Summary

Livestock production is an important source of livelihood to people living in semi-arid areas such as the South-eastern Lowveld of Zimbabwe (SEL).  However, in recent years rangeland quality has been dwindling particularly in SEL due to frequent droughts, worsened by deliberate increases in cattle numbers by farmers who use the high cattle numbers as a hedge against losses during drought. In the SEL, particularly at the Gonarezhou National Park (GNP) and Malipati Communal area interface, farmers respond to grazing shortages by unofficially grazing their cattle in the GNP (poach grazing) resulting in wildlife-livestock interactions. Besides being illegal, the observed pattern of livestock movement at the GNP wildlife-livestock interface has resulted in elevated probabilities of disease transfer between cattle and wildlife. Thus, we assert that any intervention that can improve feed situation outside the park has potential to increase cattle production while improving people-park relations. Key browse species that can improve range conditions and also possess ethnoveterinary properties may be used farmers to manage interactions at the wildlife-livestock interface. It is therefore important to estimate the quantity and quality of browse offered by key browse species. However, to the best of our knowledge, mapping of the nutritive value of key browse species in heterogeneous environments has not been done. There is therefore need to develop approaches to identify the key browse species, determine their spatial distribution and potential feed value. Besides their nutritive value, some browse species have also been hypothesised to be sources of ethnoveterinary medicine, hence may be cheap alternatives to expensive orthodox medicines. Thus, competition for browse and space at the human-wildlife-livestock interface may threaten conservation of ethnoveterinary plants, most of whose spatial distribution is not known. We hypothesise that the use of herbivore grazing patterns in space and time could be useful as a bio-prospecting method for key browse species.

The main objective of this study is therefore to develop methods to determine the spatial distribution and nutritive value of key browse species in heterogeneous environments, as well as establish their potential role in deepening our understanding of wildlife-livestock interactions, at the wildlife-livestock interface. Data obtained from field samples located using improved Global Position System (GPS) technology will be combined with hyperspectral remote sensing in a GIS environment to understand the spatio-temporal pattern of nutritive value of browse, as well as animal movement. The specific objectives are:

• to develop a method for mapping  the nutritive value of key browse species in heterogeneous savanna environments at the wildlife-livestock interface.
• to develop a GPS based  method of bio-prospecting as a function of spatio-temporal movement of cattle at the wildlife-livestock interface
• to determine the type and extent in use of browse species by ruminant animals and people.