All posts by : abcg

Over the years we have experienced a rising trend in emergence of zoonotic diseases such as MERS, SARS, Ebola and now COVID-19. These diseases are as a result of virus transmission from animals or insects to the human population. The occurrence of zoonotic diseases especially COVID-19 is a reminder of the interrelationship between human beings and nature. It is another step towards the realization that exploitation of natural resources by people can have a negative impact on our health, economies and ecosystem.

World Wildlife Fund’s WWF international science team conducted a review of scientific and government literature to determine where and how nature and zoonotic pathogen pathways intersect. During a webinar presentation of WWF’s literature review dubbed ‘Beyond Boundaries: Emerging zoonotic diseases, nature and human well-being’, Rebecca Shaw, Chief Scientist, WWF highlighted the three critical drivers accelerating the emergence of zoonotic diseases as:

• Land-use change for agriculture which results in degradation of nature
• Intensification and expansion of agriculture and animal production to meet increasing demand for animal protein worldwide
• High-risk trade and consumption of wild meat as a delicacy or alternative protein

According to the review, the outcomes of these activities are increased exposure and vulnerability of humans to animal pathogens. Since the pathogens that cause these diseases keep mutating, the increased frequency of interaction between animals and humans poses more danger increasing the probability of zoonosis.

The covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of a collective response by governments, civil society organizations, industries and the public towards transformative action to protect natural ecosystems thereby preventing future pandemics. In a report ‘COVID-19: Urgent Call to Protect People and Nature’, WWF calls upon these sectors to promote the recovery of natural ecosystems and create a nature positive world by 2030. The organization has put forward three recommendations that will help avoid future pandemics:

• Stop illegal, unregulated and high-risk wildlife trade and consumption
• Support sustainable food systems that stop encroachment on nature
• Build a more sustainable relationship between people and nature through sustainable and just economic recovery approaches with defined and holistic goals

Find out more about zoonotic diseases and how we can reduce the risk of future pandemics by reading the WWF report or watching this recent webinar with Rebecca Shaw, Chief Scientist, WWF.

Originally published by the African Wildlife Foundation

‘The Freshwater Conservation and Water Sanitation and Health (WASH) Integration Community of Practice meeting on the theme, Rapid Urbanization, Infrastructure Development, and Water Conservation in Kenya, took place in Nairobi, Kenya on February 25, 2020. Convened by the Kenya Water and Sanitation Civil Society Network (KEWASNET) and the Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group (ABCG), the meeting attracted participants from the public, private and civil society sectors as well as university students.

‘As Africa changes, it is essential that healthy ecosystems are included in development plans. There is a need to negotiate space for conservation as well. It helps to identify threats and solutions around access to water to eventually improve efficiency, collaboration, and impact. Water security is indispensable in sustainable growth as well as in development.

At the meeting, discussions revolved around three key themes, 1) An understanding of water resource management and the value of freshwater ecosystems, 2) The role of water governance and urban planning in mediating urban water demand and supply, and environmental protection, and 3) The cost of meeting FW-WASH challenges in the face of rapid urbanization.

“ABCG, through its thematic working group focusing on the integration of freshwater conservation and Water, Sanitation and Hygience (WASH), initiated this community of practice to bring together stakeholders working in conservation, development, and WASH sectors to learn and exchange practical experiences and resources as well as to address pertinent issues,” said Evelyn Namvua, ABCG Communication and Engagement Specialist.

While discussing on the benefits of freshwater ecosystem, participants observed the need to increase awareness among citizens about the importance of the critical (provisioning, supporting, regulating, and cultural) services provided by the ecosystem as an important requirement that could positively transform how we treat and protect our environment.

The role of the government in sustainable water management was stated as critical to the success of many intervention projects. There’s need for a structural revolution particularly in integrating politics into program design to ensure that the program attains its full benefits. On the other hand, civil society organizations and other actors involved in water resource management need to engage with the local and national governments to support them in planning and coming up with policies that would ensure sustainable water resource management.

“As the national government is budgeting for water resource management, it is important that county governments also plug in and include it in their budget plans. Banks can also fund some of the infrastructure. However, all these revolve around sustainable governance,” said Martin Mulongo, the Water and Sanitation Specialist at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

‘United Nations-Habitat estimates that by 2030, the urban population in Africa will double. Therefore, the meeting sought to find a balance between the provision of clean water and the protection of Kenya’s water catchment areas while promoting urbanization without any compromising the other. Across the continent, key water catchment areas are facing severe degradation due to land-use changes, poorly planned infrastructure, urbanization, and population growth.

‘Urbanization brings about not only a national but also a positive global change. It facilitates the growth of hubs for innovation, creativity, and growth. Additionally, it accounts for 85 percent of global Gross Domestic Product. With the proper development of urban infrastructure, national and regional Sustainable Development Goals can easily be attained.

Read the article on the AWF website: AWF Promotes Freshwater Conservation as Top Development Priority, published March 03, 2020

Photos: Click here to view the event photos 

About ABCG Freshwater Conservation and WASH activities

ABCG is working to reduce watershed degradation and pollution to increase the health of watershed ecosystems and species by linking freshwater conservation, access and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. Pilot projects in Uganda and South Africa, examine the effectiveness of implementing integrated development and conservation projects from a freshwater ecosystems perspective. Activities are contributing to the conservation of freshwater ecosystems and improving efficient use of diminishing water resources due to climate change, that lead to increased access to potable water and improved human health.

About the FW-WASH CoP

Recognizing the need to better share information on FW-WASH initiatives, the ABCG FW-WASH task group initiated the CoP with the aim of establishing an integrated learning and knowledge sharing platform between FW-WASH practitioners in a supportive and collaborative environment. The main goal of the CoP is to bring together WASH and conservation practitioners to reduce water catchment degradation and pollution, and improved health of freshwater ecosystems and people. 

ABCG’s overarching goals of mainstreaming biodiversity in human well-being and development agendas, promoting good conservation practices, and strengthening the role of social and development institutions in biodiversity conservation and human well-being, are being pursued within the context of six thematic foci:

1. Land Use Management
2. Global Change Impacts on Biodiversity
3. Community-Based Forest Management
4. Global Health Linkages to Conservation: Population Health and Environment
5. Global Health Linkages to Conservation: Fresh-Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
6. Gender Integration

Our 2019 Annual Report provides progress made on these thematic tasks.

Implementation highlights in these thematic foci include:

Land Use Management (LUM): The working group made significant progress in developing a land-use planning training course, which will provide an introduction to the theory and practical starting points of integrating biodiversity into land-use planning. The training course will build capacity of African governments and stakeholders in the use of tools and methodologies in order to influence land use planning. The training course will be released in the second quarter of FY 2020. The working group has also been working to infuse LUM recommendations into land use plans for 13 villages within the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) Kilombero Cluster. The planning aims to sustainably improve agricultural practices for 2,000 farmers while considering conservation and ecosystem service values where farms encroach on Kilombero Nature Reserve and Ruipa Wildlife Corridor habitat and connectivity areas.

Managing Global Change Impact (GCI): In 2017, the Global Change Impacts group (GCI) identified how changes in climate are affecting livelihoods and how communities’ responses to those changes are affecting biodiversity through community interviews. The results show that 35% of the total adaptation responses conducted by local communities have a negative impact on biodiversity. Many of these spontaneous responses to climate change also reduce communities’ resilience and the ability to adapt to changing future conditions. The working group has conducted workshops with the communities that they interviewed in Kenya, Tanzania, and Madagascar to report on the findings from the analysis of survey responses and discuss pilot adaptation projects that will help communities adapt to climate change while protecting biodiversity. These projects will be implemented in FY 2020.

Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM): Three local community forest concessions (CFCL) dossiers (files of required documents for allocation) in Walikale province, DRC that would enable communities secure rights to manage their land and sustainably manage the forests were finalized by this working group. The working group also created a Community of Practice to contribute to the understanding and implementation of CBFM management plans in DRC. In order to have a better understanding of the working context in DRC, the working group has been holding consultations with different stakeholders engaged in the community forest policy process.

Global Health Linkages to Biodiversity Conservation—Population, Health and Environment (PHE): The PHE working group members collaborated on a series of planning meetings with health and development organizations with complementary PHE goals, including Population Reference Bureau (PRB), Pathfinder International, and John Snow International, as well as USAID staff. The meetings were aimed at leveraging collaboration with partners, sharing task activities and expected outcomes, and receiving feedback on how to improve and strengthen activities.

Global Health Linkages to Biodiversity Conservation—Fresh Water Sanitation and Hygiene (FW-WASH): The FW-WASH task has been focusing on translating on-the-ground successes into policy action. The working group organized successful advocacy trainings for project teams in USA, Uganda, and South Africa to enable project teams scale up their work through influencing key stakeholders and local government to adopt FW-WASH best practices and in the development of appropriate policies that conservation.

Integrating Gender and Vulnerable Populations in Activity Design and Implementation: ABCG technical leads and gender experts convened for a day-long Gender Integration Workshop. Following the workshop, ABCG technical leads agreed to incorporate at least two gender indicators concerning the learning question. By integrating gender dimensions in all thematic and cross-cutting program components, ABCG aims to more explicitly address the issues that limit the ability of women and vulnerable populations to participate fully in conservation and natural resource management.

Download the report here>

Women play critical land and natural resource management roles. According to a 2017 ABCG One Health report, “based on gender differentiated roles, women are primarily responsible for care work that occurs in the domain of the home, including cooking, cleaning and caring for children and the elderly. Their high influence over water usage at the household level means they are most responsible for seeking and securing water resources. Women all over the world experience a far greater burden than male counterparts in terms of water collection, storage, and protection”.

However, these roles are typically unrecognized or undervalued. Minorities and disadvantaged groups are integral to local conservation constituencies. Therefore, the role of these groups is especially important to consider in the construction of sustainable conservation strategies.

In working to ensure that women’s role are fully recognized, ABCG is employing a participatory approach that seeks to provide improved access to opportunities (meetings, workshops, decision making on natural resource use, etc.) for women and vulnerable groups. This includes ensuring that gender considerations are included in project design and implementation. By integrating gender dimensions in all thematic and cross-cutting program components, ABCG aims to more explicitly address the issues that limit the ability of women and vulnerable populations to participate fully in conservation and natural resource management.

ABCG’s gender thematic activities include two objectives, first, to promote a favorable institutional and policy environment for mainstreaming gender equality and social inclusion in biodiversity conservation, and second, to enhance capacity of partners and stakeholders to enable women and socially excluded groups to claim their rights in natural resource management.

In order to ensure that this pillar of work is efficiently addressed throughout all working groups, an ABCG task force with members from Conservational International, the Jane Goodall Institute and World Wildlife Fund organized a workshop in August 2019. The workshops covered the following areas:

• Know basic concepts of gender (What)
• Understand the role of gender in effectiveness and sustainability of conservation initiatives (Why)
• Know the process of effective incorporation of gender at the design and implementation phases of a project (How)
• Describe how basic gender concepts relate to ABCG overall goal and respective task objectives – land use planning, climate change, community-based forestry, and global health (freshwater conservation and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene and Population, Health and Environment)
• Identify gender integration process and specific activities per task
• Select one gender indicator per task group

In addition, ABCG is working to see that gender indicator are incorporated into its activities. These indicators are built around the learning questions: Does the increased focus on gender-related activities during work planning, monitoring and team training, lead to an increase in gender integration of critical actors/stakeholders in project activities? And, Does the increased representation by women in project activities lead to improve women leadership to get involved in decision-making roles in community-based groups/committees/others, etc.

Gender is an important component of development interventions because of the different roles and responsibilities men and women have in the household and community, and the different needs, access and control to the different natural resources. The integration of women’s needs and input within conservation is therefore critical to achieving successful outcomes.

There are strong linkages between biodiversity conservation and human health, the health of domestic animals, and ecosystem health. People and nature co-exist together with numerous benefits recorded from having a harmonious relationship. Focusing on the synergies between human health and ecosystem health and including a wide spectrum of development and conservation targets, such as the sustainable management of natural resources, improved livelihoods, food security, and nutrition, can lead to more effective biodiversity conservation while simultaneously improving conditions for local people.

The Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group (ABCG) Population, Health and Environment (PHE) working group provides methodological guidance to advance a vision that incorporates health outcomes into biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.

On November 21, 2019, PHE members planned a PHE Experts meeting in Washington USA. More than 20 health, development and conservation experts provided insights, research and evidence on the benefits of integrated Population, Health and Environment programs for the African context, recognizing that human population growth is a main threat to biodiversity loss in sub-Saharan Africa.

The objectives of the meeting were to better articulate the key assumptions that could be tested over time and/or learning questions that could be tracked and/or ways of measuring the concept and/or best practices on how to effectively implement such complex projects. The group explored key questions about why PHE integration is so important to address human population growth and conservation and how to better measure the benefits or value added of these approaches. The experts shared lessons from projects in Madagascar and Tanzania about how communities are adopting better conservation or natural resource management practices if they are integrated with family planning and PHE approaches.

Three presentations framed the current thinking on PHE approaches:

• Kristen Patterson from Population Reference Bureau gave an overview of the PACE Project’s accomplishments providing country support to high priority family planning countries with capacity building, knowledge management, and policy advocacy, which complement the ABCG PHE task objectives.
• Laura Robson from Blue Ventures presented a brief overview of their latest research on PHE in Madagascar, which unpacked assumptions around PHE programming in coastal environments.
• Cheryl Margoluis from Pathfinder International shared lessons from the PHE work in Tanzania about how communities will adopt better conservation or natural resource management practices if they are integrated with family planning and PHE approaches.

Following the presentations, the group explored one of the fundamental assumptions of the value of PHE projects – that there are synergistic benefits to implementing and cross-sectoral “integrated” approach to meet human and ecosystem health outcomes. Over the past 20 years, many health and conservation organizations have implemented PHE projects and conducted research to demonstrate these benefits or value added. Nevertheless, both conservation community and donor agencies are recognizing a consistent knowledge gap and lack of consensus on why we integrate health activities into conservation projects; what added benefits are expected (and are realistic), and how exactly integrated PHE leads to improved conservation outcomes (the Theory of Change).

Participants agreed by the end of the workshop to use the following definition for developing the ABCG PHE reference sheet in 2020. “A strategic holistic approach to meeting people’s needs for health including reproductive health and maintaining restoring ecosystem services for greater environmental and social impact at multiple levels”.

Located in East Africa, Uganda is a country that is endowed with rich biodiversity. It is among the 10 most biodiverse countries in the world and carries about 40% of the continent’s mammal species with half of the world’s mountain gorillas found in Uganda. The country is home to over half of all the 2000 bird species in Africa’s bird species making it a birder’s paradise.

Like in many parts of the continent and across the globe, the country’s rich flora and fauna faces environment management challenges that threaten the existence of these resources. The leading threat is human wildlife conflict that results to the loss of lives and injures to both humans and wildlife. Other threats include, human wildlife conflict, increasing human population at a rate of 3.3 % per annum, high poverty level, and industrialization including oil discovery in the country.

Sudi Bamulesewa, African Wildlife Foundation Uganda Country Director provided an overview of how the African Wildlife Foundation with a vision to ensure that wildlife and wild lands thrive in modern Africa, in Uganda, is applying a holistic large landscape approach that will see its biodiversity thriving. Sudi was speaking at an Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group speaker series event held on November 14, 2019.

This approach includes activities aimed at building capacity of government institutions in the protection of biodiversity, working on tourism development, supporting communities adjacent to protected areas through education, and agro- based enterprises and ecotourism in a bid to see that communities living with wildlife benefit from biodiversity.

For more information, click to listen to the event’s webinar recording>

About the speaker

As AWF’s Uganda Country Director, Sudi oversees the successful implementation of programs in Uganda, works with AWF senior management to design new programs and grows AWF’s conservation and development portfolio in Uganda.

Sudi holds an MSc. Degree in Forestry for Rural Development (Twente University Institute of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation – ITC, the Netherlands), and a Post Graduate Diploma in Institutional Management (Uganda Management Institute, Kampala, Uganda).

Sudi started his professional career back in 1992 as an Agronomist with Uganda Tea Growers Cooperation. He later joined Uganda Local Government as District Environment Officer (Jinja District). In 2001, Sudi joined the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Uganda where he served for a period of 13 years, first as Program Management Specialist in the Economic Growth Office, and later on as Team Leader for the Environment and Natural Resources Management Unit. Prior to joining AWF-Uganda, Sudi was managing Director of ABEAT Associates (U) Ltd, a private agribusiness and forestry enterprise development firm.

The Mara-Serengeti Ecosystem in Tanzania and Kenya is an important ecosystem area that is estimated to carry about 40% of Africa’s remaining large mammals. The Greater Maasai Mara contains 25% of the ecosystems larger mammals despite making up only .05% of Kenya’s land mass. This figures were being shared by Daniel Sopia, the CEO Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association (MMWCA) at a recent Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group speaker series event held on October 29, 2019. Living harmoniously with the wildlife in the Greater Maasai Mara, are hundreds of thousands of the Maasia population who are traditional pastoralists.

Daniel noted that despite its importance, over half of the area in this ecosystem is unprotected. This exposes the wild animals to high threats as a result of habitat loss due to land privatization, fencing for agriculture or alternative land use, human-wildlife conflict and other land use pressures.

The adjacent land owned by local communities form key dispersal and diversity areas and are designated as Wildlife Conservancies that surround the National Reserve. Daniel’s presentation noted that a conservancy pools hundreds of individually owned land parcels into larger wildlife, tourisms and livestock management entities. Wildlife conservancies play a critical role in conserving the land and securing it from land conversion that lead to habitat loss and ensures the prosperity of biodiversity and wildlife in the region.

MMWCA has been in operation since 2014 and was formed as a membership organization for current and future wildlife conservancies in the Greater Maasai Mara. MMWCA has a mandate from landowners and tourism parties to play an overarching coordination role for the Greater Mara Ecosystem stakeholders. The association activities involve sustaining and creating Mara Conservancies, conservancy governance and transparency, community advocacy and awareness, gender education, sustainable revenue development and local capacity building.

This model has resulted to numerous benefit for wildlife, livestock and humans. Among these benefits include guaranteed monthly income for the communities, grass banks that allow land owners to access grazing in the conservancy, conservation where land and resources are conserved, employment through access to jobs in the tourism industry and conservation and development projects including health centers, water, classrooms and road.

For more about this model, download and listen to the webinar recording:  – audio recording

Click to download the slide presentation>

About the speaker
Daniel Sopia is an accomplished leader in conservation, with a track record of working with local communities to protect Kenya’s diverse ecosystems. He brings to MMWCA a great mix of leadership, inspiration, and passion for conservation. He possesses management experience in the conservation and tourism sectors. He serves on the Board of Greater Mara Trust/Greater Mara Management Limited as well as the Board of the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association representing the Maasai Mara region. As a founder member, Daniel has done a remarkable job with MMWCA’s formation, firstly as the Chairperson of the Conservancies Council prior to joining the Secretariat as Chief Programs Officer then CEO. Daniel is a Silver rated Professional Tour Guide who left active tour guiding to help set up Olare Motorogi Community Conservancy Trust in Maasai Mara. He co-steered Olare Motorogi Conservancy as a Director from 2006 to 2008, a Trustee and as a Community Development Manager in the year 2013. He has also served in the capacities of Board Member for Olare Motorogi Conservancy and Vice Chair of Olpurkel Company Limited, the Management Company managing the conservancy. Currently, Daniel has also been appointed as a Member of the Human-Wildlife Compensation Schemes Task Force.