CLEANED documentation: Conceptual overview of CLEANED and parameterisation of a CLEANED tool for Lushoto, Tanzania

This companion document provides supporting information about the “Comprehensive Livestock Environmental Assessment for improved Nutrition, a secured Environment and sustainable Development along livestock value chains” (CLEANED) tool and how it has been parameterised for use in Tanzania, including a description of the study area. CLEANED is a spatial multi-dimensional and rapid environmental impact assessment framework of livestock value chains. It was developed to identify potential positive and negative environmental impacts of proposed practices or development interventions, and a ddresses the current gap in environmental assessment methods by being a rapid, multi-dimensional assessment tool including various spatial and temporal scales. For the “Researchand Learning for Sustainable Intensification of Smallholder Livestock Value Chains”(ResLeSS) project, CLEANED has been applied in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Tanzania. The CLEANED model focuses on environmental impact of livestock value chains associated with feed production, which constitutes the major source of environmental impacts related to livestock value chains.Environmental impact is categorized into four key impact dimensions that are used as proxies to assess environmental change. Three dimensions, I) water, II) land/soil and III) biodiversity, are impacting the local environment, while the fourth, IV) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, is used to assess the contribution to global climate change (CC). The tool uses pixel based modelling with spatial input data to generate output maps showing the distribution of environmental change in relation to baseline conditions. As such the CLEANED tool can be seen as a way to give meaning to the many openly available but difficult to interpret GIS data for the context of transforming livestock value chains. In Tanzania, the focus is smallscale dairy production in the district of Lushoto, Tanga Region, Tanzania. Lushoto is located is in the mountains near to the Kenyan boarder. The reconnaissance work has shown that smallholders keep cattle for dairy in three different systems: extensive in the lowland, semi-intensive and intensive in the highlands. Yet, discussion about future developments in the first ResLess workshop have pointed out that in all three systems smallholders are trying to improve the breeds. This is why the CLEANED Tanzania works with breeds, namely preliminary local breeds, cross breeds (with 65-85% exotic genes), almost pure breed (more than 85% exotic breed). Local breeds are mainly found in t he lowlands and are mainly fed on natural grasses and some crop residue. The cross-breeds are found in the highlands and are mainly fed on a mix of natural grass, crop residues and a bit of concentrate. In this system the main issue is the feed shortage in the dry season, which can be addressed with the production of hay and silage. Also planted feed, which has higher nutritional value than crop residues could be used to improve milk productivity per cow. The almost pure breed is a category is only marginal ly existent in Lushoto in the current situation. These animals needs much more care and hardly feed on natural grasses and crop residues, but mainly on planted fodder and concentrates. Initial livestock population numbers to parameterise the ‘base run’ in CLEANED (a scenario that represent the present day situation) are calculated for the three categories using a triangulation between the participatory GIS activities in the first workshop, freely accessible spatial data layers and household survey and verified against provincial livestock population statistics from FAO and data available from the district office and Demographic Health Surveys (DHS). To make it easy and fast for users to build scenarios of livestock production in Lushoto (how to produce in each category and how many animals per category) in a workshop setting, a set of ‘vignettes’ was produced that describe credible combinations of feed baskets with animal productivity for each animal category representing two or three different livestock management options within each production category. These vignettes are pre- set within the CLEANED tool code, so that the non-expert can develop credible scenarios. This document accompanies the report of the second ResLeSS workshop in Lushoto, Tanzania, titled “ Exploring alternatives for livestock production in Lushoto, Tanzania: Playing the Transformation Game” , which presents the design and results of the workshop

Games as boundary objects: charting trade-offs in sustainable livestock transformation

Attempts to structurally transform segments of the agri-food system inevitably involve trade-offs between the priorities of actors with different incentives, perspectives and values. Trade-offs are context-specific, reflecting different socio-economic and political realities. We investigate the potential of structured boundary objects to facilitate exposing and reconciling these trade-offs within the context of multi-stakeholder social learning processes with pastoral and mixed crop-livestock communities in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Building on boundary objects as items flexible enough to be understood by all without having one common definition, structured boundary objects visualize actors’ input in a comparable format to facilitate knowledge sharing. Stakeholders in each country used a simulation tool and board game to explore the implications of changing livestock stocking and management practices for the environment and for actors’ future socio-economic priorities. Using structured boundary objects elicited trade-offs between household food and animal feed, and between livestock for income, labour, and/ or cultural functions, reflecting the context-specific and subjective evaluations actors make when attempting to plan livelihood changes. Our findings suggest to policy and decision-makers that sustainable transition plans can be developed when stakeholders in local agri-food systems employ approaches that allow shared understandings of trade-offs inherent to sustainable agriculture to emerge

Games as boundary objects: charting trade-offs in sustainable livestock transformation

Attempts to structurally transform segments of the agri-food system inevitably involve trade-offs between the priorities of actors with different incentives, perspectives and values. Trade-offs are context-specific, reflecting different socio-economic and political realities. We investigate the potential of structured boundary objects to facilitate exposing and reconciling these trade-offs within the context of multi-stakeholder social learning processes with pastoral and mixed crop-livestock communities in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Building on boundary objects as items flexible enough to be understood by all without having one common definition, structured boundary objects visualize actors’ input in a comparable format to facilitate knowledge sharing. Stakeholders in each country used a simulation tool and board game to explore the implications of changing livestock stocking and management practices for the environment and for actors’ future socio-economic priorities. Using structured boundary objects elicited trade-offs between household food and animal feed, and between livestock for income, labour, and/ or cultural functions, reflecting the context-specific and subjective evaluations actors make when attempting to plan livelihood changes. Our findings suggest to policy and decision-makers that sustainable transition plans can be developed when stakeholders in local agri-food systems employ approaches that allow shared understandings of trade-offs inherent to sustainable agriculture to emerge

Land use and land cover legacy effects on the mycorrhizosphere and productivity in the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are important microbial symbionts for plants especially when soil phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) are limiting, as AMF exchange nutrients gathered from soil for carbon compounds provided by plants. Although AMF have been extensively studied in temperate regions, the effects of land management and land cover changes on their abundance and their contributions to plant productivity in nutrient-poor tropical regions is still unclear. The research presented in this dissertation examined the effects of AMF abundance and species composition on plant productivity in soils of a protected area (Serengeti National Park, Tanzania) grazed by wildlife, and open village lands either grazed by livestock or cultivated. The first study of 112 sampling sites across the Serengeti ecosystem showed lower AM hyphal density, a measure of abundance, in cultivated croplands and livestock-grazed areas compared to wildlife conservation areas. This result, which emerged after accounting for correlations between soil P, N, and pH on AM hyphal densities, supports the hypothesis that tillage associated with cultivation damages AMF hyphae and more intense grazing by livestock compared to wildlife in conservation areas may reduce carbon supply to AMF. A second study used remote-sensing data to determine land cover changes in the Serengeti region in the three types of land uses, and found that land cover history altered some soil physico-chemical properties. Conversion of grassland or woodland to cropland did not influence current AMF abundance in croplands. However, in livestock areas, current grasslands that were converted from woodland after 1984 had lower AMF abundance than areas maintained as grasslands. These differences were small compared to differences in AMF abundance among land use types, and suggest that legacy of past land use has much weaker effects on AMF than current soil, disturbance and grazing conditions. A third study explored the influence of land use type on AMF spore abundance, biomass production, and species composition at 18 sites (n=6 per land use type). Wildlife grazed areas had nearly double the spore densities and hyphal production, as well as higher species diversity compared to livestock grazed and crop agriculture areas, which were similar. Species composition was also significantly different across the three land use types, with wildlife-grazed soils dominated by Glomus constrictum and Gigaspora spp., livestock grazed soils dominated by Acaulospora spp., and agricultural soils dominated by Glomus pellucida. The results suggest that the different land uses and their associated differences in disturbance, grazing intensity, dominant host plant species, and soil properties are associated with much greater differences in AMF species composition than in AMF abundance. Finally, in a fourth study, I conducted a factorial experiment to test the hypotheses that AMF were important contributors to plant productivity and that AMF contribution would be higher on soils with lower organic matter and presumably lower nutrient availability. Field soils from sites in each land use type that were either high or low in organic matter (OM) were each subjected to two soil microbial treatments: control, or no manipulation, versus sterilization to remove soil microbes, including successful elimination of mycorrhizal colonization of plant roots and thus AMF but also soil pathogens and nutrient mineralizing bacteria. These soils were mixed with sterile sand and used to fill 2 liter pots that were then planted with sanitized seeds of one of two graminoid species, Zea mays and Themeda triandra. The total above and belowground biomass of seedlings was measured after 3 months. Overall, production of both plant species was significantly higher on control soils than sterilized soils, indicating that AMF likely contributed significantly to productivity. Likewise, soils with higher OM yielded significantly higher production. However, the contribution to productivity by OM and soil microbes varied significantly among plant species and soils from different land uses. Soil sterilization reduced biomass production for Z. mays only on high OM livestock-grazed or agriculture soils and for T. triandra only on wildlife-grazed soils of either high or low OM. Sterilization increased production of Z. mays on agriculture soils, indicating the potential limitation of productivity by soil pathogens. The impact of sterilization likely reflected the abundance of beneficial AMF in particular soils, such as Gigaspora sp. for the grass T. triandra or Acaulospora for Z. mays and the likely soil pathogen load for Z. mays, which might be higher on agriculture soils and their associated tillage and fertilization. The impact of higher OM on productivity was consistently strong across soils from different land uses for Z. mays but only strong for T. triandra on wildlife-grazed soils. These results suggest that likely AMF impacts on productivity are driven more by mycorrhizal and host plant species composition than by potentially limiting nutrient supply. Furthermore, OM and AMF beneficial effects may combine in complex ways with potential soil pathogens to limit productivity in these generally nutrient-poor tropical soils. The influence of different land uses on productivity appeared to be driven more by differences in soil microbes and host plants rather than by OM, which suggests that efforts to enhance productivity in uncultivated lands should focus on altering plant species composition, while efforts to enhance productivity in agriculture soils might not depend on AMF but instead on effective crop rotations that reduces soil pathogens

Application of remote sensing and developed allometric models for estimating wood carbon stocks in a North-Western Miombo Woodland landscape of Tanzania

Quantifying ecosystem carbon stocks is vital for understanding the relationship between changes in land use and cover (LULC) and carbon emissions; however, few studies have documented the impacts of carbon cycling on Miombo ecosystems. Here, we estimate the amounts of wood carbon which is stored and lost as a result of LULC changes in Kagoma Forest Reserve (KFR) for the periods between 1988 and 2010 using GIS data, Landsat imagery, and field observations.The land cover was captured on the basis of Landsat 5 TMand Landsat 7 ETM.The amounts of wood carbon stored and lost were estimated based on four previously developed allometric models. Spatial analysis of the Landsat images shows that in the year 1988, woodlands dominated the area by covering 32.66% whereas in the year 2010 the woodlands covered only 7.34% of the total area. The findings of the current study reveal that KFR had undergone notable changes in terms of LULC for the period of 1988–2010. It was estimated that the woodlands in the KFR lost an average of 4409.79 t Cyr−1. In this study, the amount of carbon stocks stored was estimated to be 21457.02 tonnes in tree stem biomass based on the area (1226.12 ha) that was covered by woodlands. We estimated that an average of 17.79 t Ch−1 was stored in the Miombo woodlands based on the four models. The efforts to ensure sustainable management of the Miombo ecosystem can contribute to the creation of a considerable carbon sink.This article is also available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/714734Norwegian embassy in Tanzani

Spatial-Temporal Variations in Dietary Consumption of Two Dominant Rodent Species (Rhabdomys dilectus and Lophuromys acquilus) on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Understanding the resource partitioning and diet of sympatric species is vital for conservation and management. From April 2020 to March 2021, a study on the dietary consumption of Rhabdomys dilectus and Lophuromys acquilus was conducted on Mount Kilimanjaro. Rodent trapping was conducted in agricultural fields, fallow land, and moorland habitats during dry and wet seasons. Sherman live traps and snap traps were alternately placed in transect lines for three consecutive nights. We calculated the percentage occurrence and contribution of dietary items, niche breadth, and niche overlap of the two species across habitats and seasons. Both species consumed all the examined food items. The most abundant components were vegetative materials and seeds/starch, followed by invertebrates. R. dilectus and L. acquilus preferably consumed seeds and invertebrates, respectively, as their primary food source. Niche breadth differed significantly between species (W = 650, p = 0.002), habitat (Kruskal–Wallis chi-squared = 6.82, df = 2, p = 0.03), and season (W = 700, p = 0.000). There was a considerable niche overlap in diet (ranging from 0.84 to 0.98) between the species and was relatively higher in the dry season compared with wet season. Despite the observed niche overlap, spatial-temporal variations in dietary consumption between the two species can serve as a mechanism of resource portioning enabling their coexistence

Spatial-Temporal Variations in Dietary Consumption of Two Dominant Rodent Species (<i>Rhabdomys dilectus</i> and <i>Lophuromys acquilus</i>) on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Understanding the resource partitioning and diet of sympatric species is vital for conservation and management. From April 2020 to March 2021, a study on the dietary consumption of Rhabdomys dilectus and Lophuromys acquilus was conducted on Mount Kilimanjaro. Rodent trapping was conducted in agricultural fields, fallow land, and moorland habitats during dry and wet seasons. Sherman live traps and snap traps were alternately placed in transect lines for three consecutive nights. We calculated the percentage occurrence and contribution of dietary items, niche breadth, and niche overlap of the two species across habitats and seasons. Both species consumed all the examined food items. The most abundant components were vegetative materials and seeds/starch, followed by invertebrates. R. dilectus and L. acquilus preferably consumed seeds and invertebrates, respectively, as their primary food source. Niche breadth differed significantly between species (W = 650, p = 0.002), habitat (Kruskal–Wallis chi-squared = 6.82, df = 2, p = 0.03), and season (W = 700, p = 0.000). There was a considerable niche overlap in diet (ranging from 0.84 to 0.98) between the species and was relatively higher in the dry season compared with wet season. Despite the observed niche overlap, spatial-temporal variations in dietary consumption between the two species can serve as a mechanism of resource portioning enabling their coexistence