Search

Major global changes in vegetation community distributions and ecosystem processes are expected as a result of climate change. In agricultural regions with a predominance of private land, biodiversity outcomes will depend on the adaptive capacity of individual land managers, as well as their willingness to engage with conservation programs and actions. Understanding adaptive capacity of landholders is critical for assessing future prospects for biodiversity conservation in privately owned agricultural landscapes globally, given projected climate change. This paper is the first to develop and apply a set of statistical methods (correlation and bionomial regression analyses) for combining social data on land manager adaptive capacity and factors associated with conservation program participation with biophysical data describing the current and projected-future distribution of climate suitable for vegetation communities. We apply these methods to the Tasmanian Midlands region of Tasmania, Australia and discuss the implications of the modelled results on conservation program strategy design in other contexts. We find that the integrated results can be used by environmental management organisations to design community engagement programs, and to tailor their messages to land managers with different capacity types and information behaviours. We encourage environmental agencies to target high capacity land managers by diffusing climate change and grassland management information through well respected conservation NGOs and farm system groups, and engage low capacity land managers via formalized mentoring programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In many parts of the world the boundaries between grassland and shrubland biomes have changed substantially over the course of the last century. Many are projected to shift further from being grass-dominated to shrub-dominated by 2050 under global climate change and land use change projections. This paper used long-term surveys and repeat photography to assess vegetation change at the shrubland-grassland ecotone in semi-arid, South Africa. Changes in several climate variables as well as in the cover of grasses and dwarf shrubs over three time periods (1962, 1989 and 2009) were investigated at eight localities within a broad 500 km ecotone between the Grassland and Nama-karoo biomes. Results showed that for most sites grass cover has increased and that dwarf shrub cover has decreased over time. This contradicts earlier views which warned against the expansion of dwarf shrublands in response to over-grazing as well as more recent views which suggest that more mesic biomes in the Karoo Midlands will contract in response to climate-induced aridification. The decline in stocking densities and more conservation-friendly land management practices together with an increase in large wet events in the Nama-karoo biome may have contributed to the increase in grass cover. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Every year approximately half a million hectares of land are burned by wildfires in southern Europe, causing large ecological and socio-economic impacts. Climate and land use changes in the last decades have increased fire risk and danger. In this paper we review the available scientific knowledge on the relationships between landscape and wildfires in the Mediterranean region, with a focus on its application for defining landscape management guidelines and policies that could be adopted in order to promote landscapes with lower fire hazard. The main findings are that (1) socio-economic drivers have favoured land cover changes contributing to increasing fire hazard in the last decades, (2) large wildfires are becoming more frequent, (3) increased fire frequency is promoting homogeneous landscapes covered by fire-prone shrublands; (4) landscape planning to reduce fuel loads may be successful only if fire weather conditions are not extreme. The challenges to address these problems and the policy and landscape management responses that should be adopted are discussed, along with major knowledge gaps. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper describes a manual-style Decision Support System that integrates land degradation indicators with adaptive management options and is designed for land managers to easily collect data and monitor progress towards environmental sustainability goals. A number of similar tools have been developed for ranchers in southern Africa, but there has been little help for land managers under common property regimes. Manuals were therefore primarily designed for use by communal pastoralists in three study areas in the Kalahari, Botswana. Separate manuals were developed for each study area in response to the differences in indicators and management options deemed relevant for each by local communities. The design of the DSS has been optimised using an “innovation-decision” approach combined with local and external expert review to enhance the likelihood of widespread uptake and application by land managers. Manuals are designed for regular use by pastoralists to identify detrimental environmental change early, and guide sustainable management responses. The recommended assessment procedure is flexible, and designed to make recording and interpretation of results simple for users. Full copies of each manual (in English) are provided (electronic version only). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]