Two ongoing projects focus on factors that directly affect range management practices. One project involves the creation of interactive educational projects to demonstrate the principles of grazing management, and another investigates how animal behavior affects desert ecosystems. Many people in Israel, the Middle East and other arid and semiarid regions of the world are interested in the scientific knowledge and management experience in rangeland management that have accumulated in Israel over the last fifty years. This two-year project creates a demonstration station for students, teachers, scientists and management personnel.
Clients come from Israel, Palestine, and other regions of the Middle East and abroad.
In-field demonstration and virtual study activities on the Internet demonstrate the principles of grazing management in an ecologically sustained system in a semiarid region. The demonstration is based on long-term research that defines the relationship among habitat, rainfall regime, annual and perennial vegetation, grazing intensity and landscape structure in semiarid regions. The principle ecological processes in these regions are flow of water, recycling of soil nutrients and dynamics of the vegetation. Five demonstration sites are being established on the Lehavim Experimental Farm. The first provides a general introduction to climate, geography, history, social and environmental factors.