Despite concentrating his properties in the most arid rangelands around the ‘dead heart’ of Australia, the legendary cattle king Sir Sidney Kidman overcame a highly variable and unpredictable climate. Because his properties formed chains that straddled stock routes, he created flexible options for droving cattle to market during drought, even when others could not. Kidman exemplifies the need for strategic flexibility, rather than deterministic responses in adapting to the uncertainties of climate change.

The genus Acacia is widely distributed and is economically important in many ecosystems of the world. Acacia tortilis subsp. raddiana is a native tree species plays a key role in ecosystem functioning and stability under arid and Saharan climates. We have tested the hypothesis that A. tortilis is a foundation species in an arid zone of Tunisia by contributing to an increase in biodiversity and improvement of soil fertility and soil water availability. The results confirmed that A. tortilis trees improve soil water availability and nutrient status, and also has a positive effect on the biodiversity.

Rangelands pose significant challenges to those who live there. This paper offers some insights in how to conceptualise the future for people living in the rangelands and how organisations such as the CRC-REP in partnership with remote communities contribute to shape up a sustainable future for the rangelands.

For the development of a sustainable future, thinking needs to be at a level that accommodates the interaction of all systems. Continued emphasis on increased production in agriculture does little to improve the real wealth of the industry in the long term. Capitalising on the wider range of values represented by the landscape beyond production of agricultural products and mining presents a more viable path to an ecologically sustainable and socially acceptable future for the Australian rangelands.

The objective of this study was to assess the density response of selected native forbs to sulfometuron methyl in eastern Oregon. Of special interest were forbs that included ‘Bureau-sensitive’ species occurring on public lands in the Burns District of the BLM which included not only endangered and threatened species listed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Department, but also species of concern by the BLM. We hypothesised that sulfometuron methyl reduces forb density. This experiment was not designed to evaluate the effectiveness of medusahead control by sulfometuron methyl.

In Tunisian arid ecosystems the persistence of the polymorphic Cenchrus ciliaris grass is a crucial factor for the persistence of vegetation cover. The question is to determine if its polymorphism could contribute to its response to new selection pressures. Our study provides evidence that genetic differentiation of the species contributes in adaptative mechanisms under water deficit conditions.

This paper considers the role Indigenous Australians play in managing natural and cultural resources in the Northern Territory of Australia. It considers the implications of recent policy changes and how they might impact upon Indigenous livelihoods and subsequently the cultural and biophysical health of landscapes and its connected social implications. It concludes by advocating a more community-based approach to land management which will allow for greater community involvement in planning, decision making and governance.

Significant quantities of native vegetation remain on privately-managed rangeland, but it is not always conserved at a level that the community desires because of a lack of appropriate economic incentives.  We estimated the costs of conservation to landholders, and the costs of required incentives to the broader community.  The results highlight the importance of additional rather than total outcomes, the requirement for high-quality cost information, and the need for a mix of policies to address the problem.

Snow disasters are a regular occurrence in rangeland areas of China and result in considerable losses of livestock. Efforts to reduce such losses for many years concentrated on improvements to the infrastructure, but more recently has encouraged a planned reduction in stock numbers, grassland restoration and marketing development. Based on a consideration of such strategies, we developed an integrated model to combat snow disasters, emphasizing an holistic strategy and ‘bottom-up’ response.

Several land restoration projects have been implemented to arrest grassland deterioration in Inner Mongolia, China, but it remains unclear whether the process of deterioration has been arrested or reversed. This study assessed changes in the state of the grasslands of Inner Mongolia during the past decade using remotely sensed data. The result indicated that the grasslands were steadily improved in 2000–05. Our study implies that the implements of the restoration projects may have yielded satisfactory result as expected.

The use of electronic Virtual Fences (VF) for the control of free-grazing sheep in rangelands has been investigated through the use of commercial pet devices and field experiments. A training methodology was tested followed by field experiments. Fully-equipped and partly-equipped herds were tested. Results show that VF might not allow to fully control all individuals within a herd, but have a significant effect on grazing pressure with lower pressure on protected zones. This effect is correlated to the number of individuals equipped within herds.