Governance, participation and local perceptions towards protected areas: Unwinding traumatic nature in the Blouberg Mountain Range

Local perceptions of protected areas are important for conservation and the sustainability of protected areas. We undertook qualitative and ethnographic fieldwork to explore relationships between people and protected areas in the Blouberg mountain range, South Africa. The history of land use and current relationships with protected areas reveal legacies of marginalisation and immiseration, giving credence to a theory of traumatic nature. The impacts of traumatic nature manifest themselves in local discourses and narratives of nature, protected areas and conservation

A socio-ecological approach towards understanding conflict between leopards (Panthera pardus) and humans in South Africa: Implications for leopard conservation and farming livelihoods

The thesis investigates the socio-ecological factors driving human-leopard conflict due to livestock and game depredation in the Blouberg Mountain Range, South Africa. Local people’s perceptions of conservation are shaped by historical and contemporary relationships with protected areas and particularly, by conflicts of land and natural resource use. Legacies of disempowerment, marginalisation and stigmatisation manifest through people’s conservation discourses, social conflict and resistance towards protected area establishment, a process defined as traumatic nature. Traumatic nature elevates distrust of local people towards wildlife authorities and decreases support for wildlife conservation, aggravating human-leopard conflicts. Leopard predation on livestock and game is most strongly influenced by distance to village and distance to water, respectively, in addition to seasonal grazing patterns, the calving season and poor livestock husbandry practices. Livestock depredation represents significant economic costs for subsistence communal farmers’, which is exacerbated by the erosion of traditional cattle sharing systems and a lack of alternative livelihood strategies. Livestock depredation results in the loss of functional and material benefits, social capital, a spiritual resource, diminished wellbeing and perceived cultural decay. Camera trap results showed a lower leopard density of 0.7 leopards per 100km2 on commercial farms compared to the Blouberg Nature Reserve of 5.4 leopards per 100km2. Commercial farms may function as ecological traps because they represent areas with disproportionate leopard mortality that otherwise provide a high abundance of prey species for leopards. A male-biased sex ratio and a high number of sub-adult male leopards indicate high leopard mortality rates in the population. Camera trap results show low occupancy rates on communal land that may reflect a low large prey biomass, potentially caused by overhunting and habitat conversion. Farming communities ascribe a wide range of environmental values to the leopard that provide barriers and support for leopard conservation. Environmental institutions need to improve responses to reports of human-leopard conflicts and build trust and legitimacy in the eyes of local people by developing stronger working relationships with farming communities. The decentralisation of authority to local government actors to manage human-leopard conflicts and the devolution of responsibility to farmers to improve livestock husbandry practices is necessary to reduce depredation incidents. Incentive and education schemes are important for reducing lethal control measures and to improve tolerance of depredation incidents and leopard conservation

Hierarchies of knowledge: ethnobotanical knowledge, practices and beliefs of the Vhavenda in South Africa for biodiversity conservation

Indigenous and local knowledge systems are characterised by a ‘knowledge-practice-belief’ complex that plays a critical role for biodiversity management and conservation on indigenous lands. However, few studies take into consideration the interconnected relationship between the social processes underpinning knowledge accumulation, generation and transmission. The study draws on ethnobotanical research to explore plant uses, practices and belief systems developed among the indigenous Vhavenda in South Africa for sustaining indigenous plant resources and highlights some of the forces of change influencing the acquisition and transmission of knowledge

Oceans justice: Trade-offs between sustainable development goals in the Seychelles

The marine environment represents an important resource for the promotion of sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, Life Below Water, highlights the need to balance the economic, social, and environmental dimensions when using the World’s oceans. However, trade-offs arise between the imple- mentation of SDG goals and the well-being of different groups of people. The use of justice mechanisms is critical for achieving social equity outcomes from ocean use. Trade-offs in implementation between SDG14 and other SDGs in the Seychelles are examined through the lens of distributive and procedural justice. Content analysis of grey and policy literature and qualitative data derived from stakeholder workshops and focus group discussions are used to examine trade-offs between expanding marine protection through the Blue Economy initiative and Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), and the livelihoods and well-being of artisanal fishers. MSP limit fishers’ access to marine resources through spatial, temporal, and permanent prohibitions on access to key fishing areas and gear use that negatively impact upon food security, subsistence livelihoods and well-being. These trade-offs reduce capacity to attain other SDG goals linked to alleviating poverty, hunger and good health and well- being. Consultation processes, by not giving adequate voice to fishers concerns and local knowledge, raise is- sues of procedural fairness. Trade-offs are largely borne by weaker socio-economic groups, leading to a failure to address issues of distributive fairness. Our research shows that the promotion of sustainable futures in the Seychelles remains elusive unless matters in relation to distributive justice are addressed and procedural fairness is provided. How justice mechanisms can be used in pursuit of social equity from ocean use is explained, and avenues for further research outline

Enabling the IPBES conceptual framework to work across knowledge boundaries

The IPBES conceptual framework (CF) serves an instrumental value to translate usable knowledge into policy across spatial scales, alongside a normative function to engage diverse knowledge systems, promoting inclusivity and enhancing legitimacy. It has been argued that the CF operates as a boundary object, a communication and organisation tool for those working across diverse knowledge systems, designed to help them reach shared goals. The paper focuses on this claim, exploring the three core characteristics of a boundary object: interpretive flexibility, material and organisational structure, and the recognition of dissention. We suggest that too much emphasis is placed within the CF upon interpretive flexibility, whilst meeting information needs and the work requirements of all individuals, groups and communities who use the CF are overlooked. By forcing consensus, the IPBES CF ignores the critical dimensions of a boundary object. We argue that embracing the full characteristics of a boundary object will enable the IPBES to support knowledge coproduction and translation across the knowledge systems, better achieving its goal of providing policy advice

The effects of genotype, caste, and age on foraging performance in leaf-cutting ants

The evolution of polyandry is a general problem in behavioral ecology that has attracted particular interest in the social insects. Most social insects are monandrous (i.e., females are inseminated by a single male), but approximately a third of species have evolved polyandry (i.e., females are inseminated by multiple males), which can reach extreme levels. One of the leading explanations for polyandry is that genetically diverse colonies may have improved division of labor because of genotypic variation in the propensity of workers to engage in particular tasks. Here we investigate whether there may also be genotypic variation in the ability to carry out a task, by examining the effect of genotype, as well as caste and age, on the foraging performance of workers of the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex subterraneus. Larger ants cut larger fragments of orange-impregnated parafilm, and did so more quickly than smaller ants, whereas older ants also cut larger fragments but were slower to transport them. Most importantly, we found that patrilines within colonies differed significantly in the size of fragment cut, and the speed of cutting and transporting fragments when controlling for both ant size and fragment size in the analyses. Certain patrilines were better foragers, often in multiple ways, whereas other patrilines were significantly worse at foraging. Genotype can therefore affect the ability of social insect workers to carry out tasks as well as their previously shown propensity to engage in them, providing an additional mechanism by which genetic diversity may be beneficial to social insect colonies

High-throughput barcoding method for the genetic surveillance of insecticide resistance and species identification in Anopheles gambiae complex malaria vectors.

Surveillance of malaria vector species and the monitoring of insecticide resistance are essential to inform malaria control strategies and support the reduction of infections and disease. Genetic barcoding of mosquitoes is a useful tool to assist the high-throughput surveillance of insecticide resistance, discriminate between sibling species and to detect the presence of Plasmodium infections. In this study, we combined multiplex PCR, custom designed dual indexing, and Illumina next generation sequencing for high throughput single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-profiling of four species from the Anopheles (An.) gambiae complex (An. gambiae sensu stricto, An. coluzzii, An. arabiensis and An. melas). By amplifying and sequencing only 14 genetic fragments (500 bp each), we were able to simultaneously detect Plasmodium infection; insecticide resistance-conferring SNPs in ace1, gste2, vgsc and rdl genes; the partial sequences of nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacers (ITS1 and ITS2) and intergenic spacers (IGS), Short INterspersed Elements (SINE), as well as mitochondrial genes (cox1 and nd4) for species identification and genetic diversity. Using this amplicon sequencing approach with the four selected An. gambiae complex species, we identified a total of 15 non-synonymous mutations in the insecticide target genes, including previously described mutations associated with resistance and two new mutations (F1525L in vgsc and D148E in gste2). Overall, we present a reliable and cost-effective high-throughput panel for surveillance of An. gambiae complex mosquitoes in malaria endemic regions

Role of citizen science in air quality monitoring

Citizen science has the potential to contribute to the monitoring and mitigation of urban pollutants, particularly in regions lacking resources and data, by improving the spatial and temporal scales of environmental research in urban areas. There is an increasing realisation that involving local citizens in monitoring campaigns may also foster learning opportunities and increase awareness of environmental issues. In this chapter, we explore new innovations and technologies in the field of citizen science to engage civil society in the monitoring and management of air pollution in urban contexts