ИСТИНА

Mountain pastoral lands are about 5 million ha in the North Caucasus. These seminatural grasslands occupy 30-40% of total area in the eastern Caucasus and over 25% in central and western regions. In the last 20 post-soviet years mountain stock number had decreased up to 3-5 times, particularly in Central Caucasus, and communal distant-pasture cattle tending ended off. Significant land use changes take place in the cattle-breeding areas: abandoning the vast remote grasslands and uncontrolled grazing in the near-by slopes. Estimated 60-80% of pastoral lands are abandoned or underused in North Ossetia, 50-60% - in Kabardino-Balkaria, and about 15-20 % of ranges are subjected to strong grazing pressure. Usually overgrazing is considered as the major threat to mountain grasslands. Objectively cease of pastoral impact leads to increase of meadow bioproductivity and erosion weakening. At the same time it resulted in change of biodiversity, weed expansion, appearance of tussock microrelief, and emergence of stones at the soil surface (up to “stone paving”) because of cryoturbation and reclamation stopping. Rapid forest invasion into subalpine grassland is taking place, and the question is: climate or socio-economic changes are responsible for this environmental process?