GRAZING RESOURCES 183 
cum-soil indicators in the limitation of livestock carrying capacity, 
the selection of areas for reseeding, cultivation, reforestation, and 
other forms of land development. 
It is well known that there are many different methods of 
analyzing vegetation in current use, as well as different standards 
for nomenclature in plant associations, and different techniques 
of mapping. A survey of the grassland and grazing resources of 
the world as a whole or of any particular part or region of it will be 
most difficult to conduct if some agreement on the methods of 
analysis and presentation of results is not achieved. It is the ob- 
jective of FAO to call together a group of specialists in this field 
in order to obtain the desired uniformity, at least as far as the 
vegetation on grazing lands is concerned. 
Reducing Pressure of Livestock 
Since the natural vegetation in this belt from Portugal to 
Pakistan is primarily a grazing resource, attention must be de- 
voted in the first place to reducing the pressure of livestock on the 
land. These livestock are mostly maintained under various sys- 
tems of free-range grazing, based on different forms of nomadism. 
The types of domestic animals are those which can exist on pre- 
carious supplies of fodder and water and under conditions of wide 
climatic extremes. A change from more destructive to less de- 
structive types and an improvement in the general quality and 
productivity of livestock both depend primarily on improved 
amounts and quality of fodders and the elimination of excessive 
losses in critical seasons or years. 
The pressure of people and livestock on the natural vegetation 
of arid and semi-arid grazing lands, in which the plant cover is 
held at a very low ecological stage due to excessive grazing or 
cutting for fuel, can be reduced by the settlement of nomadic 
people in selected and especially favorable areas. Although such 
action may be possible in restricted areas and with certain types 
of social structure, it must be questioned whether it is possible 
and in fact even desirable for, for example, the desert Arabs of 
the Sahara (la zone steppienne pré-saharienne), the Bedouins of 
