Distributed Overgrazing:A Neglected Cause of Grassland Degradation in Inner Mongolia

Overgrazing,which is defined based on a simple formulaic statement that total livestock population exceeds the carrying capacity of grassland,has been an acknowledged reason for grassland degradation in China.Many projects have been implemented to reduce livestock population and increase forage plantation to restore degraded grassland.However,the situation of holistic degradation of grassland in China has not been changed.Based on the analysis of current mode of grassland management and livestock distribution at village scale by using case study data,the research showed that it is impossible to find proper countermeasures for grassland degradation without analyzing deeply in specific spatial-temporal scales.Besides current explanation for grassland degradation merely emphasize the too many livestock population,which is called as quantitative overgrazing in this paper,the change in livestock distribution caused by the changes in property rights has played an important role in degradation,which is defined as distributed overgrazing.