General

The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) has been supporting the land sector in Mozambique since 2013 through the Land Management and Administration Pro-gramme (Gesterra) implemented by the National Land Di-rectorate (DINAT). Important accomplishments have been achieved in the context of this programme, such as the es-tablishment and operationalization of the Land Information and Management System (SIGIT), which is the center of gravity of all land management and administration of any nation. However, this programme has been criticized for not having given enough attention to the improvement of tech-nical capacity of DINAT staff. Initially, a second phase of this programme was foreseen from 2019 to 2022 similar in size in terms of financial re-sources. However, recent developments on the land sector in Mozambique and changes in the Dutch government's in-ternational cooperation policies have led the embassy to reshape its support to the land sector in Mozambique. Inspired on the Gesterra programme (act 25686) and Im-plementation Mechanism for the Land Sector Strategic Plan designed by Dutch Kadaster (MINBUZA-2017.972415), the World Bank is designing a 100 million (dollar / euro?) pro-gramme for the land sector in Mozambique. However, this programme does not include a technical training package for DINAT staff. On the other hand, as result of redefinition of geographical focus (Sahel, Africa and Middle East), Mozambique is no longer a priority country in the context of international co-operation by the Dutch Government. This means that the Embassy should scale-down its activities especially in the FNS thematic area where the land sector is incorporated.

General

Ecosystems are under threat worldwide - natural habitats are being lost and the remaining areas are degraded and fragmented. Developing countries in the tropics have some of the world's highest concentrations of endemic species, but very high rates of land-use change. Climate change is already affecting tropical species, and there is particular concern about whether they will be able to shift from areas that become too hot or dry, across fragmented landscapes, to reach refuges in montane regions. If land-use change and forest degradation continue too intensively in these countries, species and ecosystem functions will be lost, leading to detrimental impacts on the livelihoods of local people dependent on these lands. Habitats across a landscape can be thought of as an "ecological network", and these networks need to have sufficient habitat area, quality and connectivity to be functional. Robust ecological networks require stronger protection of existing habitat and restoration of degraded forest. Policy makers and nature conservation practitioners are increasingly thinking about biodiversity conservation at landscape scales, but continuing land-use change leads to difficult decisions about how to prioritise habitat preservation and restoration, and technologies are lacking to allow practitioners to be able to do this. There is huge potential for landscape prioritisation to be informed by NERC-funded research. We have developed a model based on ecological understanding of range shifts, which quantifies how different elements of a habitat network contribute to long-distance connectivity. This model can also identify the best habitat to preserve, or locations to target for restoration. We have also quantified biodiversity in fragmented tropical forest habitats, and shown how land-use change affects forest species, in particular the extent to which they can persist in selectively logged forest, small forest fragments, extensive plantations and intensive plantations. This knowledge can now be used innovatively with new technologies and data, particularly remotely sensed data, to enable large-scale sustainable land-use planning for tropical developing countries under climate change. This project will develop an online spatial decision support tool for planning robust and resilient habitat networks under climate change. Our tool will be co-created and tested with partners in Ghana, Indonesia and Malaysia, locations where landscape planning is urgently required to support the livelihoods of local communities and other stakeholders dependent on building resilient landscapes under environmental change . Our partner organisations are responsible for sustainable forest planning and biodiversity protection in their countries, balancing biodiversity and socio-economic needs of landscapes. Our partners have proposed specific case studies that exemplify the most pressing choices and alternative scenarios they face - our new tool will be applied with their existing data to highlight priorities for action. Priorities will be based on connectivity benefits for biodiversity, weighted by economic costs and stakeholder preferences. The most tangible and long-lasting output of this project will be the freely available web interface to our tool, backed by a high-performance computing cluster in Liverpool that will perform the analyses. This interface makes the tool globally accessible, and is vital for future users in developing countries, because computing power limitations would preclude them running a desktop version. The project will also provide face-to-face training to relevant stakeholders in our partner countries, and online tutorial materials tailored to the needs of developing countries. Hence we will build capacity for our tool to be used as part of multidisciplinary projects addressing development challenges in future, to find efficient solutions where vital networks of natural habitat coexist with the needs of local stakeholders.

Objectives

The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) supports cutting-edge research to address challenges faced by developing countries. The fund addresses the UN sustainable development goals. It aims to maximise the impact of research and innovation to improve lives and opportunity in the developing world.

General

This USAID Inter-Agency Agreement with the U.S. Forest Service will advance U.S. government technical assistance to support improved natural resource management. Kenya's five major Water Towers - Mau Forest Complex, Mt. Kenya, Aberdares, Cherangani Hills, and Mt. Elgon - provide an estimated 75 percent of the country's water resources and are central to Kenya's economic and social well-being. Despite their critical importance, the Water Tower ecosystems have been seriously degraded and continue to be negatively impacted by a number of activities, including ill-planned settlements, overgrazing, uncontrolled and illegal forest resource extraction, and the conversion of forest land to agriculture. The purpose of this activity is to reverse the effects of forests degradation; and to halt a growing water crisis, the loss of biodiversity and to decrease carbon emissions from land use change.