Led by the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP)and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Decade commits to the protection, conservation, and revitalization of ecosystems worldwide. Only with healthy ecosystems can we achieve global development goals, improve people’s livelihoods, reduce climate risks, and halt de loss of biodiversity.

The wildlife of sub-Saharan Africa faces unprecedented level of threats from loss and fragmentation of habitat, poaching, hunting, climate change, and population growth to name but some. There has been a steep generational decline to a vast number of species of fauna and flora, and the IUCN Red List demonstrates that many are vulnerable to extinction, including some of the continent’s most iconic species.

Large conservation organisations have an important role to play, but saving Africa’s wildlife can and will only happen if a robust network of well-functioning local organisations are working deeply within local communities.

Currently, however, there is a significant lack of local organisations with adequate capacity, skills, resources and funding – ACF exists to tackle this core problem.

As a Restoration Implementation partner, ACF will strengthen local capacities and lead restoration efforts through its landscape approaches – integrating biodiversity conservation, rural development and carbon sequestration through bottom-up, community-led projects.

Ecosystem restoration is increasingly seen as an immediate and effective way of tackling biodiversity loss and climate change at the same time. In the next decade, ACF will increase its efforts to promote and accelerate the restoration of savanna, rainforest, wetland and other landscapes in Africa, focusing on key biodiversity areas and ecological corridors.

With the support of our sponsors, partners and donors, ACF is proud to contribute to the Decade as a Restoration Actor. To support our ecosystem restoration work, please consider donating to ACF.

Learn more about the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration:

• Visit the Decade’s website
• Strategy
• Browse physical and virtual events
• Play a game, restore the planet

Photo: Antony Trivet (Scopio)

The post The African Conservation Foundation becomes Actor for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration appeared first on African Conservation Foundation.

The world’s most famous tropical forests found on lowlands, like those of the Amazon or Borneo, are celebrated for their ability to store carbon. The Amazon rainforest itself holds up to twenty years’ worth of fossil fuel carbon emissions in its trees and soil.

While tropical forests can also be found on tropical mountains such as Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, these have long been assumed to store much less carbon. On mountains, temperature decreases with increasing elevation, negatively affecting tree growth. Also, common mountain features such as thick fog, wind and steep slopes tend to constrain tree height.

If trees are smaller, and grow slower, then mountain forests should contain less carbon sequestered from the atmosphere through growth processes: a hypothesis which has been reflected in studies of tropical mountains in the Andes and southeast Asia.

But our research, recently published in Nature, shows that tropical mountain forests in Africa actually store as much carbon per hectare as those found in African lowlands – a finding specific to the continent.

This is because, although African tropical mountain forests have fewer trees (about 450 per hectare compared to 600 in other continents) than their lowland counterparts, they have a greater abundance of large trees (over 70 cm in diameter), whose increased mass means they hold on to more carbon.

We wondered if this unusual finding was thanks to elephant populations resident in many African tropical mountain regions, who eat and destroy smaller tree stems – creating room for others to grow larger – and also transport nutrients which are limited in mountain soils.

But we didn’t find significant differences in tree height between forests with and without elephants, although unfortunately our data only showed us if elephants were present in a given area and not how many were around. Other explanations could include the low frequency of tropical cyclones or active volcanoes in Africa, making it less likely for trees to be destroyed before they grow tall.

Carbon storage

A group of 101 researchers working at different institutions across Africa, Europe, North America, Asia and New Zealand measured 72,336 trees with trunks of over 10cm diameter on 44 mountains in 12 countries within the African continent. For each tree we recorded trunk diameter, species and height.

We used an equation to estimate the carbon stored in these forests, since actually cutting, drying and weighing trees – technically the most accurate method for analysing carbon capture – would rather undermine our aim to mitigate climate change.

We then calculated how much tropical mountain forest had been lost in the African continent over the past 20 years, using data from satellites. We estimated that 0.8 million hectares had been lost, mostly in DRC, Uganda and Ethiopia.

Unexpectedly, given the steep terrains which make logging operations or large-scale farming challenging, we found that in many African countries deforestation rates were higher in the mountains than the lowlands.

So if these mountain forests store more carbon than expected, we are releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than previously assumed. In fact, the 0.8 million hectares of mountain forest destroyed since 2001 has emitted more than 450 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the planet’s atmosphere, accelerating global warming.

Biodiversity loss

African tropical mountain forests are not only carbon-rich: they are also rich in biodiversity. Among their huge trees live elephants, mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, and numerous species of birds, amphibians and snakes found nowhere else in the world. Continued deforestation will push many of these creatures further towards extinction.

These forests also act as “water towers” (like giant water tanks), irrigating agricultural land and supplying numerous vital river systems including the Congo and the Nile. This makes them crucial for local and regional crop growth, hydropower systems providing renewable energy, and inland fisheries supporting nutritious diets and livelihoods for local communities.

Mountain forests often collect water droplets from fog in a process known as “occult precipitation”. This makes local landscapes much more humid than if the forests were not present. Destroying these forests is therefore not only terrible for our global climate, but also for regional weather and biodiversity, since many species require the specific conditions created by this humidity to thrive.

But our study also provides some hope. If these forests store more carbon than previously assumed, it could allow us to increase the economic benefits awarded to developing countries who successfully decrease deforestation, meaning greater incentives for forest conservation – and better futures for those who call the mountain forests home.

Aida Cuní Sanchez, honorary fellow, University of York; Martin Sullivan, Lecturer in Statistical Ecology, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Phil Platts, Research Fellow, University of York

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Featured photo by Hamsavani Raja Komaraim/Scopio

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This is a potential threat to drylands, grasslands, savannas and the rangelands they support.

Large areas targeted for forest restoration in Africa, Asia and South America are covered by savanna and grassland. These open ecosystems are incorrectly mapped as degraded forest in the publicly accessible Atlas of Forest and Landscape Restoration Opportunities.

They are in fact ancient, productive and biodiverse and support millions of livelihoods. They also provide many important ecosystem services, which would be lost if converted to forests.

Savanna and grassland store up to a third of the world’s carbon in its soils. They keep streams flowing, recharge groundwater, and provide grazing for livestock and wildlife.

Grasslands can store carbon reliably under increasingly hot and dry climates. The same conditions make forests vulnerable to die-back and wildfires. Restoring grasslands is also relatively cheap and has the highest benefit-to-cost ratio of all the world’s biomes.

Instead of providing guidance on how to restore healthy grasslands and savannas, documents guiding forest landscape restoration focus entirely on increasing tree cover. Rangelands and grassy biomes are barely mentioned on the websites of the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration, the Bonn Challenge and AFR100.

A recent review of forest landscape restoration projects in Africa found no examples of grassland restoration. Projects instead focused on afforestation – planting trees where they didn’t previously occur – regardless of vegetation type. This threatens the biodiversity of grasslands and savannas, which is rapidly lost under dense tree cover and is slow and difficult to restore.

Forest targets that aren’t based on science

Meeting the international targets for forest restoration requires large-scale afforestation. Nearly half the land pledged for forest restoration is earmarked for plantations, mostly of fast-growing exotic species. These provide a fraction of the ecosystem services of the natural vegetation they replace. And they store 40 times less carbon than naturally regenerating forests.

Forest restoration initiatives tend to be driven by targets, with little regard for local ecological context. This commitment to fixed areas of forest cover encourages tree plantations in ecologically inappropriate sites and conditions.

For example, Malawi has reportedly pledged 4.5 million hectares to forest restoration. This is over a third of the country’s total area. Planting trees and restoring community woodlots, plantations and riverbanks is presented as addressing food and water insecurity and restoring biodiversity. Yet studies have shown that Malawi’s vegetation has been mostly savanna and grasslands for thousands of years.

The National Mission for a Green India aims to put a third of the country’s area under forest cover, no matter what natural vegetation existed originally. Large areas of natural grassland-forest mosaics have been replaced with commercial plantations. In many areas these species have become invasive and difficult to control.

Why does forest restoration continue to ignore the local ecological context? What is the science that underpins these massive schemes?

The colonial roots of tree planting

Historical research shows that the fascination with tree-planting has its origins in colonial forestry. This in turn was rooted in the centuries-old (and now disproven) theory that forests bring rain and deforestation cause areas to dry up. The colonial forestry approach was to plant trees to make up for deforestation caused by local people. The latter often lost control over their land in the process.

Initially applied in Algeria, this approach was adopted throughout Francophone Africa, Madagascar, and eventually also the British colonies in East Africa and India. Since historical forest cover of Europe was estimated at roughly one-third, this became the target in other places too.

This led to over two centuries of planting forests as a solution for a variety of ills, including drought, warming temperatures, soil erosion and lost biodiversity. It’s remarkable how today’s science-policy platforms continue this narrative.

Promoting appropriate solutions

Forest landscape restoration has become a powerful instrument for guiding global efforts and funding. Its proponents have a responsibility to ensure that the framework is scientifically sound. Rather than setting ambitious but ecologically flawed targets for planting trees, landscape restoration should be appropriate for local social and ecological contexts.

No amount of ecosystem restoration will solve the climate crisis if its underlying causes are not addressed. The clearing of forests and other ecosystems for commodity agriculture and timber urgently needs to be regulated. Emissions from burning fossil fuels need to be drastically reduced.

Rather than targeting developing – and rapidly urbanising – countries for afforestation, incentives should aim to reduce fossil fuel emissions, convert to renewable energy and build energy-saving infrastructure.

Susanne Vetter, Associate Professor in Plant Ecology, Rhodes University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The growing interest in this area means it is more important now than ever before to consider effective tree planting that benefits communities and the environment.

To do this, the right tree must be planted in the right place for the right purpose.

But there are many misconceptions that need to be addressed before the “right” conditions for successful tree planting are met.

“Breaking down the misconceptions about tree planting ensures we do not invest in actions that cause further damage to people and the planet, only to realize these problems after the damage is already done,” says Susan Chomba, a World Agroforestry (ICRAF) scientist, who will speak at the upcoming Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) Tree Planting digital forum on September 29.

She will be joined by Manuel Guariguata, principal scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR); Ramni Jamnadass, co-leader of the Tree Productivity and Diversity unit at ICRAF; and Cora van Oosten, a senior project leader on landscapes, restoration, governance at Wageningen University.

Ahead of the event, the scientists address seven key misconceptions about tree planting and highlight more productive ways of managing these initiatives.

Misconception 1: Any seed is a good seed. Seed quality and sourcing is essential for tree planting success. Tree species are composed of many populations that can be wildly divergent with respect to their preference for the “right place.” Also, some seed sources may have a very narrow range of genetic diversity. One example is Grevillea robusta in East Africa. This tree was originally introduced from Australia, and today millions of these trees are now growing on small farms from Kenya to Rwanda. The entire population of trees all have a small handful of common ancestors and grow perhaps half as fast as they could do had they been from a good seed source with more genetic diversity.

Misconception 2: Once the trees are planted, the job is done. It is important to move beyond tree planting to tree growing. Tree growing means looking at trees as an investment requiring management, protection and realized returns on that investment. A focus on growing trees for the long-term can be particularly beneficial to smallholder farmers who stand to gain the most from realized returns in the form of marketable tree products and ecosystem services. Without this long-term focus, projects risk very low survival rates for seedlings, and wasted resources in the long term.

Misconception 3: All trees are easy to grow. A fundamental misconception is that any tree species can be planted anywhere and will grow easily. Although some smallholder farmers plant native food trees in agroforestry systems to help conserve them and ensure food security, this is not always an effective approach. Many native species are still wild or only partially domesticated, which means they are also under-researched and that optimum methodologies for farming them have not been developed yet. This can lead to major challenges with germination, propagation and management.

Misconception 4: Planting any tree anywhere is better than not planting a tree at all. Ecological niches such as grasslands exist, and these should not be replaced with trees. A diversity of Indigenous trees is also far more likely to restore and support biodiversity than monoculture plantations or plantations with a few species. There are also several niches on farms where farmers can cultivate trees for different uses, including soil fertility enhancement (through nitrogen fixing trees), food and nutritional benefits (e.g. fruit trees) and timber and energy, among other things.

Misconception 5: Tree planting is a top-down process. A common misconception is that successful tree planting initiatives should treat community members like employees who take orders from the top. Many people think that once funding from a big donor is secured, the planting project can simply pay farmers to collect seed, pay them to establish project nurseries and pay them to plant seedlings. That approach disregards the need for small-scale tree planters to have ownership and agency over planting that happens on their land. A sustainable process would ensure that knowledge is the basis for participation. Through capacity development community members can learn more about what a quality tree is; they should know how to source good seeds and seedlings; they should be informed about how they can improve their livelihoods through the trees they’re helping to plant.

Misconception 6: Tree planting is the only way to restore degraded land. The truth is that tree planting is just one of the tools in a well-stocked toolbox of practices. In fact, there are contexts where massive tree planting is a less favorable restoration technique, such as in arid and semi-arid areas where natural regeneration techniques can sometimes offer more effective and cost-efficient options. In arid and semi-arid areas, adding soil, water and livestock management practices increases the chances of success for both tree planting and natural regeneration.

Misconception 7: Climate change, biodiversity loss and food security can be addressed just by planting trees. These are complex challenges that require looking at both the causes (e.g. what is increasing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions) and the context-specific solutions for each. Natural regeneration, as well as efficient farming and livestock management should also be considered as methods of addressing environmental objectives.  Supporting community-led initiatives, valuing their products and services, and appreciating their efforts through institutional, technical and financial support is more effective than a single-purpose tree plantation.

Source: Forests News
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

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The decree, which was signed mid-July, had sparked outrage among local communities and conservation groups. In total 68,385 hectares of virgin forest would be turned into a forest management unit to be auctioned for timber extraction.

Ebo Forest is one of the last intact rainforests in central Africa, rich in biodiversity and home to the indigenous Banen communities who lived in harmony with this forest and its wildlife. Many species are on the Red List of Endangered and Critically Endangered species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Ebo forest is also an important carbon sink, which is important to mitigate climate change.

The elusive Ebo gorilla is possibly a new subspecies of gorilla. The local chimpanzees are a culturally unique population:  they are the only ones in the world that have mastered to use stones for cracking nuts, as well as using long sticks to catch termites.

Conservationists say logging activities will threaten the survival of these critically endangered species. The people of the region denounced the decision, promising to do everything possible to halt and reverse these plans. Dissatisfied, local people decided to launch a petition with the help of Rainforest Rescue and Greenpeace Africa, supported by the African Conservation Foundation and hundreds of other organisations and individuals.

On the 6th of August, Cameroon’s President Paul Biya instructed Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute to withdraw the decree which would allow exploitation of the forest.

Halting logging and exploitation is just a first step. In 2006 the Cameroonian government pledged to turn Ebo Forest into a national park, but this was opposed by local communities who feared their land would become state property. New plans can now be developed for sustainable land-use options and socio-economic activities that generate revenue for Cameroon, supporting the livelihoods of Ebo’s indigenous communities, and protecting this critical rainforest for some of Africa’s most endangered species.

The Congo Basin rainforest covers 200 million hectares, and is the world’s second largest rainforest after the Amazon. Widespread logging threatens these critical ecosystems. Globally tropical forests store carbon emissions produced by humans from the atmosphere, which means they play a major role in slowing global warming and halting climate change.

The post Cameroon government cancels logging concession that threatens wildlife in virgin rainforest appeared first on African Conservation Foundation.

The logging concessions would impact one of Africa’s great biodiversity hotspots. Ebo Forest is the habitat of a possible new subspecies of gorilla, as well as a culturally unique population of chimpanzees: the 700 chimpanzees appear to be the only ones in the world that have mastered both cracking nuts using stones and wooden hammers, as well as fishing for termites using long sticks. In other regions, chimpanzees use only one or the other of these techniques.

Over 40 communities in the region have been living in harmony within and around the forest for generations. The forest has ancestral and spiritual significance as a site for traditional rituals, and contains the gravesites of revered community elders. The local people were not consulted or even informed of the government’s intentions, and their rights to their ancestral land were ignored. If realized, the logging concessions would cost local communities their livelihoods and cultural heritage and make them increasingly vulnerable to new emerging diseases.

In its petition, which is addressed to the President of the Republic of Cameroon, Paul Biya, Rainforest Rescue calls on the Cameroonian government to:

• revoke the logging concessions
• protect Ebo forest and fulfill the promise to declare it a national park and
• respect the local population’s traditional rights and the principles of free, prior informed consent (FPIC) and involve them in any future land use planning process.

Rainforest Rescue co-chair Marianne Klute: “If realized, the logging concessions would cause immense social injustice and impact regional ecosystems as well as the climate. Logging opens the door for the wholesale destruction of the environment, as poachers, settlers, and land grabbers pour into the newly opened areas. We need the Cameroonian government to realize its responsibility for this unique and irreplaceable natural treasure.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Cameroon’s #EboForest is home to gorillas, tool-wielding Chimpanzees, Forest Elephants, Presuss’ Red colobus, Drills and many other rare and endangered species. It is one half of the Yabassi #KeyBiodiversityArea, making it a site of global importance to the planet’s overall health. It is also the ancestral land of more than 40 communities that surround it. In a letter to the Cameroonian government, scientists from @global_wildlife_conservation, San Diego Zoo Global Conservation Research Institute, @kewgardens and IUCN Primate Specialist Group, asked the government to suspend plans to create 2 long-term logging concessions in Ebo Forest. They asked that the government develop an inclusive land-use plan with the local communities who would be most affected by logging. Let’s #ProtectEboForest.

A post shared by Leonardo DiCaprio (@leonardodicaprio) on May 5, 2020 at 10:53am PDT

UPDATE

Good news!
Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has ordered the cancellation of logging concessions in the Ebo Forest. A choice for conservation and an example for the world. The rare ebo gorilla and other endangered species can still call this forest home.
Via Regina Fonjia Leke (Broadcast Journalist at Canal 2 International TV)

To view the petition, please visit: https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/petitions/1221/no-to-logging-in-cameroons-ebo-forest

Photo: Francesco Ungaro

The post Help prevent logging and save rare gorillas in Cameroon’s Ebo Forest appeared first on African Conservation Foundation.

Trees are good. Trees are green. Trees suck up carbon dioxide. Ergo: plant as many trees as possible and you solve the world’s environmental and climate change challenges almost overnight. Right?

Not at all, say a growing number of bewildered African ecologists. They worry that Global North-led mass tree planting projects will do very little to contain ballooning emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate-warming gases – and are more likely to ignite conflict over land tenure, food security, conservation and dwindling water resources for generations to come.

That US President Donald Trump has lent his support to mass tree planting rather than to the Paris Climate Agreement may also speak volumes.

At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos earlier this year, Trump signed up to the one trillion tree planting initiative, declaring: “We’re committed to conserving the majesty of God’s creation and the natural beauty of our world.” He avoided any reference to climate change.

Marc Benioff, CEO of the cloud-based software company Salesforce, also pledged to plant 100 million trees, remarking: “Who’s against the trees? Everyone’s for the trees. Trees are a bipartisan issue. I haven’t met any anti-tree people yet.”

Seed bombs

Closer to home, Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula also seems to think that trees-for-carbon plans are a great idea, so much so that she has challenged armies across the world to plant at least 75 million trees over the next year to slow global warming.

Soldiers may not even have to dig any holes, as the South African air force and army could simply bomb the country with “seed balls” (tree seeds encased in a tiny ball of fertile soil and clay).

Karishma Rajoo of the Durban-based Global Peace organisation, which is helping to spearhead the campaign, suggests that after crashing down to ground, the seed balls will take root and blossom when good rains arrive.

But several scientists across the world have voiced dismay over “quick-fix” global campaigns to cover the Earth with more carbon-absorbing trees – rather than taking firm action to chop the fossil fuel emissions that heat up the world.

Critics include William Bond, one of the country’s best-known ecologists and former chief scientist of the South African Environmental Observation Network. Speaking at the recent Savanna Science Network meeting at Skukuza in the Kruger National Park, Bond and three fellow scientists presented a sobering critique of global tree-planting campaigns to reduce atmospheric carbon.

Bond and his colleagues – Guy Midgley and Nicola Stevens of Stellenbosch University’s department of zoology and botany, and Caroline Lehmann of the University of Edinburgh and the University of the Witwatersrand – outlined just how much land in Africa has been targeted for afforestation schemes.

The Bonn Challenge – an initiative led by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the German government – aims to restore forests over 3.5 million square kilometres globally by 2030. This includes about 1 million square kilometres in Africa under the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) scheme, financed by the World Bank and other donors.

To put these figures into perspective, Bond and his colleagues say that the 2030 global target covers a land mass the size of Europe’s 10 largest countries, about 45% of Australia or about 36% of the USA.

So far, 29 African nations have signed up to the AFR100 scheme, with South Africa pledging to “restore” 3.6 million hectares of degraded land. Kenya committed to restoring 5.1 million hectares. Cameroon has pledged to allocate nearly a quarter of the country to tree plantations, Nigeria about 32% and Burundi hopes to reforest a whopping 72% of its land.

Bond and his colleagues stress that they have nothing against trees per se. In fact, they strongly endorse tree planting to restore closed forests, the retention of remaining intact forests and the planting of trees in urban areas for shade and enjoyment.

Misreading African biomes

However, writing in the science journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, they argue that several mass tree planting campaigns are based on “wrong assumptions” and simply distract global attention from the tougher business of decarbonising the world at source.

From an ecological perspective, they note that Africa is the world’s grassiest continent, supporting pastoral communities and large remaining herds of grass-dependent and sunlight-loving wildlife species.

“The tree-planting plans ignore the fate of the savanna’s current inhabitants. And they bring the risk of raging megafires as well as adversely altering stream flows. By fixing set targets by a set period, they are forcing rapid land-use change on a massive scale. It is surely time to pause and ask questions of tree planting and its consequences,” Bond suggests.

Some maps prepared in support of mass tree planting “erroneously assume that low tree cover, in climates that can support forests are ‘deforested’ and ‘degraded’. The bizarre result is that ancient savannas – including the Serengeti and Kruger National Park – are mapped as deforested and degraded (because tree cover is reduced by elephants, antelope and millions of years of grass-fuelled fires)”.

This “profound misreading of Africa’s grassy biomes” had given rise to schemes such as the Bonn Challenge and AFR100, with financial pledges of more than a billion US dollars over the next 10 years.

“Committing such vast areas to plantations for the next century should raise many questions. An obvious one for industrial countries that are funding these projects is whether afforestation (planting new trees, rather than restoring areas known, historically, to have been closed forests) will work to cool the climate,” they say, citing several scientific reports that suggest that tree planting cannot sequester carbon at the scale needed.

Bond and his colleagues say carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is currently increasing at about 4.7 gigatonnes of carbon per year but the sums committed to tree planting amount to a small fraction of the funds needed.

“Either the funders are short changing African participants, or they do not see afforestation as a serious contributor to carbon dioxide reduction.”

Tree planting was also very land hungry – requiring between 14 million and 47 million square kilometres of tree plantations to sequester the current carbon growth rates.

“For optimistic estimates, you would need to afforest an area 53% larger than the USA or 85% of Russia. For less productive plantations, you would need upwards of one-third of the world’s land area.”

Even if Africa achieved the 100 million hectare target, current carbon growth rates would be mitigated by a mere 2.7% per year.

“If this seems very small reward for afforesting a continent, consider that the coal that drove 200 years of the industrial revolution took 400 million years to accumulate. How can we possibly expect to grow enough trees to stuff all the carbon back in again in just a few decades?”

Issues of land and water

They suggest that in the rush to launch AFR100, there had been too little time spent on exploring the social, economic and ecological costs of converting Africa’s grasslands and savannas to plantations.

“The global scale of tree planting promoted by AFR100 and similar programmes ignores local concerns over land tenure, competition with agriculture and conservation, and imposes this single dominant land use for generations to come. In trading water for carbon, it has been repeatedly shown … that replacing native grasslands with plantations reduces streamflow.”

This reduction of water flow in rivers would create critical impacts on dry-season water supply for local communities already facing water scarcity.

“Far from being deforested and degraded, Africa’s savannas and grasslands existed, alongside forests, for millions of years before humans began felling forests. A better way of supporting Africa’s transition to a future warmer world might be to promote energy-efficient cities in this rapidly urbanising continent so that Africa follows a less carbon-intensive trajectory of development than other emerging economies,” they conclude.

Drivers of the AFR100 plan, however, disagree with suggestions that the reforestation project is simply about planting more trees, as the project also included work to reverse soil erosion and desertification and to restore river catchments.

“Successful forest and landscape restoration is forward-looking and dynamic, focusing on strengthening the resilience of landscapes and creating future options to adjust and further optimise ecosystem goods and services as societal needs change or new challenges arise,” according to the AFR100 website.

The AFR100 secretariat suggests the initiative will attempt to create a mosaic of land uses by establishing new projects on agricultural land, either through new planting or natural regeneration.

According to the World Resources Institute, vast forest areas have been cleared over recent centuries as agriculture has spread and human populations have grown.

“About 30 percent of global forest cover has been completely cleared and a further 20 percent has been degraded.”

The institute says a project to map restoration opportunities had indicated that more than two billion hectares worldwide offered opportunities for restoration – an area larger than South America.

The institute says restoration should complement and enhance food production and not cause natural forests to be converted into plantations, but University of the Free State mountain vegetation and climate-change researcher João Vidal remains sceptical about the benefits.

“This whole idea [of planting more trees across the world] gives me goosebumps. It has a northern hemisphere bias. These people don’t know what they are saying. It does not make sense,” he told researchers at the annual Conservation Symposium in KwaZulu-Natal in November.

The Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries has not responded to email queries on the current state of implementation of the AFR100 project in South Africa, nor whether the original proposals are being revised.

By: Tony Carnie
Read the original article on New Frame.

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An African leopard prowls silently through the undergrowth of the Northern Mist belt forests of the Soutpansberg Mountains. He knows every inch of this vast landscape, as this is his territory, where he has been the apex predator for the last 15 years. Measuring 2 metres from nose to tail he patrols his 500 km² range (Chase-Grey2011). He is a solitary creature, hunting alone, through day and night (Jenny, 2008), devouring almost any prey that he can sink his 2-inch-long canines into. No other male would dare venture here. His claw marks carved into nearby Waterberry trees act as a ‘no go’ warning to other wandering leopards. His species is spread far and wide, from Asian rainforests to dry African savannahs and even to the edges of urban life (Nowark RM 1999). Seemingly, the last thing this leopard is, is vulnerable, but there are some battles that he cannot fight alone.

Despite leopards’ huge ecological flexibility, the actions of humans have shrunk the range in which these iconic cats can survive. The African subspecies has disappeared from 37% of its historical range in the last 100 years (Jacobson, 2016). Hunting and habitat degradation moves leopards one step closer to extinction every day. However, despite this huge depletion of numbers these mountains support one of the highest population densities of leopards in a non-protected area in Africa (Chase Grey et al. 2013).

The secret to the leopards’ success in this area is based on a finely balanced ecosystem. Whilst the leopards feed on a healthy supply of herbivores from the bottom of the food web, a high density of large predators at the apex of the food web keeps the rest of the ecosystem in check. This ability to exist side by side indicates that the Soutpansberg may hold the secret to future conservation, not only leopards, but all of the flora and fauna that thrives here.

A Special Place

The Soutpansberg mountains sprawl across the Limpopo region of North-Eastern South Africa, from the Magalakwena River in the West to the boarder of Mozambique in the East.

One of the first things you may notice while trekking through these mountains is the distinct variety of unique biomes, from wetlands to thicket, grasslands, savanna, fynbos and forests. Each biome is supported by differences in soil structure; inducing striking variation in vegetation types growing there (Lane, 2009). With this, comes a great diversity in animal species feeding upon them. In fact, 60% of all mammal species found in South Africa have been recorded here (Berger et al. 2003). The floral and faunal diversity combined with the close proximity of multiple biomes makes the Soutpansberg an ecologically crucial location.

Extreme topographic diversity and altitude changes over a very short distance range from just 250m above sea level to the highest point, Lajuma peak at 1748m. The geographic location of the mountains also plays an important role on their ever-changing environmental conditions. At this latitude there are two distinct seasons. A dry season from May to August, when temperatures drop to as low as 12°C, and a wet season, when temperatures can climb up to 40°C.

On the arid, Northern slopes of the mountain rainfall can be as little as 367mm annually. Here, plants adapted for desert conditions litter the scorched slopes. Less than 10km south, in the mistbelt forests of the southern plateaus, fascinating floral adaptions, such as old man’s beard capture moisture from mists drifting in from the Indian Ocean. This phenomenon grants the mistbelt forests with eight times more precipitation than the northern slopes (Hahn 2002). This phenomenon facilitates conditions for a unique variety of succulent plants, such as Aloe, many of which are endemic to these forests. (Hahn, 2017).

Trouble in Paradise

The threats that face these mystical lands are created by humans. Trophy hunting and poor farming practices threaten to damage an ecosystem which has been in balance for millions of years. Throughout the 1800s an increase in farming in the area drove many resident herbivores out. Of the 27 large herbivores that used to live In the Soutpansberg, 12 are now extinct (Chase-Grey 2017) – most notably, the black rhino and the African elephant. Nowadays, large antelope species, like kudu have taken their place. They are biological lawn mowers, feeding on grasses and small shrubbery, thus playing a vital role in rejuvenating the area and preventing the natural succession into larger woody vegetation – a phenomenon known as bush encroachment.

This is a common problem across large parts of the African region. In effect, the vegetation composition shifts in favour of larger, woody species and with this, the open savannahs disappear. A decline of all of the species that thrive upon them will follow – meaning less food to go around for opportunistic leopards. Bush encroachment is apparent from the viewpoint of the Lajuma Research Centre on the Southern slopes of the mountain. Residents here report a visible disappearance of the iconic iron rich red soils of the savannahs that lie below, over the past 20 years.

For now, the Soutpansberg remains a refuge for leopards, however if the trend continues and without any substantial meals on the menu, the tree dwelling cats may leave the mountains, as their feline relative, the cheetah did many years ago. With their main competitors gone leopards and hyenas are the only large carnivores that remain. It is likely that the main reason for this is their lack of fussiness regarding food choices, but how far are they willing to go?

For some individuals the relative abundance of leopards in the Soutpansberg is seen as nothing more than an opportunity.  Since 2003 the Limpopo region, in which the mountains lie, has been allocated more than 50 leopard hunting permits (Chase-Grey 2011). Rather shockingly 63% of all trophy hunting in South Africa occurs in the area. Hunters will often target adult leopards, potentially threatening the population viability this species has evolved in an environment in which adult survival rates were high. A sudden change to this may have detrimental effects upon their population structure and rapidly decrease their effective population size.

Farmers that use their land for trophy hunting are only part of the problem. Commercial farming has the potential to be catastrophic to the ecosystem. Farming has been common practice in the Soutpansberg for a long time but a recent explosion in the number of ranches in the area is having a variety of detrimental effects.

This was all too apparent to the researchers in the Lajuma Research Centre when their hydroelectric generator stopped working in 2016. Upon inspection it was clear that there was very little water flowing down the waterfall in which it was placed. A farmer upstream had planted a large macadamia farm to take advantage of the ever-increasing price of the prized nut. It takes 1000 litres of water to grow 850 grams of macadamia. In more simple terms that’s 500 two litre bottles of water to produce a handful of nuts (The Macadamia 2018).

This type of farming is unsustainable, especially in an area in which water plays such a key role in a complex and diverse ecosystem. Large plantations also have the potential to split endangered populations up through a process known as habitat fragmentation. Whereby gene flow is restricted, leaving populations of terrestrial animals in even more danger from threats such as climate change and poaching.

An upstream macadamia farm divides precious habitat and uses vast quantities of water from the Lajuma river, upsetting the natural balance. A camera trap in the foreground monitors leopard activity in the area.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Thankfully, the mountains are gaining more global attention than ever. They are now rightfully recognised as a hugely important region for conservation and in 2009 became the focal point for the formation of the UNESCO Vhembe Biosphere Reserve; a vision which Lajuma Research Centre played an important role in forming. The Biosphere reserve was established to recognise the need for a sustainable relationship between man and the natural world through research, conservation and development. These 3 aspects aim to improve the lives for all stake holders in the area, including poor crop famers, conservationists and animals alike.

A great example of this is the influx of ex-poachers now using their invaluable knowledge of animal behavior to protect animals in reserves across the region. They now work as park rangers, contributing to the growing ecotourism industry in the area and safeguarding the animals they once hunted. Private reserves such as Leshiba protect some of the most threatened animals on earth. Communication between research groups and local farmers has also increased.

In 2017, researchers from the Primate and Predator Project situated in Lajuma Research Centre reassured local farmers that their cattle were not a main food source for leopards in the area. They achieved this through scat analysis, confirming that forest dwelling animals such as bushbuck and rock hyrax were top of the menu for the Soutpansberg leopards. This finding held true, even when the leopard scats were collected on local ranches.

With all parties considered, one message is very clear; this precious land and all of its resources must be conserved and sustainably shared to ensure that the scales of nature hang in balance. Conflicts between man and animals here will have no victor. We must learn to co-exist with nature, if the prowling leopards of the Soutpansberg are to reign in this kingdom for years to come.

Chase-Grey JN (2011) Leopard population dynamics, trophy hunting and conservation in the Soutpansberg Mountains, South  Africa. Durham theses, Durham university http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/823/

Chase Grey JN, Kent VT, Hill RA (2013) Evidence of a High Density Population of Harvested Leopards in a Montane Environment. PLoS ONE 8: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082832

Chase-Grey JN, Bell S, Hill A (2017) Leopard diets and landowner perceptions of human wildlife conflict in the Soutpansberg Mountains, South Africa. Journal for Nature Conservation 37:556-65

Hann H (2017) Endemic flora of the Soutpansberg, Blouberg and Makagabeng.  South African Journal of Botany 113:324-336

Jacobson AP, Gerngross P, Lemeris JR Jr, et al. (2016) Leopard (Panthera pardus) status, distribution, and the research efforts across its range. PeerJ: doi:10.7717/peerj.1974

Jenny D, Zuberbuhler K (2008) Hunting behaviour in West African forest leopards. African Journal of Ecology 43: 132-138

Lane DR, Coffin P, Lauenroth WK (1998) Effects of soil texture and precipitation on above-ground net primary productivity and vegetation structure across the central grassland region of the United States. Journal of Vegetation Science 9:339-250

Nowark RM, Walker EP (1999) Walker’s Mammals of the World 793-837

The Macadamia 2018. Do we have enough water for all our macs? https://macadamiasa.co.za/2018/10/23/do-we-have-enough-water-for-all-our-macs/

Photos: Chris Bell

Chris Bell is a student at Newcastle University and recently had an assignment which involved travelling to an ecological research centre in the Soutpansberg Mountains in Northern South Africa. He wrote an outstanding report about the future of leopards and other wildlife, given current harmful and unsustainable human activities like trophy hunting, encroachment and water extraction for agriculture.

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What does this look like when we scale down to the country level?

Our research focuses on Kenya – a country renowned for its natural environment, in particular its large mammals such as elephants, rhinos and lions. We looked into whether Kenya’s protected areas and policies adequately conserve its less well known mammals, birds, and amphibians.

We examined a total of 1,535 species. We used this snapshot of the country’s biodiversity because of the availability of data for these groups and because many are under threat.

In Kenya, protected areas that are governed by wildlife laws fall under three categories. These are: national parks (managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service), national reserves (managed by county governments) and conservancies. National parks and reserves cover about 8% of the country’s land surface. About 160 conservancies protect about 11% of Kenya’s land.

These protected areas were generally established in areas with large populations of big mammals and are the focus of the current wildlife policy. This policy aims to protect these species inside national parks and reserves and help landowners coexist with wildlife in conservancies. It gives landowners the right to benefit from wildlife, for example through revenue from eco-toursim and compensation for the costs of living with wildlife.

The number of wildlife conservancies has grown to protect the many of the large mammals which are found outside government protected areas.

Despite this, we found that only 16% of amphibian species, 45% of birds, and 41% of mammals are adequately conserved within government run protected areas and conservancies. Many species need attention in areas that are not supported by wildlife policies or laws.

Kenya is developing a new wildlife policy and conservation master plan. Protected areas and conservancies must be supported. But our research shows that new and innovative wildlife policies and practices are needed to adequately protect many of Kenya’s species.

Collecting data

For our study, we developed a data set that categorised land into different types of use:

• protected areas and conservancies (which are covered by current wildlife policy),
• forest reserves (managed by Kenya Forest Service),
• rangelands (areas grazed by livestock),
• forests, urban areas and agriculture.

We then used data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature database and Birdlife International to examine whether a species’ range was within a protected area, which other land-use options were important for conservation and which species needed more of their range to be protected.

Finally we used data on the human footprint – which includes information on built environments, cropland, human population density, night‐time lights, railways and roads. It allowed us to assess how pressure from people affects various species and which types of land use exert the highest pressures.

Inadequate protected areas

We found that many of the areas with the highest numbers of different species are found where considerable human pressures exist. These are often farmland areas, close to development, or rangelands. Substantial conservation efforts outside protected areas, and beyond the current policy focus, are required to ensure the longevity of these species in Kenya.

Worryingly, 80 species weren’t covered by any protected area at all. Many face immediate threats from human activities to their survival – such as the critically endangered Taita warty frog (Callulina dawida).

The highest density of large mammals is found in areas with the lowest human pressures. This is currently where wildlife policy focuses. Yet we show with locally acquired data that the number of bird and plant species can be highest in areas with considerable human pressures.

This same trend can be found in wildlife policies across much of the continent: a focus on protected areas and large mammals, with little consideration for broader biodiversity in systems dominated by humans.

Rangelands, farms and cities

Of all land uses we assessed, rangelands – which cover 67% of the country and mostly drier areas – are extremely important for conservation efforts. They cover the largest area of land and provide range for the majority of species.

Conserving wildlife and biodiversity in rangelands, which are dominated by livestock, is both possible and necessary.

People and animals can co-exist in these areas. For instance in Kenya’s rift valley there are communities that protect large tracts of land to support the free movement of people, livestock and wildlife.

Urban and agricultural areas are often overlooked and are also important for conservation.

For instance, there’s a mosaic of green space in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi – in the form of a national park, urban parks, forest reserves and residential gardens. It hosts as many bird species as the Maasai Mara national reserve. As cities grow, urban planning needs to consider biodiversity.

Lessons can be learnt from cities such as London and Washington DC. London, for example, supports key species by protecting open spaces and their habitat.

Taking care of forest patches within farmland is also crucial. In southern Uganda, for example, preserving forest patches in intensive agricultural land may benefit some bird species.

Future conservation efforts

Kenya needs to prioritise conservation interventions at the national level, across land-use types to conserve a large number of its mammals, birds and amphibians. To do this, policymakers must use data to identify key areas of habitat and species range that can be conserved.

Kenya should also develop “National Red Lists”, as has been done in Uganda and South Africa. This could help target action for threatened species.

To monitor progress, there should be local programmes to collect and summarise data on the environment, biodiversity, land use, human demographics and economic indicators. This will help to prioritise action too.

Our research echoes international calls for landscape‐based approaches to conservation. The call is to balance competing land uses in a way that is best for human well-being and the environment. This would mean policy reforms that integrate conservation with all other sectors of land use.

Without this, landscapes in Africa may end up in a similar situation to those of Europe and America, needing expensive, large-scale restoration and recovery strategies to protect biodiversity.

Peadar Brehony, PhD Candidate (University of Cambridge), who has focused on the impact that conservation efforts have on socio-ecological systems, contributed to this article.

Peter Tyrrell, PhD Candidate and Mistler Graduate Scholar, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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