

	Like other former Soviet states, Turkmenistan is suffering from desertification as a result of excessive agrochemical application and inappropriate irrigation, as well as overgrazing. Most of the arable land is devoted to cotton production, another legacy of the Soviets. 

	Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous country with a widely variable climate and great vegetational diversity. There are a number of grassland types arranged along steep elevational and moisture gradients. In the 1980's much of the grassland was heavily overgrazed due to Soviet demands for more livestock products, particularly sheep's wool. When production systems broke down after the collapse of the USSR, pastures were degraded through both overgrazing and undergrazing due to concentrations of large numbers of animals year-round instead of the transhumance traditionally practiced there. As of 2007, Kyrgyzstan's government estimated that up to a third of the country's pastures were seriously degraded. Localized projects promoting more sustainable traditional grazing practices have been successful in some places at restoring rangeland conditions.

	Tajikistan is slightly smaller than Wisconsin (143,000 sq km) and is very mountainous. In general the climate is subtropical and semiarid with some desert areas although, as in Kyrgyzstan, the mountains cause dramatic local variation. The high mountain desert and high mountain meadow-steppe ecosystems are very productive. Most of the land at lower elevations is developed or given over to agriculture. As usual, the agricultural policies of the Soviets, as well as the chaos after they left, have led to increased soil salinity, water distribution problems, and chemical pollution.

	Transhumance has traditionally been practiced at higher elevations, with primary livestock being yaks, cattle, and goats. Unlike in Kyrgyzstan, livestock production has increased and rotational grazing has decreased since the fall of the USSR, as pasturelands are privatized. It remains to be seen whether a sustainable system will be arrived at without being imposed and subsidized by Moscow.

	Much of Afghanistan's population has always been made up of nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralists, who practice transhumance between the steppe and summer mountain pastures. Most livestock are sheep and goats with some cattle. The northern part of the country has a productive grass steppe with very few shrubs. Major species include Bromus, Poa, and Festuca species. However, long term heavy grazing has led to grassland being replaced by less palatable sagebrush communities in some places. Aside from the steppe, most of the flat land in Afghanistan is covered with xeric woodlands and desert.



Controlled grazing by non-native herbivores in California coastal sage scrub may help reduce the spread of invasive annual grasses near the interface of wild and urban land, relative to ungrazed land.
    Historically, coastal sage scrub in Southern CA is dominated by shrubs and forbs such as California buckwheat, black sage, white sage, California sagebrush, and deerweed. The vast majority of this habitat has been lost to development and what remains has largely been converted to Mediterranean grassland, mostly consisting of annual grasses (wild oats, multiple bromes, ryegrass). 