Postcard from Hingol National Park, in Balochistan, Pakistan.
“This area is hyper arid and to regreen it is extremely challenging”, says Rana Muhammed, who worked as a forester in the area. “With much attention we could manage of 25% vegetation survival rate on the water and soil retention structures that were put in place. We thought this was given the circumstance a good result already. Then we introduced a new regreening technique, suggested by local communities. Which was the collection and use of goat droppings. Goat droppings have high nitrogen content – more than most other animal manure and they contribute to improve the moisture holding capacity of the soil. Moreover, as they result from foraging by the goats, they contained local grass seeds, which were sheltered from insets. These were in fact also the grasses most palpable to the goats. By using goat dropping we got survival rates of 85% – which given the harsh environment – is amazing.”
