HOORC Research Forum

At the HOORC Research Forum meeting held last week, Prof Masamaba looked at how a monitoring tool could be developed to perform key surveillance functions in the Okavango Delta in collaboration with government departments and questioned whether the need for monitoring has been clearly articulated. Dr. Murray Hudson, in his presentation, Floodplain vegetation ecology and flooding regime in the Okavango Delta, examined the possible scenarios that can arise to the vegetation ecology with regards to flooding and how vegetation changes within seasonally and permanently flooded floodplains. Dr. C. Bonyongo called for a regional partnership approach aimed at alleviating poverty in his presentation, "Ecosystems services for poverty alleviation-a call for proposal. Possible research themes advanced were: Climate variability and change on water cycles; Forest, land use change and ecosystem services and Political economy of sustainable ecosystem services for poverty reduction and sustainable growth.