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Showing items 1 through 9 of 46.
  1. Library Resource

    Volume 8 Issue 11

    Peer-reviewed publication
    November, 2019
    Namibia, Global

    The negative impact of the reduction of vegetation cover is already being felt in the Zambezi Region in northeastern Namibia. The region has been undergoing various land cover changes in the past decades. To understand the historical trend of vegetation cover (increase or decrease), we analyzed 8-km resolution Global Inventory Monitoring and Modeling Studies (GIMMS) from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and 0.25° × 0.25° (resampled to 8 km) resolution Global Precipitation Climatology Center (GPCC). We used the Time Series Segmented Residual Trends (TSS-RESTREND) method.

  2. Library Resource

    Volume 8 Issue 10

    Peer-reviewed publication
    October, 2019
    Southern Africa, South Africa, India

    The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) call for governments to clearly define the term ‘public purpose’ to allow for judicial review of the goals of expropriations of property. However, recent research indicates that national-level legal frameworks that govern expropriation decision-making not only vary greatly from country to country but also often fail to comply with the VGGT standards on expropriation. This creates the potential for unpredictable and, in some cases, arbitrary applications of expropriation law in practice.

  3. Library Resource

    Volume 8 Issue 10

    Peer-reviewed publication
    October, 2019
    Southern Africa, South Africa

    Public participation in environmental impact assessment (EIA) often falls short of the requirements of best practice in the move towards sustainable development, particularly for disadvantaged and marginalized communities. This paper explores the value of a participatory rural appraisal (PRA) approach for improved public participation in a sample of EIA’s for photovoltaic projects in South Africa. PRA was conducted post facto making use of selected PRA tools.

  4. Library Resource

    Volume 8 Issue 9

    Peer-reviewed publication
    September, 2019
    South Africa, Southern Africa

    Digital participatory mapping improves accessibility to spatial information and the way in which knowledge is co-constructed and landscapes co-managed with impoverished communities. However, many unintended consequences for social and epistemic justice may be exacerbated in developing country contexts. Two South African case studies incorporating Direct-to-Digital participatory mapping in marginalized communities to inform land-use decision-making, and the ethical challenges of adopting this method are discussed.

  5. Library Resource

    Volume 8 Issue 7

    Peer-reviewed publication
    July, 2019
    Botswana, Zambia, Mali, Tanzania, Cameroon, Africa

    Recent debates in social anthropology on land acquisitions highlight the need to go further back in history in order to analyse their impacts on local livelihoods. The debate over the commons in economic and ecological anthropology helps us understand some of today’s dynamics by looking at precolonial common property institutions and the way they were transformed by Western colonization to state property and then, later in the age of neoliberalism, to privatization and open access.

  6. Library Resource

    Volume 8 Issue 7

    Peer-reviewed publication
    July, 2019
    Southern Africa

    Understanding how individuals, communities, and populations vary in their vulnerability requires defining and identifying vulnerability with respect to a condition, and then developing robust methods to reliably measure vulnerability. In this study, we illustrate how a conceptual model translated via simulation can guide the real-world implementation of data collection and measurement of a model system. We present a generalizable statistical framework that specifies linkages among interacting social and biophysical components in complex landscapes to examine vulnerability.

  7. Library Resource

    Volume 8 Issue 8

    Peer-reviewed publication
    August, 2019
    Botswana

    Savannas are extremely important socio-economic landscapes, with pastoralist societies relying on these ecosystems to sustain their livelihoods and economy. Globally, there is an increase of woody vegetation in these ecosystems, degrading the potential of these multi-functional landscapes to sustain societies and wildlife. Several mechanisms have been invoked to explain the processes responsible for woody vegetation composition; however, these are often investigated separately at scales not best suited to land-managers, thereby impeding the evaluation of their relative importance.

  8. Library Resource

    Volume 8 Issue 3

    Peer-reviewed publication
    March, 2019
    South Africa, Southern Africa

    Intensive land use activities worldwide have caused considerable loss to many ecosystem services. The dynamics of these threats must be quickly investigated to ensure timely update of management strategies and policies. Compared with complex models, mapping approaches that use scoring matrices to link land use/land cover and landscape properties with ecosystem services are relatively efficient and easier to apply.

  9. Library Resource

    Volume 7 Issue 4

    Peer-reviewed publication
    December, 2018
    South Africa, Southern Africa

    Urban agriculture is said to be increasing with global urbanization. However, there is little examination of the temporal or spatial dynamics of urban agriculture. We investigated the benefits and challenges experienced by community gardeners in four towns in South Africa, along with GIS analysis of the number, area, and location of urban food community gardens over the last three decades. Common reasons for practicing community gardening were cash poverty (37%) and the need to grow food (34%).

  10. Library Resource

    Volume 7 Issue 4

    Peer-reviewed publication
    December, 2018
    South Africa, Southern Africa

    Innovative, pragmatic approaches are needed to support sustainable livelihoods and landscape management in complex social-ecological systems (CSES) such as river catchments. In the Tsitsa River Catchment, South Africa, researchers and natural resource managers have come together to apply such innovative approaches. Since CSES are characterised by uncertainty and surprise, understanding and managing them requires a commitment to reflexive praxis and transdisciplinarity.

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