Das Projekt "Ökologie des Wildschweins Sus scrofa in der Nähe von Schutzgebieten" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Freiburg, Forstzoologisches Institut, Professur für Wildtierökologie und Wildtiermanagement durchgeführt. In strict nature reserves and core zones of protected areas hunting and forestry operations are often restricted or banned. However, regarding the management of Wild boar, such hunt-free zones are discussed controversially and can lead to conflict. Hunters whose areas border no-hunting zones (and who have to reimburse farmers for crop damages caused by Wild boar) are concerned that the boars may evade effective population management by staying within the limits of the no-hunting zone, and farmers fear increased crop damage in the surroundings of such areas. Some conservationists are also concerned because Wild boars increasingly root protected habitats and can cause damage to rare plant assemblies. The three-year project Wild boar problem in the vicinity of protected areas by the Game Research Institute (Wildforschungsstelle) at the Centre for Agriculture Baden-Württemberg (LAZBW) aims at investigating if and how no-hunting zones might affect Wild boar activity, movement patterns, home range size, and habitat use, as well as crop damage caused by boars, by comparing these aspects between hunting-free zones and unprotected areas. Although there have already been a number of telemetry studies on Wild boar, including space use in the context of hunting activity, to date there is no study that has specifically investigated spatial and ecological aspects in and around protected areas. My dissertation Ecology of Wild boar Sus scrofa in the vicinity of protected areas is being carried out within the scope of the Game Research Institutes project and apart from the aims outlined above, further aspects of Wild boar ecology will be investigated, especially the role of Wild boar as bio-engineer and habitat creator for other species vs. unwanted damages at protected sites. Twenty-seven Vectronic GPS-GSM satellite collars with integrated activity sensors are available to tag Wild boars in three study areas: the non-protected Altdorfer Forest near Aulendorf with regular hunting activity and forestry, the nature reserve Wurzacher Ried with its ca. 700 ha core zone that is a strict reserve with no human activity, and the Biosphere Reserve Swabian Jura, especially in the surroundings of the former military training area near Münsingen and the 170 ha no-usage-area Föhrenberg.
Das Projekt "C 2.2: Rehabilitation of barren hills: Improvement of communal grazing lands" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Hohenheim, Institut für Tropische Agrarwissenschaften (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institut) (490), Fachgebiet Wasserstreß-Management bei Kulturpflanzen in den Tropen und Subtropen (490g) durchgeführt. A considerable proportion of the mountainous areas of Northern Vietnam consists of unproductive, degraded lands, the so-called 'barren hills'. Research during the first phase of the SFB aimed at (1) identifying plant communities that are indicators for the different degradation levels and thus may be useful for rapid-diagnosis purposes, and (2) exploring the potential of perennial legumes for rehabilitating such degraded areas, as an alternative to afforestation as the conventional attempt to 're-green' barren hills. Regarding the rehabilitation potential of legumes, a 24-accession core collection of the multipurpose shrub Flemingia macrophylla, assembled on the basis of the accessions' origin information, is examined for its variability with respect to morphological, agronomic, forage plant and soil-reclamation characteristics. This work has only begun in 2002 and will continue, within the proposed 2nd-phase research, until 2005. Research results of the first SFB phase (subprojects C2 and F1) suggest that a considerable portion of barren hills is used as communal grazing lands and that farmers are very interested in improvement measures to raise their productivity. Since to date there has been no research dealing with such native, communal pastures, C2.2 proposes to assess, in particularly close cooperation with A1.2 and F1.2, their role, productivity, forage value, and land use patterns leading to the development of grazing lands, by means of (1) PRA surveys and (2) primary-production and nutritive-value studies based on appropriate vegetation samplings (exclosures) on-farm during the rainy and dry seasons. Furthermore, C2.2 will test, under minimum-input conditions and by means of participatory research, a best-bet set of five 'improved' forage grasses and six 'improved' forage legumes regarding their adaptation to/production under prevailing soil and climate constraints, nutritive value, potential to persist under overgrazing conditions, and relative palatability to buffaloes and local cattle. Also this work will have close links with A1.2 and F1.2, in addition to D2.2. The expected outcome of the proposed research will be the availability of knowledge about and understanding of (1) the variability in the Flemingia macrophylla core collection regarding its forage and soil reclamation potential; (2) the influence of land use on the development of communal grazing lands and their contribution to local livestock production systems; and (3) promising pasture grass and legume species adapted to prevailing edaphic, climatic and management conditions.