Key Activities

The first phase of the FEFA program (2022-2026) focuses on

  1. High-level engagement in national and continental development issues (encompassing the triple bottom line).
  2. Building Africa-wide networks and projects.
  3. Developing and showcasing pilot projects where targeted interventions are having impact.
  4. Co-creating knowledge platforms and decision support tools.
  5. Building appropriate anticipatory governance systems and capabilities.

READ MORE ABOUT OUR ACTIVITIES BELOW

1) High-Level Engagement In National And Continental Development Issues

This includes working with the African Group of Negotiators Expert Support (AGNES) to craft a compelling Africa position for the UNFCCC that centres African ecosystems and needs, and links to other global framework negotiations such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Mohammed Armani and Ibukun Adewumi have been recruited to draft two technical reports – one for land and one for oceans – that will feed into a series of meetings with negotiators and experts to work towards a strong position before COP27 in Egypt in late 2022.

2) Building Africa-wide networks and projects

Co-funded by the Socio-Ecological Observatory for Southern African Woodlands (SEOSAW) and FEFA, University of the Witwatersrand researcher, Tatenda Gotore, is engaging with forestry departments to assess how the SEOSAW data can be used to inform their harvesting policies. He will also be merging data on human, elephants, and fire, to assess what sorts of harvesting rates are “ecologically representative” of the disturbance environment these ecosystems evolved with.

FEFA post-doc, Fezile Mtsetfwa, is working with African researchers to identify key parameters for demographic modelling of common woodland tree species.  We plan to use this data to inform sustainable harvesting guidelines in the region, which take into account the unique regeneration ecology of these tree species.

The true biodiversity of different types of African landscapes is deeply under-appreciated: biodiversity data across the continent is sparse and dominated by data from woody (tree) species. This means that it is difficult to assess the biodiversity cost of different management options, and moreover, can result in incorrect assessments of degradation. Rectifying this requires mobilising a large pool of local researchers who are trained in excellent data collection and organized into networks that allow for large-scale meta-analyses and high-quality scientific approaches.

Together with the Global Grassy Group (GGG), FEFA will be collating and expanding herbaceous biodiversity plot data – driving novel scientific insights into the biogeography of these ecosystems and informing assessments of the biodiversity costs of different land uses. FEFA researchers Duncan Kimuyu and Robert D’Anglia will be taking this further to address the challenging question of degradation in rangelands as part of the WIGO (when is grazing overgrazing) project.

FEFA has identified i) a lack of understanding of the extent of existing ploughed lands and ii) the long-term consequences of ploughing as key constraints to land use planning on the continent. The damage associated with soil disturbance is under-recognised relative to other forms of degradation, and there is insufficient legislation and policy around how and where to expand agricultural areas, and what do to with previously ploughed landscapes. This is especially true in fire-prone African ecosystems where organisms invest in below-ground organs and stored reserves and are therefore highly resilient to above-ground disturbance, while sensitive to soil disturbance and having very low recruitment rates.

This project integrates field data on recovery rates of key ecosystem parameters (soil carbon, biodiversity) with mapping of the extent of existing ploughed landscapes to provide the evidence base to inform nature-based solutions associated with agricultural expansion and to raise global attention on the consequences of ploughing grasslands.

3) Developing and showcasing pilot projects where targeted interventions are having impact

4) Co-creating knowledge platforms and decision support tools

  • RECCAP2 project understanding the African Carbon Cycle
  • Africa Environment Index
  • Mapping ploughed landscapes
  • Identifying future landscapes at risk of mining expansion

5) Building appropriate anticipatory governance systems and capabilities

  • A preliminary framework for a decolonial praxis that is appropriate for African people and ecosystems will be developed with core experts from across the continent.
  • High-level engagements with experts and practitioners to develop radical, alternative futures for the high seas that include a diverse set of knowledge systems will be undertaken to feed into ongoing high-level processes such as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) and CBD negotiations.
  • Two PhD students will be recruited to undertake the futures work over the course of the project and to feed findings into decision support.
  • A case study on African ecosystems for the IPBES Task force on scenarios and models that uses the Nature Futures Framework will also be developed.

An Africa-led, Africa-centred program to influence thinking and action in new ways.