Sustainability science for meeting Africa’s challenges

Gasparatos, Alexandros; Takeuchi, Kazuhiko; Elmqvist, Thomas; Fukushi, Kensuke; Nagao, Masafumi; Swanepoel, Frans; Swilling, Mark; Trotter, Douglas; Blottnitz, Harro von

doi:10.1007/s11625-016-0362-8

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Population growth and global environmental change are expected to strain natural resources even further creating an urgent need to solve sustainability challenges across the continent (Gasparatos et al 2016). The adoption in late 2015 of the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the first time all nations have agreed to a ‘broad and universal policy agenda’ that addresses environmental, social and economic issues together (UN General Assembly 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial variability in sustainable development trajectories in South Africa: provincial level safe and just operating spaces

2017

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The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represents the first globally agreed framework to address human development and environmental stewardship in an integrated way. One approach to summarising national SDG status is our “barometer for inclusive sustainable development in South Africa”. The barometer downscales global social and planetary boundaries to provide status and trends for 20 critical indicators of environmental stress and social deprivation. In this paper, we explore the sub-national heterogeneity in sustainable development indicators by creating barometers defining the ‘safe and just operating space’ for South Africa’s nine provinces. Our results show that environmental stress varies significantly and provinces need to focus on quite different issues. Although generally environmental stress is increasing, there are areas where it is decreasing, most notably, marine harvesting. Social deprivation results show more of a pattern with high levels of deprivation in employment, income and safety across the provinces, and historically disadvantaged provinces showing the most deprivation overall. Although deprivation is generally decreasing, there are notable exceptions such as food security in six provinces. Our provincial barometers and trend plots are novel in that they present comparable environmental and social data on key indicators over time for all South Africa’s provinces. They are visual tools that communicate the range of key challenges and risks that provincial governments face, and are non-specialist and accessible to a range of audiences. In addition, the paper provides a critical case study of spatial disaggregation of national data that is required for the SDGs implementation.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11625-016-0418-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial variability in sustainable development trajectories in South Africa: provincial level safe and just operating spaces

2017

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“…South Africa is a global biodiversity hotspot with a wide range of biomes that are subject to large-scale transformation via multiple anthropogenic agents and climate change (Olson and Dinerstein, 2002;Wynberg, 2002;Cowling et al, 2003;Gasparatos et al, 2016). The country also faces major developmental challenges to provide a 'safe and healthy environment' for its people (Shackleton et al, 2017a).…”

Section: South Africa As a Case Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Collaborative learning to unlock investments for functional ecological infrastructure: Bridging barriers in social-ecological systems in South Africa

Angelstam

Barnes²,

Elbakidze

et al. 2017

Ecosystem Services

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Maintenance of functional ecological (or green) infrastructure is threatened by habitat conversion, fragmentation and loss, water scarcity, invasive species, climate change, resource extraction, poor policy implementation and societal inequity. Using South Africa as a case study, our transdisciplinary team identified actions likely to be effective in scaling up research and development projects that support implementation of policy about ecological infrastructure by active adaptive management. Based on expert knowledge at three scales, we analysed South Africa's opportunity to active adaptive management and to unlock investments that enhance functional ecological infrastructure. Barriers included lack of trust among actors, limited collaborative governance and integrated planning, including local partnerships; as well as a poor inclusion of evidencebased knowledge based on monitoring of landscape restoration efforts and its social and ecological consequences. Bridges include practicing transdisciplinary knowledge production, enhancing social learning among actors and stakeholders, and advocacy based on improved understanding. We propose a portfolio of place-based actions that could help to facilitate unlocking investments for functional ecological infrastructure by prioritising conservation, management and restoration through integrated cross-scale, collaborative and multisector spatial planning. Understanding the structure and dynamics of social-ecological systems, identifying champions, framing key messages for different audiences, and sharing failures and success stories internationally, are crucial requirements to unlock investments.

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“…Over the years, countries like Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Guinea, and Sierra Leone have relied excessively on revenue from mineral exports like gold, diamonds, oil, and other commodities. However, the negative impacts of mining operations on natural resources, including land and water, outweigh the benefits, particularly in the rural communities where these operations are carried out (Gasparatos et al, 2016). In Ghana, large tracts of agricultural lands are currently under mining concession, which could cover land areas from 50 km2 to 4,000 km2, and these concessions are agricultural lands that form the economic base of many mining communities (Owusu-Koranteng, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farmland Loss and Livelihood Effects: Diamond and Gold Mining Implications on Farmers’ Sustainability in Sierra Leone

Komba,

Fatima,

Mushtaq

et al. 2023

J. Econ. Impact

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Mining businesses are problematic in developing countries because they intrude on farming ecologies, rendering arable lands almost unavailable to farmers and making them unproductive. This paper expounds on the impact of agricultural land loss on mining activities in Kenema, as farming is the primary source of income for the locals; nevertheless, small-farm holdings are a definitive characteristic of this district. Using perceptions-based data gathered from 358 respondents, the software STATA 14 was employed to analyse the ordinal logit model. The results suggest that though mining operations gave the community quick income and short-term jobs, the negative impacts on farmers’ livelihood and outcomes surpass the benefits. The challenges farmers face from mining activities are Water pollution, displacement from their lands, and agricultural land degradation, and most get into illegal mining due to these constraints. This is mirrored in the average cultivation area of about 4 acres, with a relatively small harvest and an average monthly farm income of less than USD 40. Moreover, the results disclosed that the mines had increased land concession with less or no land reclamation or restoration. Therefore, it is recommended that all parties involved use a standardized method of communication that will prevent mining-related farmland encroachment. Moreover, it is good that authorities empower environmental law-enforcing bodies to monitor mining operations closely to ensure total compliance with the laws of the land management system.

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Sustainability science for meeting Africa’s challenges

Cited by 4 publications

References 8 publications

Spatial variability in sustainable development trajectories in South Africa: provincial level safe and just operating spaces

Spatial variability in sustainable development trajectories in South Africa: provincial level safe and just operating spaces

Collaborative learning to unlock investments for functional ecological infrastructure: Bridging barriers in social-ecological systems in South Africa

Farmland Loss and Livelihood Effects: Diamond and Gold Mining Implications on Farmers’ Sustainability in Sierra Leone

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