Strategic Environmental Assessment in the Okavango Delta

Strategic Environment Assessment has been defined as a range of analytical and participatory approaches that aim to integrate environmental considerations into policies, plans and programmes. It serves to evaluate inter-linkages of socio-economic considerations and addresses impacts of different policies on the environment, be it water, tourism policy or forest policy towards a common future of the environment. For the Okavanga Delta, there has been a need for this assessment to assist decision makers in the broader environmental management of the Delta and the Southern African Regional Environmental Programme (SAREP) has provided the financial assistance for carrying out this assessment for the Okavango Delta Ramsar Site.

Environmental change trends 'mixed bag'.

According to scientific indicators, environmental change caused by human activities continues to rise — in some cases heading towards the 'tipping point' beyond which there may be no recovery — but social indicators offer hope that the battle to save the environment is not lost yet. Speakers at the Planet Under Pressure conference presented two sets of indicators of environmental change — scientific and social — and how they fared over two time periods: between 1950 and 2000, and since 2000. William Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute, reported that the key global physical, geological and biological indicators of climate change, such as carbon dioxide levels, loss of polar ice or tropical forests, continued to rise in each decade since the 1950s. On the other hand Sandra Diaz, professor at Córdoba National University, in Argentina, cautioned that unsustainable growth is taking a toll on the natural ecosystems that are losing their diversity.

Linking communities, tourism & conservation

According to the World Tourism Organization, “The development of sustainable tourism requires the informed participation of all relevant stakeholders, as well as strong political leadership to ensure wide participation and consensus building. The manual combines standard market-based analyses with socio-cultural, natural resource use and environmental assessments. It not only gives you ready-to-use tools like worksheets and questionnaires, it clearly outlines how to use these tools and when to use them. Perhaps, more important, this guide reinforces why the assessment process is vital in determining if sustainable tourism is a realistic option in a given destination. Full link available on Zeitfoundation website.

UNDP and OSISA collaborate to promote Social and Environmental Accountability in the Extractive Industry

The Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA) through its Southern African Resource Watch (SARW) and economic justice Programme is to undertake a 3 year project , "promoting social and environmental accountability in the Southern African mining sector. The aim of the project is to provide a clear understanding of the potential biodiversity risks associated with mining development in the SADC region. The project will help SARW and key partners in the SADC region to identify biodiversity areas and heritage sites which are at risk from mining activities. The project will focus primarily on seven countries(Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC, Mozambique, South Africa and Angola) and eventually cover the entire SADC region.

Request for Proposals: Development of Environmental Monitoring Content for OKACOM Website

RFP for acquisition and formatting of content related to environmental monitoring in the Cubango - Okavango River Basin for OKACOM's website.

The Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission’s Secretariat is developing a new, interactive website that will be updated more frequently, and with less human labour, using the Plone CMS. The site will bring together OKACOM’s own content with relevant materials from external sources. The site design includes pages for regularly updated monitoring reports of environmental conditions in the river basin, including hydrological data related to water discharge and levels, flood extent, meteorological data, vegetation changes and fires. The intention is that the site’s users will have direct access to updated and integrated data from the three riparian countries of Angola, Botswana and Namibia.

OKACOM would also like to take advantage of new technologies that are continuously making it possible to visualize this type of data in ways that make it more accessible to its broad stakeholder group.

A technical consultant to make arrangements for acquisition and formatting of content for this portion of the site is needed. Download the pdf.

Biodiversity improves water quality through niche partitioning

One of the leading causes of excessive nutrient is the loading of water bodies, so controlling nutrient levels in watersheds has become a primary objective of most environmental policy. Over the past two decades, much research has shown that ecosystems with more species are more efficient at removing nutrients from soil and water than are ecosystems with fewer species. In this paper, the author presents the results of a novel experiment in which the author directly manipulated algae and their niche opportunities in a large set of stream mesocosms to examine the mechanistic links between the diversity of algae, niche differences among species and the rate of nitrate removal from stream water. The results provide direct evidence that communities with more species take greater advantage of the niche opportunities in an environment, and this allows diverse systems to capture a greater proportion of biologically available resources such as nitrogen. One implication is that biodiversity may help to buffer natural ecosystems against the ecological impacts of nutrient pollution.

New at ORI Library:uncertainty and environmental decision making: a handbook of research and best practice

The 21st Century has been dominated to a large extent by international response to certain global environmental challenges like climate change, depleting biodiversity and biocapacity as well as general atmospheric, water and soil pollution problems. As a result, Environmental decision making (EDM) is a socially important field of development for Operations Research and Management Science (OR/MS). Uncertainty is an important feature of these decision problems and it intervenes at very different time and space scales, so the book provides a guided tour of selected methods and tools that OR/MS offer to deal with these issues. The book is available in the ORI Library.

Across Borders-KAZA TCFA

Often referred to as the most ambitious and complex conservation project in the world, negotiations surrounding the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, are expected to be finalised this year and the five countries's ministers will meet again to sign a formal treaty that will legalise KAZA and its Secretariat. KAZA will further develop joint protocols and procedures in areas such as fire management, law enforcement, fisheries and research. Since 2008, KAZA-TCFA countries have been preparing their individual Integrated Development Plans (IDPs and this will be merged into a consolidated KAZA IDP, serving as the road map of the project. The Secretariat is now slated to move to Kasane.

Botswana gets it right!

On a continent with a poor record for taking care of its wildlife and habitats, Botswana is bucking the trend. This success has been built on each successive government 's awareness of the country's environmental assets and its understanding that a well-managed ecotourism industry is vital to the economy. As a result, low volume tourism remains a core tenet in the strategies that dictate the management of the wildlife concessions in the northern regions. Botswana has also taken the lead in promoting non-consumptive, photography-based ecotourism models rather than trophy hunting. This approach has since proved beyond doubt that photographic safaris are more beneficial in the long term. You can read more on this article in the latest Africa geographic in the ORI Library.

Biodiversity panel 'must rely on science, not models'

A new intergovernmental group on biodiversity should provide scientific assessments of different alternatives — rather than simply forecasting biodiversity changes based on various future scenarios, experts say. The new Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was agreed by governments as a unified international scientific voice on biodiversity to inform policymakers. But unlike the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — on which the IPBES is modelled — scientists say that its effectiveness will rely on the underlying science, rather than on models and projections. According to co-author, Charles Perrings a professor of environmental economics at Arizona State University, United States, "Hypothetical scenarios bear no relationship to the real options confronting policymakers now," The scientists also want IPBES to pay "at least as much attention to social sciences as to natural sciences", for example in estimating the economic value of ecosystems, to help societies make informed development choices. Link to full article available on Science Daily.

Elephants without borders-aerial survey

An aerial survey counting elephants and wildlife species in Northern Botswana was carried out by Elephants without borders, and San Diego Zoo last year. The survey which took about three months covered an area of 80 000 sq kms and the distance flown was about 42 000 kms. High density wildlife areas such as the Okavango, Linyanti, Kwando and Chobe regions, sampling coverage was about 22%, the highest survey coverage ever flown simultaneously over Northern Botswana. Information from the survey will be incorporated into population models to better understand population trends and prioritise research and management programmes relating to wildlife ecology and conservation management in Botswana. For more information on the survey visit the Elephants Without Borders site.

Leading by example-Elephants without borders Community Project

Elephants Without Borders has shifted its focus from wildlife research to a community outreach programme that aims to mitigate human/elephant conflict in Northern Botswana. The elephant Conservation and Community Outreach Farming Project focuses on low-cost, sustainable human/elephant mitigation measures in a now thriving pilot project at Kachikau Tribal Lands in the Chobe enclave in Northern Botswana, a place where human/elephant conflict has been on the rise as human settlemets with their accompanying agricultural fields and livestock expand. The project which is primarily funded by the Ministry of Wildlife, Environment and Tourism, Department of Wildlife and National Parks , the San Diego Zoo, will educate and sensitise farmers to the complexities of human/elephant conflict, the need to stop cutting trees to create farmland, the urgency of habitat conservation and ways to deter elephants from entering their fields. The article is available in the ORI Library.

Global Synthesis Report 2010

The marine biological diversity of the 72% of our planet covered by seawater is crucial to global resource security, ecosystem function and climate dynamics. Changes in biodiversity are the symptom of failures to manage marine ecosystems. For more information visit: http://marinebiodiversityseries.org/reports/2-global-synthesis-report.html

Impact Investment in Community-Based Sustainable Tourism: Summary of Roundtable Discussion

The Impact Investment in Community-Based Sustainable Tourism discussion brought together impact investment funds, development practitioners, and donors (USAID, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), Department of Commerce) to explore ways to work together to establish enterprise-based development that delivers triple bottom-line benefits—economic, social, and environmental. The participants believe the investment in the tourism sector is a prime example of self sustaining development, and weighed challenges and strategies to increasing investment in such projects. Full report available on:http://www.swisscontact.ch/any/resources/pdf/Tourism-Development_Summary.pdf

International Symposium on Isotopes in Hydrology, Marine Ecosystems, and Climate Change Studies 2011

The International Symposium on Isotopes in Hydrology, Marine Ecosystems, and Climate Change Studies organised by IAEA will be held in Monaco from 2011-03-27 to 2011-04-01.Its principal objective will be to exchange recent research achievements in the use of isotopic techniques in hydrology, climate change studies, marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The symposium will be an important forum for the exchange of knowledge on the present state of marine and freshwater environments, use of isotopes in water resources investigations and management, and climate change studies. The meeting will involve leading scientists in the field of climate change and hydrology, as well as representatives from other United Nations bodies and international organizations that focus on climate change and other important rnvironmental issues. For more on the symposium you can visit:
http://www-ub.iaea.org/MTCD/Meetings/Announcements.asp?ConfID=38297

Land, Environment and Climate Change

This publication provides an overview of some the most important land-related environmental and climate change problems that the world is facing. Land, Environment and Climate Change offers an overview of the relationship between land tenure, land management approaches and the environment.

The Regional Bureau's science support strategy 2010-2013: meeting society's needs with science-based solutions

This strategy emphasizes the need to better understand the complex relationships between development and emerging challenges such as climate change, pollution, population growth and environmental degradation that cause hazards to become more severe and frequent, and to approach them in a holistic way in order to provide concrete, workable, and context-appropriate solutions to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and improve people’s lives. It highlights the importance of science in addressing global development issues and aims at promoting science, technology and innovation as a solution to achieving sustainable development. The publication is available on the UNESCO site.

UNEP Year Book 2010: New Science and Developments in Our Changing Environment

The purpose of the Year Book is to strengthen the science-policy interface. Thus, it presents recent developments and new scientific insights of particular interest to policy-makers. Consistent with the Year Book’s established format and style, important issues are examined, referenced, and often illustrated. The main sources of information are peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals, results published by research institutions, news articles, and other reports. While the Year Book brings to the forefront some of the views expressed and progress made in recent months, it does not endorse particular views or indeed any scientific findings. Available on
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900sid/EGUA-88XN24/$file/unep_year_book_2010.pdf?openelement

Going Green: revealing the Delta's secret season

In this article, the author maintains that the Okavango Delta is a strange beast. Fed by a river that arises in the Angolan Higlands, its annual flood takes up to eight months to penetrate the furthest reaches of famous fan, by which the dry season is at its height. Paradoxically, this means that when it starts to rain, bringing an emerald of flush to the islandas and savannas, the water levels are at their lowest. The article is available in the latest issue of Africa Geographic in HOORC Library.

New at HOORC Library: increasing climate variability and change

One major challenge facing humankind is the provision of an equitable standard of living for now and future generations,i.e. : adequate food, water and energy, safe shelter and a healthy environment. Human-induced climate change, and increasing climate variability, as well as other global environmental issues such as land degradation and loss of biological diversity, threaten our ability to meet these basic human needs. It is undisputed that the last two decades have been the warmest this century, and likely to be the warmest for the last 1000 years, sea level is rising, rain and snowfall patterns are changing. Furthermore, the frequency of extreme events is rising and many parts of the world have recently suffered major heat-waves, floods and droughts leading to significant loss of life and economic costs. This requires the global community to give urgent attention to addressing key issues. This book represents a major step in assessing the science of climate variability and change, and their likely impacts on agriculture and forestry, with clear adaptation strategies required to reduce their vulnerability. The book is now available in the HOORC Library.