Indigenous Rangeland Management Systems on Carbon Sequestration in Semi-arid Areas of Eastern Ethiopia

The study was conducted in Shinile district of eastern Ethiopia to evaluate soil carbon stock potentials under three indigenous rangeland management practices (communal grazing land, prescribed fire and grazing enclosure) and to address the current pastoralists knowledge on constraints and opportunities for increasing soil organic carbon in the rangelands. Soil samples at different soil depths (0-20 cm, 20-40 cm and 40-60 cm) from the study district were collected to estimate the below ground soil organic carbon. The soil attributes were analyzed of variance. Priority index was employed to study constraints and opportunities to use rangelands for carbon sequestration. In the study district, enclosure grazing land management had the highest (p<0.05) carbon sequestration potential as compared to the other practices. In addition, the soil organic carbon content decreased with increasing soil depth. The major opportunities to use the rangelands for carbon sequestration were availability of vast rangelands, and rotational grazing. However, there are also constraints, which includes knowledge and experience gap on rangeland resource use for carbon economy and climate variability. Therefore, appropriate land management systems are very important in improving soil organic carbon on rangelands to minimize effects of climate variability on food security in semi-arid areas.