Rangelands cover more than half of the world's land area, providing vital support for around 500 million pastoralists and playing a key role in global livestock production and the livelihoods of pastoral communities. However, approximately half of these rangelands are degraded, negatively impacting both livestock production and pastoralist well-being. This underscores the urgent need for sustainable interventions to restore these ecosystems and improve global livestock production and pastoralist livelihoods. Transforming rangelands into more productive and climate-resilient systems, such as silvopasture (SPS) offer a promising solution. Research conducted by ICAR-IGFRI, Jhansi, India, in degraded semi-arid rangeland conditions of Bundelkhand converted to SPS via planting with native fodder trees, shrubs, and pasture species revealed significant findings. Under 12-years of evaluation, SPS was found to produce year-round fodder, with grasses yielding approximately 30 –40 Mg ha-1 yr-1 green fodder and forage legumes yielding 10 –12 Mg ha-1 yr-1 green fodder, supplying high-quality fodder from July to December. Trees produced 12 –15 kg/tree of green top feed, and shrubs yielded around 7 –8 kg/shrub of green top feed, ensuring supply of green fodder during lean months from December to June. These SPS systems were estimated to maintain 4 –5 ACU ha-1 yr-1 and in addition to it sequestered 14.35 to 30.68 Mg C ha-1 in above and below-ground biomass, equivalent to 52.66 to 112.60 Mg ha-1 of atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent storage. Furthermore, the SPS accumulated 3 1 to 48 Mg C ha-1 in the soil layer up to 60 cm and released around 38.31 to 81.92 Mg ha-1 of oxygen under various trees, shrubs, and grass/legumes combinations. The eco-restoration efficiency of these SPS systems was also found to be approximately 10 times greater than that of fallow land and also boosted TOC by 2 –3 folds in soil over fallow land. The findings clearly demonstrate effectiveness of SPS as a climate-resilient approach for transforming degraded rangelands into profitable land use system ensuring diversified production and income generation to pastoral communities.
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