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. In spite of much unnecessary soil erosion caused by lack of grazing management, livestock have an essential role in many forms of subsistence agriculture. 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. Traditional rights to cut fuelwood and fodder and to graze livestock, however, have become destructive as Nepal's population growth has accelerated. For watershed stability, the misuse of livestock is severely damaging. For feeding livestock, fresh green tree foliage is an important complement to crop residues such as straw and stover of rice, maize, and millet in the dry season.
