EVALUATION DES EFFETS DU CONTROLE DE PATURAGE DANS DES PARCOURS STEPPIQUES ARIDES EN ALGERIE

National audienceAssessment of the effects of the control of grazing system in grazed arid steppic rangelands in Algeria. Facing the degradation that the steppe in Algeria suffered, the grazing system using deferred grazing, introduced recently, is an effective means to control and manage the grazed ecosystems of steppic rangelands. Three sites have been studied to assess in each of them, the effects of the managed grazing on ecosystem in comparison to the free grazed ones. The composition and plant species diversity, surface soil conditions and forage quality in controlled areas, showed improvement compared with the freely grazed land. In the present work and usually regarding similar assessment tasks, conditions and sampling design are dictated by a request made much later after the grazing management set-up. The need of such a management in the arid rangelands and the sampling method are discussed