Project Summary
Countries: South Africa
Delivery Partner: Coventry University
Project Partners: Khusel’Indalo South Africa, Conservation South Africa, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), University of Venda
Principal Investigator: Dr James Bennett, Associate Professor, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University
Challenge
Through a focus on communal rangelands in the globally important Maputaland- Pondoland- Albany (MPA) biodiversity hotspot in South Africa, this project analyses how Nature- based Solutions (NbS) can be optimised socially and ecologically within a community setting to deliver improved outcomes for biodiversity, climate change and local livelihoods.
Working through an existing Herding for Health (H4H) community engagement model and using a co-construction and ‘living labs’ approach, the project will explore ways to enhance NbS practice and outcomes in three key areas.
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- Firstly, the development of more appropriate and inclusive institutional arrangements for delivering NbS and monitoring of biodiversity, focused on increased community participation and incorporation of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and practice.
- Secondly, testing how existing and novel (e.g. thinning of invasive trees) NbS approaches can be optimised in time and space to deliver improvements in forage production, soil carbon and biodiversity in rangelands. Related scientific modelling of these outcomes at scale, under different climate projections, will enable evaluation of different rangeland management practices, and will be used as a basis for co-developing community climate adaptation scenarios.
- Thirdly, the project will evaluate how these potential improvements in ecosystem services can enhance livelihood outcomes by increasing currently limited opportunities for local people, particularly women, to participate in the beef value chain. Our analysis will identify key opportunities for adapting the current H4H model in communal rangelands, with potential to scale to 9 additional H4H sites in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Photo Credit: Granny Mokgakane, a cattle farmer in the communal rangelands of the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve in South Africa who is implementing sustainable cattle grazing (310A3654) Photographer: M&M Pictures
More on the project will be added soon.
In the meantime, explore our Projects page to discover the diverse portfolio of initiatives GCBC is supporting around the world, and see where our research is making an impact.
