Archive for: Journal Article

Bushmeat Hunting and Extinction Risk to the World’s Mammals

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Terrestrial mammals are experiencing a massive collapse in their population sizes and geographical ranges around the world, but many of the drivers, patterns and consequences of this decline remain poorly understood. Here we provide an analysis showing that bushmeat hunting for mostly food and medicinal products is driving a global crisis whereby 301 terrestrial mammal species are threatened with extinction. Nearly all of these threatened species occur in developing countries where major coexisting threats include deforestation, agricultural expansion, human encroachment and competition with livestock. The unrelenting decline of mammals suggests many vital ecological and socio-economic services that these species provide will be lost, potentially changing ecosystems irrevocably. We discuss options and current obstacles to achieving effective conservation, alongside consequences of failure to stem such anthropogenic mammalian extirpation. We propose a multi-pronged conservation strategy to help save threatened mammals from immediate extinction and avoid a collapse of food security for hundreds of millions of people.

Year: 2016

Source: Royal Society Open Science

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    Conservation

    Wildlife

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    Building Socio-ecological Resilience to Climate Change through Community-Based Coastal Conservation and Development: Experiences in Southern Madagascar

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    Climate change impacts fall disproportionately on the world’s poorest, most marginalised communities, particularly those highly dependent on direct use of natural resources, such as subsistence fishing communities. Vulnerability to climate change involves social and ecological factors, and efforts to reduce it and build long-term resilience must target both. In Madagascar, generalised strategies developed at the national level address vulnerability, adding to a variety of international initiatives. Yet, such high-level planning inevitably remains vague and indeterminate for most of the island’s coastal communities, with little meaningful implementation on the ground. Therefore, local measures to build resilience and adaptive capacity are critical to ensure that resource-dependent communities are able to cope with the immediate and long-term effects of climate change. Examination of an integrated population-health-environment (PHE) programme in Madagascar, comprising a locally-managed marine area (LMMA) and socio-economic development activities, illustrates how practical initiatives can contribute to building immediate and long-lasting resilience and adaptive capacity. Such community-based approaches should play a key role in adaptation measures within the western Indian Ocean region, where many coastal communities live in severe poverty on the front line of a rapidly changing climate.

    Year: 2012

    Source: Western Indian Ocean Journal of Marine Science

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      Adaptation

      Climate Change

      Community Outreach

      Conservation

      Resilience

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      Biodiversity Areas under Threat: Overlap of Climate Change and Population Pressures on the World’s Biodiversity Priorities

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      Humans and the ecosystem services they depend on are threatened by climate change. Places with high or growing human population as well as increasing climate variability, have a reduced ability to provide ecosystem services just as the need for these services is most critical. A spiral of vulnerability and ecosystem degradation often ensues in such places. We apply different global conservation schemes as proxies to examine the spatial relation between wet season precipitation, population change over three decades, and natural resource conservation. Identifying areas of climate and population risk and their overlap with conservation priorities can help to target activities and resources that promote biodiversity and ecosystem services while improving human well-being.

      Year: 2017

      Source: PLOS One

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      Climate Change

      Conservation

      Population

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      Big Issues Deserve Bold Responses: Population and Climate Change in the Sahel

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      Parts of Africa have the most rapid population growth in the world. In addition, recent studies by climatologists suggest that, in coming decades, ecologically vulnerable areas of Africa, including the Sahel, will be exposed to the harshest adverse effects of global warming. Fortunately, there are evidence-based achievable policies which can greatly ameliorate what would otherwise be a slowly unfolding catastrophe of stunning magnitude. But to succeed, such measures must be taken immediately and on a large scale. Taken together, rapid population growth and climate change pose a serious threat to the livelihood of the majority of the one hundred million people now living in the Sahel region and about two hundred million more who will live there in a generation’s time. This paper encourages working across silos to address these interrelated challenges.

      Year: 2013

      Source: African Journal of Reproductive Health

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        Climate Change

        Population

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        Benefits of Wildlife Consumption to Child Nutrition in a Biodiversity Hotspot

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        Terrestrial wildlife is the primary source of meat for hundreds of millions of people throughout the developing world. Despite widespread human reliance on wildlife for food, the impact of wildlife depletion on human health remains poorly understood. This paper looks at a cohort of 77 preadolescent children (under 12 years of age) in rural northeastern Madagascar and shows that consuming more wildlife was associated with significantly higher hemoglobin concentrations. The research demonstrates that removing access to wildlife would induce a 29% increase in the numbers of children suffering from anemia and a tripling of anemia cases among children in the poorest households. The well-known progression from anemia to future disease demonstrates the powerful and far-reaching effects of lost wildlife access on a variety of human health outcomes, including cognitive, motor, and physical deficits. The research quantifies costs of reduced access to wildlife for a rural community in Madagascar and illuminates pathways that may broadly link reduced natural resource access to declines in childhood health.

        Year: 2011

        Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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          Maternal and Child Health

          Nutrition

          Wildlife

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          Beginning With Sustainable Scale Up in Mind: Initial Results From an Integrated Population, Health and Environment Project in East Africa

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          Small-scale pilot projects have demonstrated that integrated population, health and environment approaches can address the needs and rights of vulnerable communities. However, these and other types of health and development projects rarely influence larger policies and programmes. ExpandNet, a network of health professionals working on scaling up, argues this is because projects are often not designed with sustainability and scaling up in mind. This paper shows how this new approach is being applied and the initial lessons from its use in the Health of People and Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin Project (HoPE-LVB) currently underway (2011-2017) in Uganda and Kenya. Specific emerging lessons are: 1) ongoing, meaningful stakeholder engagement has significantly shaped the design and implementation, 2) multi-sectoral projects are complex and striving for simplicity in the interventions is challenging, and 3) projects that address a sharply felt need experience substantial pressure for scale up, even before their effectiveness is established. This paper recommends that other projects would also benefit from applying a scale-up perspective from the outset.

          Year: 2014

          Source: Reproductive Health Matters

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            Integration

            Project Design

            Scale-up

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            Applying ExpandNet’s Systematic Approach toScaling Up in an Integrated Population, Health andEnvironment Project in East Africa

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            While the importance of pursuing integrated population, health and environment (PHE) approaches and ensuring their sustainable expansion to regional and national levels have been widely affirmed in the development field, little practical experience and evidence exist about how this can be accomplished. This paper lays out the systematic approach to scale up developed by ExpandNet and subsequently illustrates its application in the Health of People and Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin (HoPE-LVB) project, which is an integrated PHE project implemented in Uganda and Kenya from 2012–2017. Results demonstrate not only the perceived relevance of pursuing integrated development approaches by stakeholders but also the fundamental value of systematically designing and implementing the project with focused attention to scale up, as well as the challenges involved in operationalizing commitment to integration among bureaucratic agencies deeply grounded in vertical departmental approaches.

            Year: 2018

            Source: Social Sciences

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              Integration

              Scale-up

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              Does Doing More Result in Doing Better? Exploring Synergies in an Integrated Population, Health and Environment Project in East Africa

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              Population, health and environment (PHE) projects are an increasingly popular strategy for addressing lack of access to healthcare and livelihood opportunities in settings with threats to biodiversity loss. PHE projects integrate services and messaging from different development sectors, including health (particularly family planning), conservation and livelihoods. However, a question remains: do such projects produce value-added outcomes; that is, synergistic effects as a result of integration across sectors? Using qualitative data to explore value-added outcomes resulting from a PHE project serving communities along Lake Victoria in Kenya and Uganda, this study explores several theories about why this integrated project may be generating value-added outcomes, including changes in established gender roles, as well as substitution of time and investment of new income into sustainable livelihood activities, particularly among women. Integration led to several value-added benefits, particularly for women, although long-term sustainability of project outcomes remains a key concern.

              Year: 2018

              Source: Environmental Conservation

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                Family Planning

                Integration

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                Addressing Family Planning Access Barriers Using an Integrated Population Health Environment Approach in Rural Uganda

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                Among other objectives, the HoPE-LVB project aimed to increase support for family planning (FP) and women‘s involvement in decision-making by linking FP benefits to community needs including income generation from nature-based livelihoods. Improved FP access was measured by the project using qualitative methods and the project‘s indicator database in terms of five barriers: service quality, community knowledge, physical access, finances, and social acceptability. Through coordinated interventions representing multiple sectors, the project helped communities move more towards a tipping point whereby FP use has now become more an acceptable and accepted social norm. Central to this has been improving service quality and physical access as well as facilitating women‘s involvement in income-generation, thereby increasing their agency and contribution to decision-making including pregnancy timing.

                Year: 2018

                Source: African Journal of Reproductive Health

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                  Family Planning

                  Integration

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                  Family Planning and Resilience: Associations Found in a Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) Project in Western Tanzania

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                  In this study, researchers define and measure resilience within the context of Population, Health, and Environment programming and quantify the link between resilience and family planning. The study findings support the importance of including FP/MCH as part of integrated projects to enhance resilience.

                  Year: 2018

                  Source: Population and Environment

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                    Family Planning

                    Integration

                    Resilience

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