The main objective of this FP7 EC research project (2011-2014) is to contribute to the development of water harvesting technologies for farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the ultimate aim to strengthen rain-fed agriculture, rural livelihoods and food production and security in the region. The project (coordinated by CIS-VUA) involves two other European and five African organisations, namely Newcastle University (UK), the Stockholm Resilience Centre (Sweden), University of Kwazulu Natal (South Africa), Sokoine University (Tanzania), Southern and Eastern Africa Rainwater Network (Kenya), the National Institute for Environment and Agricultural Research (Burkina Faso) and Arba Minch University (Ethiopia). The project comprises a set of Research & Development work packages, starting with "revisits" to previously research sites in up to 15 countries in Africa, followed by five work packages on cross-cutting research and technology development themes (environmental sustainability; technology development; livelihood improvements; uptake and up-scaling; and global and regional impact). Complementing the cross-cutting R&D are four country-based work packages that focus on Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania and South Africa. Combined with participatory and multi-disciplinary approaches are the field testing of systems, and associated technical data collection and assessment. The core R&D activities include multiple-scale assessments, integrated studies, scenario analysis, and agro-hydrological modelling. One of the first products of this project has been "Water Harvesting in Sub-Saharan Africa", a book edited by William Critchley and John Gowing, with contributions of VU staff and consortium partners in Europe en Africa (Earthscan, 2012). With CIS as the project coordinating body, the project offers opportunities for research at the VUA, for example, on the uptake and up-scaling of water harvesting technologies through the Institute for Environmental Studies (IvM; see below). For more details see the WHaTeR project website (Contact: Dr. Denyse Snelder, Sabina Di Prima MSc).
The Philippines has one of the highest biodiversity resources in the world, which sadly are also one of the most threatened globally. Climate change is projected to exacerbate the threats facing biodiversity worldwide but its local impacts in the Philippines have not been fully investigated. This project aims to integrate climate change considerations in biodiversity planning and conservation in the Philippines. In collaboration with Leiden University, CIS-VUA contributes to the assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on bird species distribution in the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, a protected area in the north-eastern part of the island of Luzon. Fine-scale species distribution models are developed to predict the response of selected groups of bird species (e.g., endemic, red list and forest bird species) to various land-use change and climate change scenarios (Contact person: Dr. Denyse Snelder).
This research is part of STRONGBOW, a NICHE 023 project funded by NUFFIC designed to contribute to capacity building in Ethiopian Higher Education Institutes within the fields of natural resource management, tourism and ecotourism. The project is managed by CIS-VUA in collaboration with the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre and Network (HoA-REC/N). It includes the conduct of research through 11 PhD fellows together with the Catholic University of Leuven, Ghent University and five Ethiopian universities. VUA is contributing to the analysis of land-use change, impacts and implications for sustainability in South-Western Ethiopia (IvM), to ecotourism entrepreneurship in Southern Ethiopia (VUA-Economics / M&O), and to peoples and parks: role of ecotourism in park management and conservation (upcoming; contact persons: Dr. Denyse Snelder, Dr. Henk van de Heuvel).
The premise of the SCI-SLM project, funded by UNEP-GEF, is that there are local community initiatives succeeding in combating desertification where formal research recommendations have often failed. SCI-SLM focuses on identifying innovative forms of land management within communities in four African countries: Ghana, Morocco, South Africa and Uganda. The project helps to add value to these practices, and encourages other communities to learn from those focal points. A key way to achieve this is by cross visits - within as well as between the participating countries: these visits create unique opportunities for "South-to-South" exchange of knowledge. At a higher level SCI-SLM seeks to institutionalise the concept and mechanisms of such an approach within the relevant Government Ministries and other important organisations. Three agencies are involved in the coordination, management and guidance of SCI-SLM: the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as overall implementing agency, the Centre for Environment, Agriculture and Development (CEAD) of the University of KwaZulu Natal (RSA) as the executing agency/overall coordinating body, and CIS-VU as the technical backstopping agency (Contact: Dr. William Critchley, Sabina Di Prima MSc, Wendelien Tuyp MSc).
The ARI project builds on and expands the scale of existing successes in farmer-managed re-greening. ARI is inspired by the large-scale re-greening in some densely-populated regions in Niger (5 million ha) where farmers have protected and managed woody species that regenerate spontaneously on their cultivated fields. Today African countries face food crises, climate change and rapid demographic growth. The challenge is to quickly develop substantive action to improve and expand tree-based production systems in Africa's dry-lands. The strength of trees is that they can produce fodder, firewood, fruits and help increase agricultural production. ARI aims to promote this farmer-managed natural regeneration. Two related projects have been developed together with the Network Institute of VU University and the Web Foundation, called Web alliance for Re-greening in Africa (W4RA) and Voices. (Contact: Chris Reij MSc, Wendelien Tuyp MSc).