ABSTRACT
Well-managed livestock pose few problems of watershed management in the more technically developed economies. In contrast, ill-managed livestock are one of the major sources of watershed damage in tropical developing countries. Along the vast ranges of the Himalayas from Pakistan to Sikkim, watersheds vital to the crowded Indo-Gangetic Plains are threatened by increases in populations of both subsistence cultivators and their uncontrolled free-ranging livestock. The Department of Soil Conservation and Water Development under the Ministry of Forests launched a project to restore watershed stability to the steep, overcrowded, and badly misused basin of the Phewa Tal, a natural lake in the middle mountains. Technical solutions are available to change the effect of livestock from accelerating environmental destruction to contributing to higher standards of living for hill people. On lands of low relief, well-managed grazing can provide stable and profitable patterns of land use for tropical watersheds. Under uncontrolled communal grazing, however, the land rapidly sheds water from heavy tropical storms.
