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ORYCS - Options for sustainable land use adaptations in savanna systems

Options for sustainable land use adaptations in savanna systems: Chances and risks of emerging wildlife-based management strategies under regional and global change. Namibian savannas are hot spots of climate, land-use and socio-economic change that function as model-region for many savannas worldwide. Increasing temperatures, changing amounts and distributions of precipitation, rising levels of atmospheric CO2 together with intensifying land-use threaten the functioning of these sensitive ecosystems and thus the livelihood of thousands of households who depend on a sustainable provision of multiple ecosystem services (e.g. water provision, forage production, biodiversity and tourism). Maladapted land management increases the risk of land degradation and loss of ecosystem services by disrupting the regulating functions of complex feedbacks between geo- and biosphere, for example between herbivores, vegetation, soil, water and carbon. Already today much of Namibia’s rangelands are in an alarmingly degraded state (e.g. 31.5% of Namibia’s land surface suffers from bush encroachment) with concomitant impacts on the national economy including the tourist industry, and observed increases in poverty levels. Thus, new land-use options that are better adapted to changing environmental conditions are urgently needed (NCRST 2014, MET 2014a,b).

land use, wildlife, savanna, SPACES II, BMBF, Namibia, research

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