6 research outputs found
Restoration planning for climate change mitigation and adaptation in the city of Durban, South Africa
Peer reviewe
How to build science-action partnerships for local land-use planning and management: Lessons from Durban, South Africa
The gap between scientific knowledge and implementation in the fields of biodiversity conservation, environmental
management, and climate change adaptation has resulted in many calls from practitioners and academics to provide practical solutions
responding effectively to the risks and opportunities of global environmental change, e.g., Future Earth. We present a framework to
guide the implementation of science-action partnerships based on a real-world case study of a partnership between a local municipality
and an academic institution to bridge the science-action gap in the eThekwini Municipal Area, South Africa. This partnership aims
to inform the implementation of sustainable land-use planning, biodiversity conservation, environmental management, and climate
change adaptation practice and contributes to the development of human capacity in these areas of expertise. Using a transdisciplinary
approach, implementation-driven research is being conducted to develop several decision-making products to better inform land-use
planning and management. Lessons learned through this partnership are synthesized and presented as a framework of enabling actions
operating at different levels, from the individual to the interorganizational. Enabling actions include putting in place enabling
organizational preconditions, assembling a functional well-structured team, and actively building interpersonal and individual
collaborative capacity. Lessons learned in the case study emphasize the importance of building collaborative capacity and social capital,
and paying attention to the process of transdisciplinary research to achieve more tangible science, management, and policy objectives
in science-action partnerships. By documenting and reflecting on the process, this case study provides conceptual and practical guidance
on bridging the science-action gap through partnerships
Biological Invasions in South Africa's Urban Ecosystems: Patterns, Processes, Impacts, and Management
As in other parts of the world, urban ecosystems in South Africa have large numbers of alien species, many of which are invasive. Whereas invasions in South Africa’s natural systems are strongly structured by biotic and abiotic features of the region’s biomes, the imprint of these features is much less marked in urban ecosystems that exist as islands of human-dominated and highly modified habitat. Surprisingly little work has been done to document how invasive species spread in South African urban ecosystems, affect biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being, or to document the human perceptions of alien and invasive species, and the challenges associated with managing invasions in cities. This chapter reviews the current knowledge of patterns, processes, impacts and management of invasions in South African urban ecosystems. It highlights unique aspects of invasion dynamics in South African urban ecosystems, and identifies priorities for research, and key challenges for management. South African towns and cities share invasive species from all taxonomic groups with many cities around the world, showing that general features common to urban environments are key drivers of these invasions. There are, however, several unique biological invasions in some South African urban settings. The pattern of urbanisation in South Africa is also unique in that the imprint of Apartheid-era spatial planning is striking in almost all towns and cities and is aligned with stark disparities in wealth. This has resulted in a unique relationship between humans and the physical environment (e.g. very different assemblages of alien species in affluent compared to low-income areas). New ways of approaching invasive alien species management are emerging in South African towns and cities, but better facilitating mechanisms and protocols are needed for dealing with conflicts of interest
Evaluating the outcomes and processes of a research-action partnership: the need for continuous reflective evaluation
Programme evaluation and evaluation research have received considerable attention recently
(e.g. Fazey et al. 2013; Rossi, Lipsey & Freeman 2003). The quality and significance of research
programmes are traditionally evaluated against tangible, clearly measured outputs linked directly
to the research itself, such as the number of peer-reviewed publications, number of citations,
graduate training and other direct deliverables. Such systems of evaluation tend to suit research
in well-defined disciplines but are potentially inappropriate for evaluating interdisciplinary or
transdisciplinary research. Transdisciplinary (TD) research results tend to compete with the
criterion of academic achievement in disciplinary research and are seldom evaluated in terms of
their TD contribution (Bergmann et al. 2005). Given the pluralism of disciplines, research
paradigms, and stakeholders’ expectations, inter- and transdisciplinary research programmes
require a specific approach for evaluation (Klein 2008)