.104014. 10.1088/1748-9326/ad6f2d
TNC Authors
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Jorge G Álvarez-Romero
Spatial Planning and Strategy Scientist, Tasmania
The Nature Conservancy
Email: j.alvarez.romero@tnc.org