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The dramatic increase of asylum seekers entering the EU in 2015 profoundly changed migration politics in many EU countries. Not least in Sweden which accepted more migrants per capita than any other EU country but then swung abruptly to become among the strictest recipient countries. We use Sweden as a critical and extreme case to argue that the rapid shift in asylum politics and public opinion towards migration is not profoundly shared in society. Based on a local media analysis of three types of purposively selected rural municipalities followed by the analysis of a survey of civil society organizations sent to all 290 municipalities in Sweden, we find strong civil society support and willingness to both receive migrants and facilitate their integration into society. Despite increasing votes for political parties with anti-migration policies, we also find remarkably positive attitudes towards migrants in civil society organizations and among citizens in the EU27 barometer for Sweden. The upshot is optimism that civil society can balance the anti-immigration governance imposed by both left and right political regimes and that populism will succeed only if it has the capacity to thoroughly transform civil society attitudes—which we doubt.

Miombo woodlands (MW) are increasingly experiencing widespread land use and land cover change (LULCC). This study explores the influence of fire, agriculture, and slope variability on LULCC in the miombo of the Beira Corridor. Land use and land cover data were derived from three Landsat images for 2001, 2008, and 2018. Slope attributes were derived from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Monthly burned data of Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) were used to map fire frequency. The derived data were then used to investigate the relationship between LULCC and fire, agriculture, and slope, based on geographically weighted regression (GWR). In addition, the relationship between LULCC and slope was assessed. Our findings indicate that fire frequency, agriculture, and slope were significantly spatially non-stationary. We found that LULCC was negatively correlated with agriculture in open miombo, but positively correlated in dense miombo. A positive relationship between LULCC and fire was found for dense and open miombo. Changes in agriculture, dense miombo, and open miombo increased towards high slopes. The study improves the understanding of the spatial effect of LULCC drivers. The development and implementation of effective fire management actions is required to promote sustainable forest management and preservation of critical ecosystem services.

Fire strongly impacts the composition and structure of ecosystems, with consequences yet to be understood. We used Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data to map fire frequency and fire intensity and investigate their effects on miombo woodlands (MW) of central Mozambique. Tree species diversity was evaluated and compared using rarefaction curves. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) ordination was used to identify patterns of species composition occurrence. The indicator value index method was applied to verify the occurrence of fire indicator species. In general, tree communities responded differently to varied fire regimes. We found low tree density in Intermediate fire frequency and intensity (IfIi) (180 trees ha−1) and High-frequency and Low intensity (HfLi) (316 trees ha−1) areas. The IfIi fire regime had the lowest carbon stocks (9.1 Mg ha−1), when compared to the rest of fire regimes. The species diversity decreased as fire intensity increased. IfIi areas had the maximum species diversity. The NMDS showed a varied species composition according to fire regime. We found a strong relationship between the species diversity and composition, and the pattern of fire occurrence in each fire regime. Our results are critical in supporting fire management policies and understanding fire regimes and their effects on miombo trees’ structure and composition.

The Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI) is a pan-African program launched in 2007 to combat land degradation and bring about both ecological and socio-economic benefits in the Sahel. With projects in place on only one-fifth of the targeted land and uncertainty about the extent of positive impacts, there is a need for improved monitoring and evaluation of current projects to inform the design of future projects. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation of socio-economic impacts, drawing on development theory, to relate investments in sustainable land management (SLM) to outcomes in terms of human well-being. We deploy a conceptual model, which draws on both the capability approach to human development and the sustainable livelihood framework. To contextualize the framework to the Sahel, we undertook a literature review of scientific studies of the facilitative social conditions and socio-economic impacts of SLM interventions in four countries: Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger and Ethiopia. We further refined the framework by examining project evaluation reports of Global Environmental Facility (GEF)-funded SLM projects. Our analysis of GEF projects shows that current monitoring and evaluation pays only limited attention to achieved outcomes in terms of well-being. We briefly discuss the application of the framework to SLM interventions and make recommendations for how it should be operationalized, including recommending more comprehensive measurement of the well-being impacts of these projects.