NEWS AND UPDATES
Indigenous and Local Knowledge in Exploring Desirable Futures for the Mono Transboundary Biosphere Reserve in Benin and Togo, West Africa.
FEFA Project Update
Our understanding of savanna dynamics typically focus on trees and grasses. However, there is much still to be learned about the diversity, environmental determinants and functional ecology of other life forms. Across the miombo savanna ecoregion of south and central Africa, forbs (herbaceous flowering plants) comprise a large proportion of old-growth savanna ground-layer diversity but have typically received less attention in research and land management…..
Ground-layer diversity in the miombo savannas and ‘underground forests’ of Bicuar National Park, Angola
FEFA Project Blog
Our understanding of savanna dynamics typically focus on trees and grasses. However, there is much still to be learned about the diversity, environmental determinants and functional ecology of other life forms. Across the miombo savanna ecoregion of south and central Africa, forbs (herbaceous flowering plants) comprise a large proportion of old-growth savanna ground-layer diversity but have typically received less attention in research and land management…..
Exploring preferable nature futures for biodiversity and climate governance in the Barotse Cultural Landscape of Zambia
FEFA Project Update
Zambia’s vision to attain middle-income status by 2030 and its strategic development plan are anchored on environmental sustainability. The main constraints to achieving these future goals are climate change and biodiversity loss. A missing aspect identified in the governance of biodiversity and climate is the limited ……
Towards an African Food system of the Future
FEFA Project Blog
Imagine that the year is 2200, you are sitting outside your favourite restaurant in Braamfontein. You just ordered a meal of your liking. Through an inclusive, healthy and sustainably informed dietary choice, based on your meal, briefly engage the following questions. As a sustainability scientist, these are all questions I contend with, through my work on using indigenous African food knowledge, as a transformative pathway towards a sustainable food system of the future ….
Resprouting habits of cyclone damaged trees of the Miombo
FEFA Project Blog
Cyclone Idai made landfall in Mozambique, March 2019. Cyclones of Idai’s proportion (greater than category 3) are notorious for causing considerable damage to vegetation, often felling large trees (>10 cm diameter and with the potential to grow beyond 40 cm diameter) in their path. As part of the FEFA research program working to quantify the resilience of African woodlands through understanding the recovery dynamics of these woodlands, we are studying how ….
Effects of changing agricultural practices in the peatlands
FEFA Project Update
The highlands of Angola house precious biodiversity and the sources of the rivers that feed the Okavango. PhD Student Telmo Antonio will be working with the FEFA team to understand how the changing agricultural practices in the peatlands interact with fire to affect carbon and biodiversity ……
Roots, Rain, and Resilience: Sampling shenanigans in the grasslands of South Africa
Global Grassy Group Blog
Two budding researchers Elaine Slooten and Eulalia Jordaan, from NWU in South Africa embarked on a two-month sampling journey to gather soil and floristic data. This expedition was part of the FEFA program for their MSc’s, supported by Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation, Frances Siebert (NWU), and Sally Archibald.
The aim of this research is to determine to which degree the floristic and functional diversity, as well as the carbon stocks (including soil – and plant organic carbon), of Highveld grasslands in South Africa can recover after being ploughed.
Exploring preferable nature futures for biodiversity and climate governance
FEFA Project Update
FEFA PhD candidate Mulako Kabisa completed the second phase of her data collection in June 2024. The final stage of this data collection was a four-day futures workshop on “Exploring preferable nature futures for biodiversity and climate governance in the Barotse Cultural Landscape of Zambia”. It involved 19 participants ……
African Roadmap “build-phase” begins
FEFA Project Update
Representatives from the African Group of Negotiators Expert Support (AGNES), Future Ecosystems for Africa (FEFA), UNESCO-IOC, and Conservation International met in Nairobi, Kenya to build alignment in driving natural climate solutions in Africa that are tailored to the needs of African people and the ecology of African ecosystems……
The African Regional Greenhouse Gases Budget (2010–2019)
FEFA Project Update
“Africa is no longer the carbon sink of the world.” Future Ecosystems for Africa (FEFA) co-PI Prof Sally Archibald and Dr Yolandi Ernst, a Global Change Institute (GCI) researcher, co-authored a groundbreaking paper titled “The African Regional Greenhouse Gases Budget (2010–2019).” The paper developed a comprehensive African Greenhouse gas (GHG) budget covering 2000 to 2019 and found groundbreaking results.
A fireside chat with Jane Goodall
FEFA Project Update
OPALS-FEFA Shangani Workshop
FEFA Project Update
Oppenheimer Programme in African Landscape Systems (OPALS) hosts a workshop at Shangani Holistic from 16 to 19 October in partnership with Future Ecosystems for Africa (FEFA) and Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation (OGRC). The workshop aimed to strengthen the alignment of activities between the OPALS and FEFA programmes.
Fires Workshop in Angola
FEFA Project Update
Regional interest in the Future Ecosystems for Africa (FEFA) program grows at the first ever internal multi-stakeholder discussions on fire management held in Angola during the “Fires in Angola: dynamics, impacts and management” Workshop hosted in Instituto SuperiorPolitêcnico de Tundavala (ISPT) in Humpata, from 1 – 2 June 2023.
IPBES Nature Futures Framework Workshop
FEFA Project Update
Future Ecosystems for Africa (FEFA) Program co-funds the IPBES Nature Futures Framework workshop hosted in partneship with the the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) which took place at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Rural Facility from 14 to 17 November 2022.
20th Savanna Science Network Meeting 2023
FEFA Project Update
Several FEFA Researchers and Collaborators attended and presented research findings at the Savanna Science Network Meeting from 06 to 09 March 2023. These include Sally Archibald, Tatenda Gotore, Frances Siebert, Nikki Stevens, Bob Mandinyenya, Peter Makumbe and Duncan Kimuyu among others who were present. There was wide engagement among current FEFA project partners and collaborators while new opportunities were opened through other people who showed interest in FEFA work.
Release of Technical Reports on climate actions at COP27
FEFA Project Update
At COP27 held in Sharm El -Sheikh, Egypt (6 – 18 November 2022), Future Ecosystems for Africa ran a panel discussion, ‘Identifying impactful action on land and oceans- a pathway to impactful resilient finance’ in support of launching two technical reports on mitigation and adaptation actions on Land and in the Ocean.
Oppenheimer Generations Research Conference 2022
FEFA Project Update
At the Oppenheimer Generations Research conference 5-7 October, 2022 Future Ecosystems for Africa ran a panel discussion: Post-growth or green-growth – alternative development pathways for Africa. The goal was to open up a debate on alternative economic models for equitable African development in the context of a need for sustainability and decarbonisation.
SEOSAW-GGG Herbaceous Protocol Training Workshop
FEFA Project Update
SEOSAW (Socio-ecological observatory for the study of African woodlands – seosaw.github.io), a Miombo Network activity, ran a Herbaceous Protocol Training Workshop in Morogoro, Tanzania at the Kitulangalo Forest Reserve plots,15-25 March 2022.
Centralised review of greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory reports by Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, and Switzerland
FEFA Project Update
The secretariate of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held a centralised review of greenhouse gas inventory reports submitted by Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, and Switzerland from 5 to 10 September 2022 in Bonn, Germany. The review process involved checking if the GHG inventories were compiled in line with the requirements set out in different decisions of the conference of parties (COP) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines for GHG inventories.