A case study of Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary as a community driven Community-Based Natural Resource Management initiative : maintaining livelihoods and wetland health
- Authors: Gosling, Amanda Karen
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Wetland conservation -- Uganda , Wetland ecology -- Uganda , Natural resources management areas -- Uganda , Rural development -- Uganda
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4752 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007065 , Wetland conservation -- Uganda , Wetland ecology -- Uganda , Natural resources management areas -- Uganda , Rural development -- Uganda
- Description: Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) is considered a win-win approach to reconcile conservation with natural resource use. CBNRM aims to accomplish conservation whilst prioritising development and contributing to poverty alleviation. This study analysed the different components of a CBNRM initiative, Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary (BWS), located in western Uganda. The study was carried out by interviewing the managing committee members (n= 8) as well as local households (n= 68) regarding the manner in which the project works, and the associated benefits and constraints. The main management issues recognised were a lack of monitoring and committee cohesiveness. The information gathered through the household survey enabled the calculation of the value of local livelihood options. This was done on the premise that conservation is better accepted when land users realise the economic value of natural resources. The average annual value of household livelihoods was represented by 30% crop production, 57% natural resource use, and 13% livestock. Lastly, wetland assessments were performed using the WET-Health and WET-EcoServices methodologies from the Wetland Management Series. These assessments indicated that the impacts of local livelihoods on the wetland were currently low but potential issues could arise with the increasing human population density. Ultimately, BWS presents both environmental and social costs and benefits. With a detailed and interdisciplinary method specific recommendations of improvement can be made to reduce such costs and further reconcile the conservation of Bigodi Wetland with local natural resource use..
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- Date Issued: 2012
Assessing linkages between local ecological knowledge, HIV/AIDS and the commercialisation of natural resources across Southern Africa
- Authors: Weyer, Dylan James
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: AIDS (Disease) -- Africa, Southern , HIV infections -- Africa, Southern , Natural resources -- Management -- Africa, Southern , Traditional ecological knowledge -- Africa, Southern , Households -- Economic aspects -- Africa, Southern , Poverty -- Environmental aspects -- Africa, Southern , Ecology -- Economic aspects -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4769 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007180 , AIDS (Disease) -- Africa, Southern , HIV infections -- Africa, Southern , Natural resources -- Management -- Africa, Southern , Traditional ecological knowledge -- Africa, Southern , Households -- Economic aspects -- Africa, Southern , Poverty -- Environmental aspects -- Africa, Southern , Ecology -- Economic aspects -- Africa, Southern
- Description: That natural resources (NRs) are important to those experiencing adversity, and, especially, vulnerability associated with HIV/AIDS, is well documented, particularly with respect to food and energy security. What is unclear is where HIV/AIDS ranks in terms of its significance in comparison to other household shocks, the role local ecological knowledge may (LEK) play in households' response to shock, a propos the types of coping strategies that are employed. Consequently, this research aims to bridge the knowledge gap between HIV/AIDS and the degree to which it is contributing to the expansion of NR commercialisation and to explore the unknowns surrounding the influence of LEK on people's choice of coping strategy. A two phase study was designed to provide quantitative rigour with qualitative depth. Phase one was an extensive, rapid survey of NR traders within urban and rural settings in five southern Africa countries. The principle objective was to profile the trade, the livelihoods of those involved and their reasons for entering the trade, to ultimately establish to what degree HIV/AIDS may have been a catalyst for this. Almost one third of the sample entered the trade in response to illness and/or death in their households, with 80% of deaths being of breadwinners. The findings illustrated considerable dependence on the sale of NRs; for almost 60% of the sample it was their household's only source of income. There was evidently increased blurring of the lines between rural and urban NR use with a greater diversity of products being traded in urban areas. Phase two involved in-depth interviews and work with a smaller sample at two sites selected based on the findings from the first phase. It incorporated three groups of households; non-trading, inexperienced trading and experienced trading households. Key areas of focus were household shocks, coping strategies employed in response to these and the role LEK may be playing in the choice of coping strategies. Within a two year period, 95% of households registered at least one shock, of which 80% recorded AIDS-related proxy shocks. Non-trading households were significantly worse-off in this regard, while in the case of non-AIDS proxy shocks, there was no such difference between groups. The most frequently employed coping strategy was the consumption and sale of NRs and was of particular importance when households were faced with AIDS proxy shocks. Trading households emerged as having superior levels of LEK in comparison to non-trading households, even for non-traded NRs, suggesting that prior LEK of NRs opened up opportunities to trade in NR as a coping strategy. Further inspection of the latter group however revealed that the portion of non-trading households who traded on a very ad hoc basis actually had comparable levels of LEK to the trading households. Despite the ad hoc trading households' vulnerable state and their disproportionately high level of AIDS proxy measures, they had at their disposal, sufficient LEK to unlock certain key coping strategies, namely the NR trade. In this sense there are apparent linkages between LEK, HIV/AIDS and the expansion of the commercialisation of NRs.
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- Date Issued: 2012
Municipal commonage: an undervalued national resource
- Authors: Gambiza, James , Shackleton, Charlie M , Davenport, N I , Atkinson, D , Hoffman, Michael T , Martens, C , Puttick, J , De Groot, W
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Land reform -- South Africa Land use -- South Africa South Africa -- Social conditions
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/49969 , vital:25947
- Description: This policy brief will highlight the importance of municipal commonage in enhancing livelihoods of poor urban families. This will be followed by an overview of the role of municipal commonage in the land reform programme. Current challenges in securing benefits from municipal commonages are then outlined. Policy considerations to optimise benefits from commonages conclude the policy brief.
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- Date Issued: 2012
Research and development of a preliminary South African voluntary carbon standard for landscape restoration projects
- Authors: Curran, Patrick
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Carbon -- Environmental aspects -- Research -- South Africa , Carbon -- Standards -- Research , Restoration ecology -- Research -- South Africa , Environmental sciences -- Research
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4748 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006968 , Carbon -- Environmental aspects -- Research -- South Africa , Carbon -- Standards -- Research , Restoration ecology -- Research -- South Africa , Environmental sciences -- Research
- Description: The mandatory and voluntary carbon markets have both developed around the increasing trade of carbon offsets. In order to add legitimacy to an otherwise intangible commodity there has been a rise in the development of third party carbon certification standards, particularly in the voluntary market. These standards aim to provide independent, third party certification to projects that are developed specifically to generate and sell carbon offsets. South Africa has the opportunity to engage with these markets, but current participation in and certification of projects is sluggish. These projects have not taken off mainly due to the high transaction costs and lag times surrounding the current certification of projects', complex baseline methodologies, accounting uncertainty and the often bureaucratic systems surrounding the current voluntary carbon certification standards and methodologies. In order to overcome these pitfalls this project aimed to address these challenges through initiating the development of a preliminary South African voluntary carbon standard. This was done by: a) undertaking a critical assessment of the development of current carbon markets, with a particular focus on voluntary markets and third party certification, b) critically analysing the current voluntary carbon certification standards for best practices, pitfalls and weaknesses. To provide a better understanding of the historical development of voluntary certification standards, various established certification standards were evaluated, including the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and ISO 14000 standards. This analysis focussed on the challenges they faced in acceptance and in particular how they have managed to operationalize sustainable development within the certification process. In order to explicitly ensure the incorporation of a sustainable development assessment of projects under the proposed standard, an expert workshop was held with 14 experts from a wide variety of disciplines. These experts identified the crucial sustainable development challenges facing South Africa. They identified 12 sub-themes and 44 indicators that could be used to measure and incorporate sustainable development indicators into the certification process. These were then further developed through using the 'Input – Output – Outcome – Impact' framework model which allowed the indicators to be organised and understood and thus practical. The analysis of the voluntary certification standards and the development of the sustainable development indicator framework were ultimately incorporated into the development of the proposed South African voluntary carbon standard. The key approach to this standard is the incorporation and focus of the proposed standard to ensuring the generation of net SD benefits and placing them at the same level as carbon within the project design and development, validation and verification process. The full and effective integration of these has been missing within current fully fledged voluntary carbon standards, as they often rely on a mixture of project design standards to achieve this. Offering the inclusion of all components into one standard, specifically designed for South Africa, will not only assure SD credentials but also increase transparency and understanding, and reduce costs. This thesis allowed for the development of innovative new ideas and process focussed specifically at including and mainstreaming South Africa’s developmental challenges into the certification process. This is the hoped that the standard will effectively certify South African based landscape restoration projects, but also decrease costs and increase efficiencies in order to encourage the development of these projects. This preliminary standard not only aims to incorporate and address all the issues identified but also has the end goal of acting as the basis for future debate and development surrounding a potential South African voluntary carbon certification standard.
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- Date Issued: 2012