Effects of Grazing, Mining, and Human Activities on Grassland Biodiversity in Rajasthan

Grasslands are important ecosystems that are home to many different types of plants and animals. They also provide people with various ecosystem services, including livestock forage, soil conservation, carbon storage, nutrient cycling and livelihoods. The state of Rajasthan has large areas under arid and semi-arid grassland cover that plays an important role in the region’s natural landscape. Soils are typically sandy or hard with a high proportion of calcium carbonate. Dominant vegetation comprises short grasses such as Cenchrus, Suedi grass, and occasional clumps of hardy shrubs and cacti. These habitats support characteristic wildlife, including the Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotisnigriceps), Blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra), Chinkara (Gazella bennettii), Indian Wolf (Canis lupus pallipes), Desert Fox (Vulpes vulpes pusilla), and a wide variety of grassland birds, reptiles, insects, and native grasses. In spite of being an important ecosystem, grasslands of Rajasthan are increasingly suffering grazing pressure, mining, agriculture expansion, industrialization, alien plant invasion, tourism, etc. The current study investigates the impacts of these pressures on grassland biodiversity, with a focus on changes in vegetation structure, quality of habitat, species composition, soil quality and wildlife. In other words, grazing can have context-dependent effects, with moderate and rotational grazing maintaining a heterogeneous habitat, and persistent overgrazing reducing palatable grasses and increasing soil erosion and invasives. The extraction of minerals results in much greater and often permanent damage to the ecosystem, through clearing vegetation and soil loss, dust deposition, pollution, and habitat fragmentation. The conversion and fragmentation of natural grasslands are being accelerated by other human activities. We need sustainable grazing systems, stringent controls on mining and infrastructure projects, habitat restoration and invasive-species management, the participation of local communities and long-term ecological monitoring. In Rajasthan, grasslands need to be accepted as biologically productive ecosystem and not unproductive wastelands.