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Living Landscapes

What is the Living Landscapes in Action project?

South Africa is ranked sixth in the world for its rich marine and terrestrial biodiversity. But this global accolade is characterised by deep inequalities, social and spatial injustices, and displacement of communities from their land in the name of conservation. The privatisation of nature through REDD+ , payment for ecosystem services, and 30X30 targets by 2030 are placing more emphasis on militarisation and securitisation of local people entering these spaces and has created a resurgence of fortress conservation practices in private and public conservation across Southern Africa.

We develop a scholarship of engagement in biodiversity conservation that will disrupt, renew, transform and rethink how we practise conservation in Southern Africa. Our goal is to integrate biodiversity and social justice using ethnographic methodological tools co-creating, disseminating, and communicating socio-ecological evidence that supports growing networks seeking to transform conservation.

Rich protected spaces in South Africa allow for exclusive, luxury and adventure tourism and further alienate relations between local communities from their land, accessing the reserves for livelihoods, food, spiritual and cultural practices. To understand the dichotomy between nature and people, this project adopted a slow methodology process to lead our theory of change to disrupt, transform and renew conservation.

To fully understand the social and spatial injustices practised by mainstream conservation we slow down our research process as we allow ourselves to organically form part of the daily rhythms of local communities but in local politics over resources, gender dynamics, livelihoods impact of the brutality of some of conservation securitisation on local communities when they enter protected spaces for livelihoods, cultural and spiritual practices. This can only happen after building trust over time by living in, forming part of deep hangouts, and night halting livelihood activities with local communities in and surrounding rich biodiverse landscapes.

In this process, some human places will become wilder and some wild areas may become more human.

We are a team of four research associates, one senior researcher, and four professors who all have worked in conservation space in southern Africa for over 20 years. The project collaborates with the University of Wageningen and University of Cape Town. PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, is the project lead and lead principal investigator is Prof Moenieba Isaacs. The project is funded by the OAK Foundation for the period 2021-2024.

Our Theory of Change

Our theory of change in our Living Landscapes in Action project is based on two foundational to develop a process of systemic re-designing conservation in Southern Africa: one, the collection of evidence in communities living in and surrounding conservation sites and the dissemination of knowledge through an accredited short course training of conservation professionals across the region. Our main aim is to develop a process methodology tool to influence how to fund conservation in a different way that focuses on building relationships with local communities living in and surrounding conservation hotspots in Africa. Our starting point is that we view conservation across Living Landscapes – on land, in forests, wildlife, wetlands, lakes, rivers, oceans in urban and rural areas, of cultural significance etc. As the river flows from the mountains to the sea, communities engage in livelihood activities such as farming, fishing, grazing, and tourism. Communities also inherently protect the environment for their sustainable livelihoods. We situate these livelihood activities and the protection of nature at the centre of our work, with the following elements to fuel the process of change in communities:

1. Our research associates based in the Living Landscapes of the City of Cape Town, iSimangaliso, and Mapungubwe;
2. Our accredited short-course training programme to create the next generation of conservation professionals;
3. The need to engage with policy makers to lead the transformation of conservation in southern Africa; and;
4. Develop an alumni network of conservation professionals to form part of the vision of transforming conservation.

In which Living Landscapes do we work?

We focus on three diverse landscapes, where communities suffer different forms of dislocation, disinheritance and displacement. We hope to enable, create and establish conditions for a network and community of practice around convivial conservation in each of these living landscapes.

Mapungubwe Landscape

The Mapungubwe Landscape straddles the borders of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo River. The Landscape’s cultural significance is exemplified by the Mapungubwe hill which was settled 1220–1290 by a great kingdom. Along with Great Zimbabwe, Mapungubwe is to Southern Africa what the Mayan empire is to South America. Contemporary land uses include mining, conservation and various forms of farming spread out on a mosaic of private, communal and state land. These land uses come against the backdrop of colonial and apartheid evictions which have resulted in multiple competing land claims. We are engaging the department of labour, local economic development and agriculture in Musina and Polokwane to understand the institutional and policy landscape while our central foci in Mapungubwe is a community of successful land claimants.

The farm, Den Staat, shares a fence with Mapungubwe National Park and so wildlife such as elephants, wildebeest and Kudu traverse this farm daily while the inhabitants participate in subsistence fishing, commercial agriculture and hunting. By understanding the life of Den Staat from the livelihoods activities, care work and nightlife to engaging with specific groups including youth, livestock owners, women’s money lending schemes, we plan to identity how to amplify the vibrant activities on the farm while simultaneously disrupting mainstream conservation.

iSimangaliso UNESCO World Heritage Site

The iSimangaliso Wetland Park (IWP) covers more than 330,000 hectares, stretching 220 kilometers along the Indian Ocean from Kosi Bay in the north and Maphelane south of the St Lucia estuary and covers 9% of the coastline of South Africa. A UNESCO World Heritage site, RAMSAR status for its pristine terrestrial-oceanic nature conservation. The IWP was socially constructed and reproduced within a historical geography characterised by local black tribal community displacement and deeply engrained spatial injustices that systematically, and gradually excluded these communities from practicing their nature-based livelihoods, in the name of conservation. The state-led and market-based conservation manifested in fencing of protected areas led to exclusionary access to marine and natural resources for the elites, and chronic conflict between park authorities, and local tribal communities over natural resources. These conflicts have caused variegated degrees of violence, and criminalisation of nature based livelihoods against marginalised people within neighbouring local tribal communities.

Cape Town

The Cape Town case is set in Rondevlei and Zeekoevlei including the corridor to False Bay, Atlantic Ocean within False Bay Nature Reserve. Located in the southern part of the City of Cape Town, we will focus on the two vleis (wetlands) and the surrounding landscape which includes one of the city’s major waste dumps. The Coastal Park Landfill in Capricorn exists alongside informal and formal settlements, a business park, nature reserves and a sewage works. The vleis are also home to a large number of animals which include re-introduced hippos, birds (including migratory birds from Siberia), reptiles, amphibians and plants. The nature reserves of Rondevlei and Zeekoevlei and adjacent settlements and business areas pose various and unique environmental governance challenges for the city administrators and other stakeholders. By focusing on a landscape with the complex mix of tensions, challenges and environmental significance, a clearer view of how convivial conservation can be integrated into this urban setting can be established. In this way, we expect to offer greater consideration for the livelihoods of the surrounding communities, while being alive to the environmental needs of the area and its effect on the broader cityscape.

Team

Prof. Moenieba Isaacs
PLAAS, University of the Western Cape

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Prof. Bram Büscher
Wageningen University

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Dr. Lerato Thakholi
Wageningen University

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Prof. Mafaniso Hara
PLAAS, University of the Western Cape

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Prof. Frank Matose
University of Cape Town

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Associate Researchers

Maud Sebelebele
PLAAS, University of the Western Cape

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Ayanda Madlala
PLAAS, University of the Western Cape

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Zina Jacobs
PLAAS, University of the Western Cape

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Siphesihle Mbhele
PLAAS, University of the Western Cape

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University Partners

Donors