Establishment of the Geoglam Rangelands Acivity and Progress

Abstract:

With global population predicted to reach around 9 billion by 2050 and the area of arable land per person declining, there is increased focus on the need to increase food production. As part of a systematic response to that need, improved monitoring of global food production has been identified by the G20 as a priority. The Global Agricultural Monitoring initiative has been established under the Group on Earth Observations (known as GEOGLAM) as a response to this need, with initial focus on the four main food crops of the world and the major exporting regions. However, it is not only the world’s croplands that will come under pressure to further increase their productivity and production. Global rangelands, scrublands and pasturelands must become more productive in producing grassland plant biomass and increased animal protein production, to supply an ever-growing global demand for essential animal protein. An essential complementary focus is needed on the sustainability of these systems to both ensure sustained productivity and to maintain the broader range of ecosystem services providing out of these large global lands. Termed “GEOGLAM Rangelands and Pasture Productivity (RAPP)”, this new GEO initiative will provide the global community with the means to monitor the world’s rangelands and pasture lands on a routine basis, and the capacity to produce animal protein in real-time, at global, regional and national levels. The primary scope of RAPP will be to monitor aboveground biomass and the condition of land cover for those lands and ecosystems that are integral to producing animal protein on a ‘free-range’, open-field basis, and their sustainable management. Using available national animal herd statistics, aims to include global and regional population information on beef cattle, goats, sheep, camels, pork, dairy cattle, wild and managed buffalo and deer. This paper will provide a broad overview of the status of implementation of the RAPP monitoring system, and some highlights of the Australian pilot and partnerships that are contributing to this GEO task.