Exploring preferable nature futures for biodiversity and climate governance in the Barotse Cultural Landscape of Zambia
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 participation of stakeholders in resource management. Engagement of multiple perspectives and plural values held by stakeholders and their relation to future management choices and sustainable outcomes through participatory future visioning processes is largely missing, particularly in biodiversity-rich mosaics such as the Barotse Cultural Landscape. This has had powerful policy implications, as governance, in many instances, has produced, reproduced and upheld power structures that ignore locally and culturally relevant narratives necessary for transformative change.
The Barotse Cultural Landscape in the Western Province of Zambia is a Key Biodiversity Area and a Ramsar site that provides a rich ecosystem mosaic with the potential to have co-benefits for peoples’ livelihoods and nature. Yet, the Province has one of the highest incidents of poverty, food insecurity and low agricultural productivity – and is vulnerable to climate variability and change. Climate model simulations suggest that temperature will increase, and rainfall and water resources will reduce in the Zambezi basin by 2100. All of which will have implications for biodiversity, people and the climate system.
Research on the Barotse floodplain has mostly focused on its economic potential, hydrology, agricultural production potential, traditional ecological knowledge, and ecosystem services – separately. Limited research has been conducted on understanding the floodplain as a complex social-ecological system despite the understanding that nature (biodiversity, ecosystems and resources) and people (individuals, societies and economies) are inextricably linked. Few studies have developed participatory futures scenarios that showcase multiple positive biodiversity and climate futures, and their relationships with people. This is a missed opportunity because the institutional and regulatory framework on climate, biodiversity, and natural resource management in Zambia is based on participatory approaches and the Eighth National Development Plan recognises that inclusive participation in resource management to inform policy decisions has been limited. In addition, alternative visions of people’s relationships with nature and the associated plural values and perspectives can identify pathways to incorporate into decision tools/policy processes/interventions to enhance agency and action.
This futures workshop aimed to explore the multiple values and perspectives of biodiversity and climate futures in the Barotse Cultural Landscape, the implications of these narratives for pathways towards transformative change in the landscape, and how all these relate to meeting the local and global commitments towards biodiversity and climate……
