SURVEY In search of optimal stocking regimes in semi-arid grazing lands: One size does not fit all Bruce M. Campbell a,b , Iain J. Gordon c , Martin K. Luckert b,d , Lisa Petheram a,b, *, Susanne Vetter e a School for Environmental Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia b CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia c Sustainable Ecosystems, CSIRO, Australia d Department of Rural Economy, University of Alberta, Canada e Department of Botany, Rhodes University, South Africa ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 12 September 2005 Received in revised form 21 April 2006 Accepted 26 May 2006 Available online 24 August 2006 We discuss the search for optimal stocking regimes in semi-arid grazing lands. We argue that ‘one size does not fit all’ and that different stocking regimes are appropriate under different conditions. This paper is an attempt to move beyond polarization of the current debate towards a more integrative and flexible approach to grazing management. We propose five different conditions as major influences on grazing regimes: environmental variability and predictability; degradation and thresholds; property right regimes; discount rates; and market stability and prices. We suggest a lack of connection between the micro- economics literature and natural science and social-anthropological literature. It is timely to achieve greater integration around some key questions and hypotheses, and recognize that policy prescriptions at national or even regional levels are likely to have limited value due to context specificity. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Stocking strategies Grazing Opportunistic stocking Conservative stocking Equilibrium dynamics Rangeland ecology 1. Introduction Debate about the relative merits of opportunistic and conser- vative stocking strategies emerged in the early 1980s and soon became embroiled in the debate about equilibrium versus non- equilibrium dynamics in semi-arid and arid rangelands (see Vetter, 2005). At the time ecologists, social scientists and econo- mists began to challenge widespread claims of overgrazing and degradation in African rangelands and validity of interventions based on carrying capacities and conservative stocking rates (Sandford, 1983; Homewood and Rodgers, 1987; Ellis and Swift, 1988; Behnke and Scoones, 1993; Scoones, 1994; Behnke and Abel, 1996). The debate gained momentum in the early 1990s with the publication of two books proposing a “new” rangeland ecology based on non-equilibrium ecological dynamics (Behnke et al., 1993) and its management and policy consequences that advocated tracking stocking strategies to exploit temporal and spatial variability in forage availability (Scoones, 1994). This has led to a paradigm shift in range ecology (though this is debated; ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS 60 (2006) 75 – 85 ⁎ Corresponding author. School for Environmental Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin 0909, NT, Australia. Tel.: +61 8 89467230; fax: +61 8 89467088. E-mail address: lisa.petheram@cdu.edu.au (L. Petheram). 0921-8009/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.05.010 available at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon