The grassland is a major component of the complex habitat system. The characteristic of grassland determines the diversity of prey and predator populations in an area. Therefore grassland management is an integral part of the protected areas management plan.
We may know that natural phenomenon has determined the forest dynamics and affects the diversity of habitat. However anthropogenic factors are also contributing to regulate the floristic composition of the habitat.
Past Management Practices
Therefore protected area managers have experimented with different methods to manage the grassland habitat. Among all management practices, seasonal grassland burning is one of the most popular in the flood plain habitats of Brahmaputra.
During dry season park managers burned the mature and dry grassland areas with the demarcation of designated firelines. These fire lines maybe road, river channel, etc. During the burning process, the old grass burnt and that help to grow new and succulent grass species in an area.
Effectiveness
Though grassland burning is a traditional and old management practice but present days conservation scientist has argued and not in favor of this process.
Besides early burning, uncontrolled burning has damaged many pure grassland areas and affected grassland dependent elusive species. Burning also increases carbon and other sedimentation percentages in the local atmosphere.
Therefore many grassland practitioners raise voice against it and searching for an alternative. But scientists yet to develop a proper methodology to maintain the bigger area of grassland other than annual burning.
Research and Development
Except grassland burning all other available methods are time-consuming and cost-intensive. Thus more scientific research is necessary to analyze the positive and negative effects of past practices. It is high time to develop more effective methods to manage grasslands and conserve biodiversity.
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