Year: 1980
Type: article
Abstract: Peoples in many lands have been reduced to what is sometimes derisively called a "goat economy."This term usually means an impoverished agricultural economy that will only support goats-hardy creatures subsisting where others cannot It also often means that close-cropping goats have opened the soil to erosion, with a denuded and damaged range the end result.Perhaps the best known example is found in the Middle East, where the Biblical "Land of Milk and Honey" has been supplanted by areas described by many as capable of supporting only a goat economy.Overgrazing, possibly by the shepherds of Jesus' time, and later, were in part to blame.In other parts of the world, in Asia, in South America, and in Africa, areas once famous for their grasslands have undergone changes-usually for the worst.Today's concern for "desertification" is positive proof that we have failed to learn from our mistakes.
Author: Thomas L. Kimball
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDGs: Life on land, Zero hunger
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2507595342