April 27, 2015
Felines in trouble: a Brazilian scenario
Rodrigo Cambará Printes
Brazilian Institute for Biodiversity Conservation
Larissa Rosa de Oliveira
Francine Schulz
Carnivores, such as large cats, are extremely important to maintain the ecological equilibrium in areas because they guarantee the diversity and resiliency of ecosystems. As predators, large cats can help control herbivore populations. Also, large cats usually leave behind a great part of their prey for several reasons, including providing food for scavenger and decomposer [&he ...
Read the Whole Story
April 23, 2015
The African oil palm in Bahia, Brazil: Past, present, and potential of an Afro-Brazilian landscape
Case Watkins
Louisiana State University
In 1991, the Secretary of Culture in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia officially designated an eighty-kilometer strip of its Atlantic shores as the Costa do Dendê, or Palm Oil Coast, in a formal nod to the dense stands of African oil palms that had come to dominate local landscapes. Part of a broader initiative […] ...
Read the Whole Story
April 1, 2015
The Need for Biodiversity – Traditional Plant Use in Burkina Faso
Marco Schmidt
Goethe University Frankfurt
Alexander Zizka
The people living in the savanna belt of West Africa are currently facing profound social and landscape changes. Traditional lifestyles and agricultural practices, such as agroforestry with multipurpose trees or the semi-nomadic pastoralism of the Sahel, are challenged by the needs of a growing population, intensified agriculture and climate change. Despite positive aspects of ...
Read the Whole Story
March 26, 2015
Indigenous Landscapes Provide Foods and Funds in Obalanga Subcounty, Uganda
Esezah Kakudidi
Makerere University
Samuel Ojelel
The subsistence farming communities in Obalanga are reliant on their indigenous landscapes for a wide array of services. The communities benefit from provisionary services (e.g. food), regulative services (e.g. local climate moderation), supportive services (e.g. soil fertility) and cultural services (e.g. recreation) from these landscapes. These interactions are pertinent in t ...
Read the Whole Story
March 13, 2015
Management of stingless bees in the Balsas River Basin, Michoacán, Mexico
Octavio Reyes Salas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Arturo Argueta Villamar
Alejandro Casas
Andrés Camou-Guerrero
Alejandro Reyes González
Stingless bees belong to the order of insects called Hymenoptera and are globally recognized as a very large group of bees, between 400 and 500 species. Tropical regions of the American Continent are considered a center of diversification of stingless bees. In the case of Mexico, there are 46 species of stingless bees, and 26 […] ...
Read the Whole Story
March 10, 2015
Learning from experience: Connecting Landscape Leaders in Ethiopia
At first impression, the Amhara region of Ethiopia may seem drab and barren. Knowing of the degradation that happened to these landscapes, I didn’t expect to see much more than scrubland. A recent visit to the Aba Gerima watershed, however, showed me a much greener picture, where a team from the Water and Land Resource Centre (WLRC) […] ...
Read the Whole Story
March 4, 2015
Forests a Food Security Blanket for Communities in India
Salome Yesudas
Rukmini Rao
Gramya Resource Centre for Women
Debal Deb
Kavitha Kuruganti
Countries like India, which claim to have reduced poverty yet have had no reductions in hunger and malnutrition, present quite a paradox that must be addressed. The food sovereignty framework, introduced by the Sustainable Development Goals debate, is promising because it addresses the fact that hunger and malnutrition are not just a supply problem, but […] ...
Read the Whole Story
February 16, 2015
Livelihood outcomes of payment for ecosystem services in Ecuadorian highland Andean grasslands
Leah Bremer
Natural Capital Project
University of Hawai’i, Mānoa
Kathleen A. Farley
In Latin America and around the world, payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs represents a growing approach to conservation. In many cases, these programs aim to tackle social and environmental goals at the same time through, for example, improving the livelihoods of farmers while also encouraging more sustainable land-use practices. Ecuador’s SocioBosque program, a na ...
Read the Whole Story
February 9, 2015
The Challenge of Agroforestry Systems in Ituri, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Jacques Famili Sumbu
The Ituri Forest landscape, located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is one of Central Africa’s most biologically diverse regions and is particularly rich in bird species and mammals. The forest supports the largest remaining population of the Congo’s endemic rainforest giraffe and okapi, as well as large populations of elephants, owl-faced monkeys, […] ...
Read the Whole Story
February 2, 2015
Traditional Markets are an Important Part of Nutrition-sensitive Landscapes in Morocco
Abderrahim Ouarghidi
Global Diversity Foundation
Bronwen Powell
Winter has arrived here in Morocco. From December to March, there is a lot of rain (more than the rest of the year) – and widespread availability of wild vegetables. Although wild foods, especially wild vegetables, have held an important place in Moroccan culinary practice for generations, up until recently, they have been largely overlooked […] ...
Read the Whole Story
