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Land Portal Foundation administrative account
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International: Decision support for restoring ecological networks in rapidly developing, biodiverse countries
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.
Making urban land titling affordable in Tanzania (World Bank EFO - Appraisal and Design Stage Only)
General
This activity (Making urban land titling affordable in Tanzania (World Bank EFO - Appraisal and Design Stage Only)) is a component of Building Urban Resilience to Climate Change in Tanzania reported by FCDO, with a funding type of 109 - Multilateral organisation and a budget of £200,000.This project benefits TANZANIA.And works in the following sector(s): Environmental policy and administrative management, Urban development and management.
Inter-Agency Aggreement with U.S. Forest Service - Environment
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.
Support to Global Donor Platform
General
This activity (Support to Global Donor Platform) is a component of Land Governance for Economic Development reported by FCDO, with a funding type of 111 - Not for profit organisation and a budget of £100,000.This project benefits Developing countries, unspecified.And works in the following sector(s): Agricultural land resources.
USAID Keo Seima Conservation Project (former: Eastern Plains Landscape)
General
(Cambodia): Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary (KSWS) is a biologically and culturally rich protected area on a deforestation frontier, and a habitat of globally significant populations of endangered primates and elephants. KSWS is also the traditional home of the Bunong indigenous group. In the past ten years, KSWS's rich and diverse forests have experienced rapid population growth facilitated by road improvement and incentivized by the spread of agro-industrial concessions which strains natural resources. The activity will improve the transparency and effectiveness of law enforcement to protect forests and biodiversity using Spatial Monitoring And Reporting Tool technology; monitor wildlife populations and forest cover to ensure evidence-based management decisions; increase economic opportunities for indigenous and marginalized people by increasing market linkages, and equitable benefit sharing from sustainable financing such as carbon stock sales; empower indigenous communities and marginalized people to gain secure land tenure and rights to forest resources; and, create a communications strategy to influence decision-making for sustainable use and management of natural resources. The activity supports Administration priorities to align with U.S. National Security objectives by increasing the transparency and effectiveness of law enforcement to combat wildlife trafficking, poaching and illegal timber exports. Further, the activity contributes to Mission Objective 4.2 (CDCS DO3) - Strengthen sustainable and resilient pathways out of poverty. The activity was awarded through a sole source mechanism to an implementing partner with unique qualifications to carry out the work, in accordance with federal procurement regulations. ....