Millenium Development Goals 2010

According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's foreword in the Millennium Development Goals Report 2010, improvements in the lives of the poor have been unacceptably slow, and some hard-won gains are being eroded by the climate, food and economic crises. The report further notes that even though the economic crisis took a heavy toll on jobs and incomes around the world, the world is still on track to achieve the MDG target of cutting the rate of extreme poverty in half by 2015.It also cites big gains in getting children into primary schools in many poor countries, especially in Africa; strong interventions in addressing AIDS, malaria and child health; and a good chance to reach the target for access to clean drinking water.' For more visit the UN site.

Forest Governance in Africa

This paper sets out to provide an overview of key forest governance issues across the African continent, particularly on the experiences in western, central and, to a lesser extent, eastern subregions of the continent. Particular emphasis is given to the divergence between the forest as a provider of means to rural people and governance mechanisms that have predominantly focused on national economic activities and political priorities. The paper considers where the forests are, the differences between them, and their uses and value to African people. Issues and challenges around the state of knowledge of the continent’s forests, is considered describing several ‘forest paradigms’ that have played an important role in setting the current, or emerging, context for forest governance. The role of some of the key stakeholders in forest governance systems is also considered. Current trends in the development of forest policies and legal frameworks are described, and the key issue of the decentralisation of forest governance is discussed.

Africa Progress Report

The report starts by looking back to assess the progress Africa has made over the last five years, placing special emphasis on both the promises made and kept, as well as the various blueprints for progress agreed. It then looks ahead and identifies six priority areas for action, three for African policymakers and three for their international partners. Visit the Africa Progress Panel for the full report.

Management Strategy Evaluation and Management Procedures: Tools for Rebuilding and Sustaining Fisheries

Fisheries management is complicated in most cases by a high degree of uncertainty about the current state and expected growth of fish stocks and about the economic and social factors that affect the desirable harvest levels. Even for fisheries with excellent data collection programs, scientific surveys and sophisticated assessments, the estimates of catch levels that will maintain healthy fisheries or rebuild depleted ones are often far from accurate. Consequently recommended catch levels often fluctuate more than necessary in response to error in assessments rather than true stock variability and frequently react too slowly due to lags in data collection, assessment and implementation. The paper discusses an approach for evaluating and implementing fishery management strategies known as management strategy evaluation (MSE), also sometimes referred to as the management procedure (MP) approach that is designed to identify and operationalise strategies for managing fisheries that are robust to several types of uncertainty and capable of balancing multiple economic, social and biological objectives. When implemented correctly an MSE should result in clear and measurable objectives and a robust process for achieving them that fishery managers and stakeholders have jointly developed and agreed to. For more visit the OECD Library.

New at HOORC's Library: the world water crisis: the failures of resource management

For a long time now, water resources planners have frequently signalled an impending water crisis. The message is that the world is running out of water and that careful planning and the adoption of integrated water resources management can avert this catastrophe. The author, Stephen Brichieri-Colombi challenges these perceptions. According to him, the crisis is one of resource management rather than availability: simply because water resource planners advocate exploitation of rivers without due regard to social, environmental and geopolitical consequences. The author advances a new paradigm--water in the national economy--which will enable developing countries to meet future food and water demands without increasing abstraction from rivers and consequential riparian conflict. A powerful re-appraisal of the development of global water resources. The book is available in the HOORC Library.

No Time To Quit: HIV/AIDS Treatment Gap Widening In Africa

Since the start of the epidemic, HIV/AIDS has created an acute public health crisis in many countries requiring an emergency response to the resulting high mortality and the spread of the disease. To date, much has been done to tackle HIV, but the urgency of the situation still calls for a sustained and expanded response over a long period oftime — the battle is not over yet. For more visit the MSF site.

REDD+ in dryland forests: Southern Africa

The paper addresses Implementing Reduced Emissions for Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) programs which involves not only providing sufficient incentives to land users but requires a supportive policy, legal and institutional environment. Community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) in the miombo ecoregion of east and southern Africa has addressed these issues in its evolution. This has resulted in the evolution of policy, legal and institutional mechanisms that attach market value to commonly controlled resources and facilitate market-led conservation, leading to some successful sustainable management of natural resources. The lessons from CBNRM in the miombo ecoregion provide a basis on which REDD+ in dry-land forests can build. While there has been a general positive trend in the development of supportive policies at regional level, individual countries are at different stages of a policy continuum. In a region where poverty is high and is also a key driver of land use change, REDD+ mechanisms need to be pro-poor, explicitly addressing and building the assets and capability of the poorest households at policy level and in practice. To view the full report visit the IIED site.

HOORC RISE students in Grahamstown

Five Mphil/Phd students from HOORC, have just come back from a 2 week workshop at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. The workshop also drew students from Mozambique, Uganda and South Africa. It was aimed at introducing RISE graduate students to the major conventions governing academic research dissertation writing and to provide these students with strategies for successfully negotiating their way through the academic research writing process. The workshop also aimed at facilitating discussions on the part of the workshop participants in terms of the challenges they face in dissertation writing and to provide opportunities for them to engage in focused drafting of aspects of their dissertations.

New Thinking on the Governance of Water and River Basins in Africa

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region offers useful lessons about governance in transboundary river basins. Given the high number of rivers that cross international political boundaries in the region, combined with the fact that the SADC Water Protocol provides a regional legal framework around which to develop robust water resources governance systems, this report shows how institutions grow incrementally over time. The global norm is that most transboundary rivers that have more than two riparians are governed by a regime that does not include all riparian states. The SADC case is the opposite, where all of the transboundary rivers that were identified as being ‘at risk’ in fact have regimes that include all riparian states. This case study also shows that while instrumentalism leads to experimentation and failure on occasion, it also provides for the necessary adaptation needed to eventually produce a robust governance structure. The report discusses a number of water governance lacunae in the region and concludes by making specific policy recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of water governance in the SADC region, but which may also hold applicability to other regions of Africa. Full report available on http://www.saiia.org.za/images/stories/pubs/reports/saia_rpt_06_turton_20100225.pdf

Environmental Security in Botswana

In this article, the author Gotsileopne Mosimanegape looks at how the diversification of the Botswana economy from a diamond led one to other sectors will affect the environmental resources and subsequently pose a threat to environmental security. The article cites the leading environmental security concerns for Botswana as range land and pasture degradation (trampling leading to exposure of soil degradation and resulting in less productivity), growing pressure on water resources, (very little surface water and heavy reliance on groundwater resources for water supply),pollution in its various forms i.e. land, air, and noise. This article is available in the latest Kalahari magazine, (a quarterly publication of the Botswana Kalahari Conservation Society) in the HOORC Library.

Okavango Wetlands Management Committee (OWMC) Meeting

The second quarter workshop of the Okavango Wetlands Management Committee (OWMC)was held at Kamanga Lodge in Maun on 15th June 2010.The Okavango Wetlands Management Committee, chaired by the Tawana Land Board secretary is a committee made up of planners and officers who have a responsibility of ensuring sustainable use of natural resources in Ngamiland. The OWMC meets quarterly to review progress made by planners on issues of biodiversity conservation. A major challenge hampering sustainable biodiversity conservation is lack of access to current and correct information to enable sound planning and decision making.In light of this, the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in conjunction with the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre (HOORC)’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Lab and the BIOKAVANGO Project organized a workshop to introduce new planners in the district to the Okavango Delta Information System (ODIS). Presentations from DEA and the BIOKAVANGO project were made in the morning, keeping in mind that 2010 has been declared International Year of Biodiversity by UNEP. Resolutions were made that a Biodiversity Launch and activities should be carried out to sensitise the Ngamiland Community on the importance of biodiversity. Activities will be linked to major public events such as the Maun District Agricultural to be held from 29-31 July 2010, the World Tourism Day in September 2010, the Tawana Land Board Open Day planned for 4th September 2010 and the National Tree Planting Day.Lessons learnt from the BIOKAVANGO Fisheries and Systemic components were also presented.
The second half of the session saw the planners visiting the HOORC GIS lab where Mr Masego Dhliwayo, the ODIS manager facilitated a ‘hand-on’ ODIS session for all delegates. The online ODIS is expected to play a critical role in ensuring access to information and data to assist the planners and officers as well as researchers in the district.

Reviving our culture, Mapping our future

The story of a special gathering in Venda, South Africa, and a community process in eco-cultural mapping. Indigenous leaders from Altai (Russia) and the Colombian Amazon, and NGO representatives from South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia, accompany Tshidvizhe community as they explore a simple yet powerful way to express the past and present of their territory and livelihoods onto hand-drawn maps. The maps highlight the importance of their culture, sacred sites and territory, and empower them to map the future they need to strive for.This is a joint effort of the Gaia Foundation, African Biodiversity Network (ABN), Mupo Foundation and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation ACP-EU (CTA).

Functional wildlife systems:why is Africa's wildlife in protected areas in widespread decline?

In an emotive newspaper article, HOORC researchers Drs Casper Bonyongo and Richard Fynn maintain that Africa’s wildlife inside National Parks and Game Reserves is in widespread decline and it has little to do with poaching or bad conservation management! Studies done in most parts of East Africa namely, Kenya, Namibia and South Africa seem to indicate that herbivores are on the decline. Closer to home, at the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) an estimated 250000 wildebeest in the 1970’s and 1980s has crashed to several thousand today. The same is true for eland, hartebeest and zebra in the CKGR. By stark contrast the Central Kalahari Game Reserve is no longer a functional wildlife reserve because its key migration routes to dry-season grazing, such as on the Boteti River, Lake Ngami, and in the Southern Kalahari have been cut off by human expansion and cattle farming, hence the precipitous crash in its once great populations of wildebeest, zebra, hartebeest and eland, which can never be expected to recover so long as their dry-season grazing grounds are lost. They conclude that conservationists must now focus time, energy and money on conserving what still works: the functional OMSCH complex with its unbroken migration routes and large herds of game. They go on to say that hunting has minimal negative effects on the numbers of wildlife in the region and more importantly does not stop critical migrations between wet-season and dry-season grazing grounds. Should these areas be lost to conservation in the future there will be a major impediment to migration and Nxai pan and Makgadikgadi will have become fragmented from the Delta. The article is available in the Sunday Standard.

Strategic Financial Planning for Water Supply and Sanitation in Africa

The EU Water Initiative Finance Working Group published Strategic Financial Planning for Water Supply and Sanitation in Africa in May 2010. Based on a study carried out in Lesotho by PEM Consult of Denmark, the paper looks at ways to bridge the estimated gaps of USD 11.4 billion required for infrastructure improvements to meet the UN's Millennium Development Goals in Africa. Strategic financial planning has to match national water policy to local resources, capacity and available finance. The report makes recommendations as to how this can be embedded in countries' planning processes and urges decision makers to look beyond national budgets to loans, bonds, equity and the many other hybrid forms of finance now available. You can find the report online.

Visit to HOORC by Director of Public Affairs

On Wednesday, the Director of Public Affairs (UB) Mrs Mhitshane Reetsang visited HOORC where she made a presentation on the new branding of the UB and brand compliance, gave an update on the interim enrolement strategy for admission at UB and held discussions with staff on a possible date for HOORC day. In her presentation on branding, she gave staff an insight of "teasers' that will soon be rolled out by her Department to different stakeholders like the alumni, the teaching staff, and the general public as a way of not only managing the reputation of the UB but to sell the UB as a visionary innovative and progressive institution, amongst other things.

Rhino poaching: lets go legal

In the latest issue of Africa Geographic, John Hanks tackles the problem of the ever increasing statistics in rhino poaching, despite the trade ban on horn. According to him, this trade ban is clearly not working, for example since 2006, most of the poaching has been centred around Zimabwe and South Africa and killing rhinos has reached a level higher than any other in recent history and not even the Kruger National Park has been safe. If the trade ban has apparently been so ineffective, why not look at a totally different approach and open up a strictly controlled legal trade in rhino trade. According to the Michael Eustace, an economist from SA, SA alone could provide 1 500 kilograms of horn each year from rhinos that have died from natural causes-not a single animal would have to be killed. This article is available in the HOORC Library

Our Planet: UNEP Magazine: May 2010 issue

Climate change has been described as the biggest market failure of all time, but loss of biodiversity and of nature’s economically important services must surely be running it close, if not equaling it. Year in and year out, the world economy may be losing $2.5 to $4.5 trillion-worth of natural capital as a result of deforestation alone, quite apart from the cost of the losses of other key ecosystems. For more visit the UNEP website

Tsodilo Hills:copper bracelet of the evening

The Botswana Society's new website features an article by authority on Tsodilo and renowned African rock art expert, Alec Campbell with colleagues Larry Robbins and Michael Taylor in which they give an insight into the wondrous and mysterious Botswana's only World Heritage Site, piercing together its long and intriguing history. Also featured on the page is the forthcoming cultural San Musical Festival which is to be held on the 1st August at D’Kar, where San communities from Namibia, Botswana and South Africa will converge on this village for three days of musical. For more events and interesting article please visit the Botswana Society 's new website:http://www.Botswanabeckons.com

World's Largest Rivers Conference 2011 - Call for papers

The conference to take place from 11-14th April 2011 in Vienna Austria, aims to provide a global forum for wide ranging discussions on key issues related to research on large rivers and their effective and sustainable management, involving both scientists and decision makers. Scientist and practitioners are strongly urged to present their research results and experiences in the following fields: hydrology, hydraulics and water quality, sediment transport and river morphology, ecology and restoration, stresses, conflict demands and integrated management. Deadline for abstract submission is 27th August 2010. For more information please visit:http://worldslargerivers.boku.ac.at/wlr/

1st International ICST Conference on e-services for Agriculture,Food, EnviRonment and LIfe ScienCes in Africa September 9-10, 2010 - Johannesburg

E-Agriculture has a crucial role in the empowerment of farmers in rural areas all over the world though information and communication processes, supporting them so they can improve the quality of life for themselves and for their families. The technological interventions can raise the living standards in marginalized communities by leveraging agricultural output and improvement of through technological interventions. ICT technologies give access to timely information such as weather forecasts, better pricing and allow the facilitating on-line trading which can improve the productivity of rural agricultural activities.Furthermore, the deployment of ICT can provide a framework for monitoring of the use and efficient allocation/exploitation of natural resources as well as the support for remote diagnosis and treatment of diseases, providing a valuable tool for the improvement of the quality of Life. For more on the conference visit:http://www.eafricaconference.org/

Tourism and Poverty Reduction

Tourism can reduce poverty in developing countrie, but tourism growth is not universally inclusive of the poor. Our understanding of how tourism affects the poor is largely based on partial and superficial analysis. Researchers from different disciplines and practitioners with different objectives generally work in isolation from each other and from the mainstream of development economics. Detailed economic analysis remains buried and is rarely challenged for policy implications, let alone poverty implications.This book provides an overview of a broad array of analyses of how tourism affects poor people. For more visit:
http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4675-chapter-1-free-download.pdf

Introduction to research on wetlands presentation

Yesterday 18 HOORC winter students made their first proposal presentations in order to get feedback from the audience on the work done so far. Topics covered included an analysis of the water quality in the Thamalakane Rivers, youth entrepreneurship in the tourism industry, benefits of local tourism to local communities, house economy patterns in certain communities, and an analysis of population distribution and trends of roan and sable antelopes in one part of Botswana.

New at HOORC's Library: Biodiversity research developments

The book addresses topics which include biodiversity and ecology of hydrobionts in the natural and anthropogenic landscapes; biodiversity and ecology of eukaryotic organisms in extreme acidic environments; agricultural water management and biodiversity conservation inside the North Africa oasis; the importance of low- intensity farming systems for fauna, flora, and habitats protected under the European "birds" and "habitats" directives; environmental perturbation and coastal benthic biodiversity in Uruguay; conservation, management, and use of plant diversity at the Word Agroforestry Centre in West and Central Africa; and algal biodiversity in waste stabilization ponds and the energy footprint of municipal wastes. The book is now available in the HOORC Library.