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Title
Woodland transitions and rural livelihoods: an interdisciplinary case study of Wedza Mountain, Zimbabwe |
Full text
http://hdl.handle.net/1842/31427 |
Date
2018 |
Author(s)
Pritchard, Rosemary Claire |
Contributor(s)
Ryan, Casey; van der Horst, Dan; Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) |
Abstract
Tropical woodlands play a key role in the livelihoods of rural communities in southern Africa,
but exist in contexts of constant ecological and socioeconomic change. With research into
tropical woodlands neglected compared to tropical forests, it is important to improve
understanding of the consequences of tropical woodland change for rural wellbeing. The aim
of this thesis is to examine the dynamic interactions between woodland change and rural
livelihoods through an interdisciplinary case study of a miombo woodland landscape on and
around Wedza Mountain, Zimbabwe. The thesis is organised into three parts addressing: (1)
the patterns of land use intensity and provisioning ecosystem service availability around
Wedza Mountain; (2) the importance of environmental resources in rural income portfolios
and hazard coping strategies; and (3) the adequacy of ecosystem service literature in
representing the environmental values of rural African communities.
The first part of this thesis explores patterns of land use and woodland structure on the
woodland cover gradient around Wedza Mountain. In Chapter 2 I characterise land use
intensity in the six study villages using a new method of calculating human appropriation of
net primary productivity (HANPP) at the village scale. Use of this approach indicates that
previous studies have underestimated land use intensity in African small-scale farming areas,
with village-scale HANPP estimates in Wedza ranging from 48% to 113% of total potential
annual NPP as compared to 18 to 38% in published studies. In Chapter 3 I combine woodland
survey data with a quantitative ethnobotanical assessment of the use values of woody species
and demonstrate that per-household availability of provisioning ecosystem services declines
with declining relative tree cover. These findings also suggest that more deforested villages
have reduced diversity of ethnospecies underlying service provision, with ramifications for
service resilience and livelihood option values in response to future change.
The focus of the second part of the thesis is on the role of woodland resources in rural
livelihoods. In Chapter 4 I quantify the contribution of environmental income to the total
income portfolios of 91 households and show that lower village woodland cover is not
associated with reduced livelihood diversity, in part because a large proportion of
environmental income is derived from degraded woodland or non-woodland environments. In
Chapter 5 I assess the importance of environmental resources for coping with hazard
exposures, drawing on recall of past exposure responses and a survey exercise weighting the
elements of coping strategy portfolios in response to varying shock scenarios. Synthesis of
these data sets indicates that environmental resources represent an important safety net in
coping with interacting covariate and idiosyncratic hazard exposures.
The third part of the thesis consists of critical reflection, firstly on the adequacy of
current ecosystem services research in southern Africa landscapes and secondly on this
specific research project. In Chapter 6 I identify the value discourses which are most dominant
across 356 peer-reviewed papers adopting an ecosystem services approach to miombo
landscape research, and contrast these with the environmental values of study communities in
Wedza District. Through this I show that the current ecosystem service literature is failing to
represent rural African social and spiritual imaginaries of landscapes, with potentially serious
consequences for the efficacy and equity of landscape management interventions. In Chapter
7 I examine some of the methodological and ethical challenges encountered during this
research project through a discussion of the relationships between researcher, research
assistant and respondents in an interdisciplinary field research context.
Finally, in Chapter 8 I synthesise the key messages from the thesis, and conclude by
discussing the implications of our findings for understanding of how future change will impact
the resilience and vulnerability of savanna woodland socioecological systems. |
Subject(s)
woodland; Africa; small-scale farming communities; Zimbabwe; firewood; loss of woodland cover; natural resources; sustainable landscape management |
Language
en |
Publisher
The University of Edinburgh |
Relation
The University of Edinburgh. College of Science and Engineering; Ryan, C.M., Pritchard, R., McNicol, I., Owen, M., Fisher, J.A. & Lehmann, C. (2016) Ecosystem services from southern African woodlands and their future under global change. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B ' Biological Sciences 371: 20150312. |
Type of publication
Thesis or Dissertation; Doctoral; PhD Doctor of Philosophy |
Format
application/pdf |
Repository
Edinburgh - University of Edinburgh
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Added to C-A: 2023-03-20;12:07:44 |
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