Vegetation and land-cover changes are not always directional but follow complex trajectories over space and time, driven by changing anthropogenic and abiotic conditions. We present a multi-observational approach to land-change analysis that addresses the complex geographic and temporal variability of vegetation changes related to climate and land use.

The United Nations and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deem many regions of southern Africa as vulnerable landscapes due to changing climatic regimes, ecological conditions, and low adaptive capacity. Typically in highly vulnerable regions, multiple livelihood strategies are employed to enable sustainable development. In Botswana, livelihood strategies have diversified over time to include tourism and other non-agricultural activities. While such diversification and development have been studied, little is known about how locals perceive livelihood risks.

Fire is a key component of many land use systems and a determinant of land change. There is a growing concern that climate change will cause more catastrophic fires, but in many areas the impacts will be mediated by human land use practices. In African savannas, for example, fires are frequent and research finds low inter-annual variability in burned areas in places with highly variable rainfall. This regularity of fire suggests that African regimes are humanized, meaning that they are governed by human practices more than climate variation.

This study examines whether there is a biodiversity benefit (“dividend”) associated with the existence and management of conservation reserves in the extensive and largely natural landscape of northern Australia. Species richness and abundance of vertebrate fauna and the intensity of a range of disturbance factors were compared across a set of 967 sampled quadrats, located either in pastoral lands, Indigenous lands or conservation reserves, with all sampled quadrats within a single vegetation type (open forests and savannah woodlands dominated by Eucalyptus miniata and/or E. tetrodonta).

We present an analysis of the impacts of weather change and large-scale vegetation conservation programs on the vegetation dynamics in China’s Loess Plateau from 2000 through 2009. We employed a multiple lines of evidence approach in which multi-scale data were used. We employed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data, acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) at 500 m to identify significant vegetation increases in the Loess Plateau since 2000. We found increases in NDVI for 48% of the Loess Plateau between 2000 and 2009.

Agricultural expansion has eliminated a high proportion of native land cover and severely degraded remaining native vegetation. Managers must determine where degradation is severe enough to merit restoration action, and what action, if any, is necessary. We report on grassland degraded by multiple factors, including grazing, soil disturbance, and exotic plant species introduced in response to agriculture management. We use a multivariate method to categorize plant communities by degradation state based on floristic and biophysical degradation associated with historical land use.

This research extends upon land cover change studies by incorporating methodological approaches, which are compatible with heterogeneous ecosystems, are able to link landscape changes to system processes, such as climate change, and provide potential linkages to concepts of ecological resilience. The study region in southern Africa experienced a significant climatic shift in the 1970s, resulting in drier conditions. The state of these ecosystems and their response to such climatic shock is quantified in terms of vegetation amount and heterogeneity.

Intensity Analysis has become popular as a top-down hierarchical accounting framework to analyze differences among categories, such as changes in land categories over time. Some aspects of interpretation are straightforward, while other aspects require deeper thought. This article explains how to interpret Intensity Analysis with respect to four concepts. First, we illustrate how to analyze whether error could account for non-uniform changes. Second, we explore two types of the large dormant category phenomenon. Third, we show how results can be sensitive to the selection of the domain.

Targeted illegal harvesting of hardwood in the woodland of Namibia’s Kavango region threatens forest stands. In a transforming setting, where wood is increasingly traded through value chains on a globalized market, local harvesters have complex incentives but also a crucially important position. Sustainability largely depends on their choices. Such choices are being influenced by awareness campaigns and decentralized forest management, which are being lauded and supported.

A Estratégia de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional (ESAN II) resulta da evolução da

ESAN I aprovada pelo Governo de Moçambique em 1998, através da Resolução Interna

16/98. A ESAN I foi elaborada na sequência da Cimeira Mundial de Alimentação

(CMA), realizada em Roma em 1996, quando os diversos países se comprometeram a

reduzir a fome para metade até 2015. Este objectivo coincide com o Objectivo número

um do Desenvolvimento do Milénio (ODM), aprovado na Cimeira do Milénio, em 2000.

Moçambique é um dos bons exemplos dos países Africanos que têm desenvolvido metodologias de delimitação das comunidades rurais e tem estado a implementar com sucesso a sua reforma da lei de terra. A nova lei de terra em Moçambique surgiu em 1997 e desde então um número significativo de comunidades rurais reforçou o seu direito de uso e aproveitamento da terra. Este é uma vitória, um marco social e histórico, digno de registo e apreciação, jamais visto na história contemporânea, desde a Conferência de Berlim onde o continente africano foi divido para melhor ocupar e governar.

Este artigo junta-se aos esforços de muitos outros africanos, entendendo-se por pobreza não só os níveis de rendimento por dia por pessoa, mas também a pobreza como ausência de poder nas relações intra-familiares, entre estas e os demais actores e entre a sociedade no seu todo e os recursos naturais de que se dispõe no Continente Africano.