General

Despite their critical role in promoting food security on the African continent, women continue to be marginalized in the distribution and allocation of land. The implications for both family survival and national food security are far-reaching. This project will support research to examine the conditions needed to allow women to become empowered to participate in large-scale land acquisition (LSLAs) processes. The objective is to help ensure that sub-Saharan Africa puts the legal and policy frameworks in place to foster better accountability and legitimacy on issues of land governance. African women must continue to engage in food crop farming to ensure food security for their families and for the continent at large. This is only possible if their right to land is protected, respected, and fulfilled. Previous studies have shown that African women's right to land is seriously under threat. Traditionally, African women have not had equal access to land and weak land laws and governance processes related to LSLAs are further eroding their access. We are now learning more about the impact of LSLAs on livelihoods in affected communities but little evidence exists on gender differences. Little is also known about how African women have developed strategies to foster more equitable land governance policies and practices to ensure greater accountability and transparency around LSLAs. This research seeks to fill these knowledge gaps. The ultimate goal of the project is to promote land governance policies that treat both genders more equally and that contribute to greater accountability and transparency around LSLAs. The research will be implemented in six communities in three African countries: Ghana, Cameroon, and Uganda. All three have experienced LSLAs. The research team will explore the following: -land acquisition processes; -winners and losers in these transactions; -ways in which the losers (specifically, rural African women) respond to their situation; and, -extent to which these responses are successful. The project will create gender-sensitive evidence-based knowledge that can be used by women, local communities, non-state actors, and public authorities to enhance accountability and legitimacy in LSLAs processes. It will also propose gender inclusive strategies for formal and informal institutions that will respect, promote, and protect women's rights in LSLAs processes.

General

The purpose of this project is to ensure the long-term protection of the Yura region of Peru located within the Purs-Manu.Landscape, a 10-million-hectare (25 million acre) mosaic of conservation areas and indigenous lands that contains some of the.most remote and least disturbed forests in the entire Amazon basin. It is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, rich in.native fauna and flora, and includes one of the highest concentrations of isolated people anywhere on Earth. The Yura is among.the most remote and inaccessible parts of the Purs-Manu Landscape, where intact plant and animal communities sustain.members of six indigenous tribes in various stages of contact with the outside world and at least two still living in voluntary.isolation. While still largely intact, the region is threatened by several deforestation drivers including illegal logging, an expanding.agriculture frontier from Brazil and, most concerning, a partially constructed illegal road which threatens to open intact forest with.potentially devastating impacts on the ecosystems and the people who depend on them.The project will build indigenous.conservation capacity to protect species and habitats and prevent illegal intrusions that threaten to open intact forest with.potentially devastating impacts on the ecosystems and the people who depend on them. In doing so, it will protect several rare and.threatened species such as the yellow-spotted sideneck turtle (Podocnemis unifilis), the South American river turtle (Podocnemis.expansa), the bald uakari primate (Cacajao calvus ucayalii) and the arapaima fish (Arapaima gigas) while providing alternative.income sources to unsustainable resource use. Specific activities include: (1) creating a new conservation alliance between three.indigenous associations, Perus Park Service (SERNANP, acronym in Spanish), and the Upper Amazon Conservancy (a division.of Multiplier) to consolidate and strengthen local opposition to illegal intrusions;

General

In this 3-year project, we aim understand how societies, landscapes, ecosystems and Protected Areas have responded to climate change and societal use, to better understand how they may respond in the future. To do this, we will focus on the temporality, spatiality & complexity of interactions and interdependencies of social-ecological systems in north-western Tanzania over the last 300 years. Local livelihoods range from intensive agriculture to livestock herding & hunting-and-gathering, coupled with employment in tourism, conservation, or mineral extraction. Pressures from global climate change, rapid population growth, competing land use (including wildlife conservation), and new 'governmental' regimes pose major threats to livelihoods, their sustainability & resilience to future socio-ecological shocks. We will use a cross-disciplinary approach integrating archaeological, environmental, archival, modern land use & remote sensing data, with collaborative modelling of future land use & land cover change scenarios, to identify past and possible future drivers of change & sources of resilience; generate guidelines for land use planning; build research capacities in Sweden (post-doctoral position) & Tanzania (collaborating researcher) in sustainability studies; strengthen community awareness of and engagement in these issues. Hosted by Uppsala University, the team will involve experienced & junior researchers from Sweden, Tanzania & the UK.