scholarly journals The meaning and practice of stewardship in South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 115 (5/6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Cockburn ◽  
Georgina Cundill ◽  
Sheona Shackleton ◽  
Mathieu Rouget
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Landscape Management ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Sustainable Landscape Management ◽  
Sustainability Challenges ◽  
Ecological Stewardship ◽  
Sustainable Landscape

Stewardship offers a means of addressing social-ecological sustainability challenges, from the local to the global level. The concept of stewardship has had various meanings attached to it over time, and the links between the theory and practice of stewardship are not well understood. We sought to characterise the practice of stewardship in South Africa, to better understand the relationship between theory and practice. We found that practitioners’ understandings of stewardship coalesce around two core notions: the idea of stewardship as ‘responsible use and care’ of nature, and stewardship as a ‘balancing act’ between stewards’ use of natural resources for agricultural production and their responsibility to protect and manage the wider ecosystem. Stewardship practice in South Africa is strongly influenced by the biodiversity stewardship tool; however, many practitioners are integrating biodiversity stewardship with other approaches. These emerging social-ecological stewardship initiatives operate at landscape-level and work towards integrated social and ecological stewardship outcomes, by facilitating collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Further research is needed to better understand what is required to support these integrated, collaborative and cross-sectoral initiatives. Policy mechanisms that facilitate integrated place-based stewardship practice can contribute to expanding the practice of biodiversity stewardship in South Africa. Significance: Our findings contribute to a growing understanding of what stewardship looks like in South Africa and how it is put into practice. We show that biodiversity stewardship is a prevalent understanding of stewardship practice in South Africa and is often combined with other approaches for sustainable landscape management. A broader understanding of stewardship, for example through the concept of social-ecological stewardship, can enable more integrated, collaborative approaches to landscape management, addressing the wide range of environmental and social development challenges faced in rural landscapes across South Africa.

scholarly journals Green Infrastructure Planning Principles: An Integrated Literature Review

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 525
Author(s):  
Renato Monteiro ◽  
José C. Ferreira ◽  
Paula Antunes
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Landscape Management ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Infrastructure Planning ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Sustainable Landscape Management ◽  
Sustainable Landscape

Green infrastructure is a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas, including green and blue spaces and other ecosystems, designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services at various scales. Apart from the ecological functions, green infrastructure, as a planning tool, contributes to social and economic benefits, leading to the achievement of sustainable, resilient, inclusive and competitive urban areas. Despite recent developments, there is still no consensus among researchers and practitioners regarding the concept of green infrastructure as well as its implementation approaches, which makes it often difficult for urban planners and other professionals in the field to develop a robust green infrastructure in some parts of the world. To address this issue, an integrative literature review was conducted to identify which green infrastructure planning principles should be acknowledged in spatial planning practices to promote sustainability and resilience. As a result of this literature review, the most common eight green infrastructure planning principles were selected—connectivity, multifunctionality, applicability, integration, diversity, multiscale, governance, and continuity. These principles intend to promote and simplify the development and use of green infrastructure by different academic and implementation organizations and provide a more defined model for sustainable landscape management in order to help practitioners and decision makers during the conceptualization and planning of green infrastructure.

Using staphylinid and tenebrionid beetles as indicators of sustainable landscape management in Australia: a review

2007 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 435 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. F. Michaels
Keyword(s):  
Selection Process ◽  
Landscape Management ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Individual Species ◽  
Management Objectives ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Sustainable Landscape Management ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Sustainable Landscape

The review examines a range of global literature concerning the beetle families Staphylinidae and Tenebrionidae, to evaluate their potential as indicators of sustainable landscape management in the Australian context. Both beetle families are diverse, widespread, easily collected and functionally important in a wide range of habitats in Australia. Both families are responsive to changes in environmental conditions, although the nature of the response depends on the environmental condition and often on the individual species. The response of staphylinids and tenebrionids to environmental change has reflected that of other invertebrate species or groups in some instances. Sustainability indicators need to be linked to management objectives and land managers need to be involved in the indicator selection process. Sampling, identification and assessment methods designed to match land managers’ capabilities should result in an increase in the use of staphylinids and tenebrionids as sustainability indicators.

scholarly journals Erosion Control Success Stories and Challenges in the Context of Sustainable Landscape Management, Rwanda Experience

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jules Rutebuka
Keyword(s):  
Scale Up ◽  
Landscape Management ◽  
Erosion Control ◽  
Management Approach ◽  
Agriculture Sector ◽  
Success Stories ◽  
The Government ◽  
Sustainable Landscape Management ◽  
Sustainable Landscape ◽  
Farm Livestock

The Government of Rwanda sets up a conducive policy environment to invest in several development initiatives. Agriculture sector as the main contributor in the economic development received supports to sustainably manage Rwandan hilly landscape, dominantly ranging from 5 to 55% slope gradient. Intensive erosion control interventions confronted with different approaches have been introduced in the country such as participatory landscape management, (participatory) integrated watershed management and site-located intervention without any specified approach. This chapter intends to describe and evaluate the impacts of these previous approaches used in Rwanda in order to retrieve the success stories and encountered challenges as lessons learnt in the future interventions for optimizing land productivity in a sustainable manner. Participatory landscape approach in Gishwati area was a success story in protecting degraded lands and generating ecosystem benefits. It leads to more sustainable natural resources management from participatory planning up to implementation which addressed the frequent landslides, erosion and flooding while sustainably exploit the land to the profit of local farmers in the livelihoods. About 6,600 ha of lands have been successfully protected with full-packaged bench terraces, rangeland blocks and forest regeneration. This participatory approach also helped to relocate people from high risk zones to other safe places and build capacities of farmers through farm-livestock cooperatives. On the other side, Nyanza and Karongi sites under LWH project also emphasized strong evidences how land husbandry technologies (terraces) efficiently reduced erosion risks and improved farmers’ livelihoods. Lands were made productive with implementation of bench terraces on 3212 and 2673 hectares respectively for the two selected sites. However, challenges were observed from technical and socio-economic contexts which might have caused farmers to abandon or under-exploit the terraced lands. Finally, the chapter suggests to scale up the participatory landscape management approach which supports the involvement of farmers’ communities in the process.

scholarly journals Sustainable landscape management in the Vilhelmina Model Forest, Sweden

2012 ◽  
Vol 88 (03) ◽  
pp. 291-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Svensson ◽  
Per Sandström ◽  
Camilla Sandström ◽  
Leif Jougda ◽  
Karin Baer
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Management ◽  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Forest Ecosystems ◽  
Landscape Planning ◽  
Landscape Management ◽  
Economic Data ◽  
Flexible Planning ◽  
Sustainable Landscape Management ◽  
Sustainable Landscape

The aim of this paper is to outline current foundations for sustainable landscape management in the Vilhelmina Model Forest, northwest Sweden. A case study revealed that the remaining patches of undisturbed or less disturbed boreal forest ecosystems comprise multiple values and, thus, constitute the basis for landscape planning. By identifying these patches, it is also possible to construct a spatial planning infrastructure for implementing sustainable management and land use. A more comprehensive toolbox needs to be developed, however, including monitoring and inventory schemes for relevant biophysical and socio-economic data, better temporal resolution for cause and effect analyses, and functioning scale-flexible planning and governance instruments.

scholarly journals Understanding and Integrating Local Perceptions of Trees and Forests into Incentives for Sustainable Landscape Management

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Laurent Pfund ◽  
John Daniel Watts ◽  
Manuel Boissière ◽  
Amandine Boucard ◽  
Renee Marie Bullock ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Landscape Management ◽  
Local Perceptions ◽  
Sustainable Landscape Management ◽  
Sustainable Landscape
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