General

With growing land-use pressures and consequent severe soil erosion, many East African socio-ecological systems are at a tipping point. Continued and accelerating soil erosion presents a credible threat to community and ecological resilience to future climate change shocks. Soil erosion and downstream siltation problems challenge water, food and energy security, with growing threat from climate change. Even under 'normal' climatic conditions, soil erosion reduces water and nutrient retention, biodiversity and plant primary productivity on agricultural land putting stress on food production, notwithstanding ecosystem and water resource/power generation impacts downstream. This undermines the resilience of communities that depend on soil and water resources, and shocks are often amplified by physical and socio-cultural positive feedback mechanisms. Shocks can, however, lead to a learning experience that propels a system to a qualitatively different pathway. This can support greater-than-previous levels of resilience (sometimes termed 'bounce back'). Co-production of sustainable land management practises will help enable agrarian and pastoral communities to (1) withstand shock of future extreme hydro-climatic events and (2) recover from prior environmental impacts to a resilience level beyond the prior state through restoration/enhancement of degraded landscapes. Facilitating a step change in land management practice to reduce complex soil erosion impacts is a fundamental target within the UN Sustainable Development Goals, a challenge that requires an interdisciplinary approach. To bring about urgently needed change in land management practice behaviour, evidence is required to demonstrate how social resilience is intrinsically linked to landscape/ecological resilience through the coupled co-evolution of natural resource systems and dependent rural communities. The East African Rift System (EARS) region has the highest catchment sediment yields of sub-Saharan Africa linked in part to topography and rainfall but also to recent and historic land conversion to agriculture and, in particular, increasing livestock numbers on grasslands. Extreme drought and rainfall events, which are already a characteristic feature of tropical climatology (e.g., linked to enSO), are widely accepted to increase in magnitude and/or frequency with global climate change. There is a real risk that, in the absence of community-owned soil management programmes, recent land use change will amplify hydro-climatic and consequent societal impacts. This is exacerbated by socio-cultural lock-ins such as power and esteem gained by owning livestock, putting pressure on fragile ecosystems and ecosystem services, with repercussions for economic and human health. Experts in soil erosion and land degradation problem identification are not necessarily experts in socio-economic and socio-cultural solutions. To tackle this challenge, we propose an interdisciplinary approach to designing sustainable land management practices that would enable rural communities affected by soil erosion to overcome post-erosion shocks and achieve a higher level of resilience than previously. Through novel integration of environmental science, arts and humanities and social science evidence, this project will map out potential behavioural changes and how these can be embedded in the design and implementation of soil conservation and restoration strategies. The interdisciplinary approach in this foundation-building programme will develop knowledge of complex interlinkages between soil degradation, climate change, and community resilience in the EARS region, as well as to explore pathways to possible solutions. Interdisciplinary evidence of the problem will be explored against complex socio-cultural community concerns and needs, and potential solutions will be considered with stakeholder groups to identify and underpin future behavioural change in land management.

Objectives

The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) supports cutting-edge research to address challenges faced by developing countries. The fund addresses the UN sustainable development goals. It aims to maximise the impact of research and innovation to improve lives and opportunity in the developing world.

General

enO Programme Association together with 4H Tanzania will implement a project for improving environmental awareness in the Iringa Njombe Morogoro and Ruvuma areas in Tanzania. The proposed project will raise awareness of sustainable development issues in sc hools and communities and create a road map for schools to be used around the world for planning and implementing such activities in the communities. The schools are encouraged to adopt the issues in formulating and designing their curricula content to cre ate a wider understanding of sustainable development. Tanzania is rich in natural resources but the rapid population growth and an increased need for living space and agricultural land as well as industrial activities have contributed to increase the count rys deforestation. Approximately 450 000ha of forest land is deforested in Tanzania annually. Deforestation is one of the contributors to for example climate change soil erosion biodiversity loss and loss of fertility in farms. Tanzania has identified that the lack of human capacity is hindering development. Therefore actions to address the capacity issue as well as understanding of natural resources have been identified crucial. The project aims at educating the children and youth on environmental awarenes s and sustainable development for them to understand the effects of forests and deforestation to the environment. The overall goal is to raise an environmentally conscious generation which will consider sustainable development issues in their everyday acti vities automatically whether it is in their personal life or working life. A road map for schools around the world will be designed and published. The road map can be used for introducing sustainable development and environmental issues to the public autho rities to encourage them in including them in the school curricula and extra-curricula activities. Case studies of successful sustainable development inclusions will also be presented.