Animals Heading Back Early To Serengeti National Park Mystery as great wildebeest migration cut short in Maasai Mara Game Reserve - eTurboNews.com

Animals Heading Back Early To Serengeti National Park Mystery as great wildebeest migration cut short in Maasai Mara Game Reserve - eTurboNews.com: "(eTN) - A rare episode is happening in a great Serengeti–Mara ecosystem. The nature's most spectacular event of wildebeest migration is making a surprise revolution of its traditional movement.

From time immemorial, the wildebeest used to roam in Maasai Mara for at least three months, surprising this year they have spent less than the usual period.

This fascinating episode in recent history caught the ecologists in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and Maasai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya offguard.

Right now, ecologists are tightly watching this unusual early return of this year’s great wildebeest migration from the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya to Serengeti National Park in Tanzania."

Livelihood Diversification in Tropical Coastal Communities: A Network-Based Approach to Analyzing ‘Livelihood Landscapes’

PLoS ONE: Livelihood Diversification in Tropical Coastal Communities: A Network-Based Approach to Analyzing ‘Livelihood Landscapes’: "Diverse livelihood portfolios are frequently viewed as a critical component of household economies in developing countries. Within the context of natural resources governance in particular, the capacity of individual households to engage in multiple occupations has been shown to influence important issues such as whether fishers would exit a declining fishery, how people react to policy, the types of resource management systems that may be applicable, and other decisions about natural resource use."

Rethinking Ecosystem Resilience in the Face of Climate Change

PLoS Biology: Rethinking Ecosystem Resilience in the Face of Climate Change: "Resilience is usually defined as the capacity of an ecosystem to absorb disturbance without shifting to an alternative state and losing function and services [1]–[3]. The concept therefore encompasses two separate processes: resistance—the magnitude of disturbance that causes a change in structure—and recovery—the speed of return to the original structure [4],[5]—which are fundamentally different but rarely distinguished. Yet, resilience has become a central concept in the management of natural ecosystems [6],[7]."

European Science Foundation

Confdetail339 : European Science Foundation: "

Dynamic Interlinkages between Social and Ecosystem Changes: Towards a Europe Africa Partnership 8-12 November 2010

The challenge of sustainable development is to grasp this opportunity and transform social-ecological systems to provide food, water, energy, health and human security in a manner that is economically, ecologically and socially viable for people in all parts of the world in the current timeframe, and for many generations in the future."

Maintaining Complex Relations with Large Cats: Maasai and Lions in Kenya and Tanzania - Human Dimensions of Wildlife: An International Journal

Maintaining Complex Relations with Large Cats: Maasai and Lions in Kenya and Tanzania - Human Dimensions of Wildlife: An International Journal: "Research and conservation efforts often occur in areas outside of national parks where people live, often side-by-side and sometimes in conflict with large carnivores. In Tanzania and Kenya much of this work employs a human-wildlife conflict perspective and is based in Maasai areas, where many of the few remaining lions exist. We argue that while Maasai do come into conflict with lions, their relationship with the large cats is far more complex and includes positive dimensions."

Africa needs a culture of science - SciDev.Net

Africa needs a culture of science - SciDev.Net: "For science and technology to contribute to development goals, countries must embrace a 'science culture' — a scientifically enlightened society where research findings can be better and more efficiently used to produce goods and services.

A science culture reflects the practice of applying science to daily life and developing a strong commitment among the public to engage with science. It is achieved, for example, when people adopt better hygiene and sanitation to improve their health, go to hospitals for treatment when they are sick, and grow improved crop species to increase food security in their community."

Capital FM Kenya: Court revokes Kibaki order on Amboseli

Capital FM Kenya: Court revokes Kibaki order on Amboseli: "NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 11 - The High Court has reversed an order issued by President Mwai Kibaki five years ago to downgrade the Amboseli National Park to a game reserve, saying the move was illegal and could not pass the test of the new Constitution."

ScienceDirect - Ecological Complexity : Long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER) for biodiversity protection – A complex systems approach for the study of dynamic human–nature interactions

 

Recently, the long-term ecological research (LTER) program in the US was evaluated. In its 20-year review report, the National Science Foundation recognizes the achievements of the past and specifies guidance for future development. Among other aspects, research activities of the next decade should concentrate on a new core area: biological diversity, and, to inform environmental policy on the interrelationships and reciprocal impacts of ecological and human systems, LTER is requested “to partner with social scientists” at all existing or newly selected research sites (http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/pr0265.htm). In Europe, LTER activities head in the same direction. To create durable integration of European biodiversity research capacity and to address biodiversity policy needs, long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER) sites should serve as real-world laboratories for interdisciplinary and policy relevant research (http://www.lter-europe.ceh.ac.uk and www.alter-net.info). In this paper, we explore how LTER could meet the challenges of the future: the increase of knowledge on issues of biological diversity and of partnership approaches among the natural and social sciences in common research facilities – the LTSER sites.

ScienceDirect - Ecological Complexity : Long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER) for biodiversity protection – A complex systems approach for the study of dynamic human–nature interactions

The conceptual evolution and practice of community-based natural resource management in southern Africa: past, present and future

Cambridge Journals Online - Abstract - The conceptual evolution and practice of community-based natural resource management in southern Africa: past, present and future: "This paper reviews the concept and practice of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) as it has evolved in southern Africa, with a particular focus on Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and, to a lesser extent, Zambia. It recognizes that, like democracy, CBNRM is both an imperfect process and a conceptual goal. The governance of economic processes, property rights and local political organization lie at the heart of CBNRM. The first challenge is to replace fiscal centralization, fees and bureaucracy (and the subsidization of alternative land uses) that have historically undervalued wild resources, so that CBNRM's comparative economic advantage is reflected in landholder and community incentives."

Disturbance and landscape dynamics in a changing world1

ESA Online Journals - Disturbance and landscape dynamics in a changing world¹: "Disturbance regimes are changing rapidly, and the consequences of such changes for ecosystems and linked social-ecological systems will be profound. This paper synthesizes current understanding of disturbance with an emphasis on fundamental contributions to contemporary landscape and ecosystem ecology, then identifies future research priorities. Studies of disturbance led to insights about heterogeneity, scale, and thresholds in space and time and catalyzed new paradigms in ecology. Because they create vegetation patterns, disturbances also establish spatial patterns of many ecosystem processes on the landscape."