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Climate change adaptation concerns mechanisms for responding to local climate change impacts to improve livelihoods of and decrease risks to affected stakeholders. In this article, we present evidence and novel insights from selected climate change adaption cases studies in Sub-Saharan Africa, shared directly by climate change practitioners. Our aim is to foster awareness and comprehension for local, national and transnational actors, enabling better decision-making, project implementation and policy design. To achieve this we describe and assess positive spillovers and negative externalities of climate change adaptation. Building on our collection of case studies, we focussed on classifying adaptation projects according to a set of typologies identified by the researchers. To further explain the typology classification related to the occurrence of (un)intended (side) effects, we identified factors that may enable sustainable adaptation scenarios based on lessons shared about the investigated projects. These systems are based on existing political economic research on the state-of-the-art '4E'– method (representing enclosure, exclusion, encroachment, entrenchment) evident in the literature and case study applications, which we adapted to fit our research questions. The factors include collaboration across scales, data availability and learning, bottom-up involvement/participation. We also formulated the positive counterpart of each of the four E dimensions. One finding was that the category lose-win, where the intended goal was not achieved, yet a positive spillover occurred, would be more likely to emerge with the factors 'bottom-up participation' as well as 'learning across scales' being present. Highlights Show climate change adaptation as a critical concern for both local contexts and migration scenarios Identify evidence of potential pitfalls in planning and implementation that can arise given uncertain changes either in external factors beyond the control of adaptation stakekholders, as well as what lies within the control of climate change adaptation projects, but might not have been foreseen/foreseeable Measuring, describing and explaining the extent and quality of unintended side effects of climate adaptation Recommend ways to ameliorate potential side effects by better employing available resources [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability-focused research networks and communities of practice have emerged as a key response and strategy to build capacity and knowledge to support transformation towards more sustainable, just and equitable futures. This paper synthesises insights from the development of a community of practice on social-ecological systems (SES) research in southern Africa over the past decade, linked to the international Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS). This community consists of a network of researchers who carry out place-based SES research in the southern African region. They interact through various cross-cutting working groups and also host a variety of public colloquia and student and practitioner training events. Known as the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS), its core objectives are to: (1) derive new approaches and empirical insights on SES dynamics in the southern African context; (2) have a tangible impact by mainstreaming knowledge into policy and practice; and (3) grow the community of practice engaged in SES research and governance, including researchers, students and practitioners. This paper reflects on experiences in building the SAPECS community, with the aim of supporting the development of similar networks elsewhere in the world, particularly in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on sustainable use of wild species benefitting biodiversity and human well-being in South Africa. Topics include South Africa's National Development Plan 2030 reducing poverty and inequality supporting more inclusive rural and urban economies; and enabling South African perspectives informing the global assessment and policy recommendations.

Land‐use changes and the expansion of protected areas (PAs) have amplified the interaction between protected and unprotected areas worldwide. In this context, 'interface processes' (human–nature and cross‐boundary interactions inside and around PAs) have become central to issues around the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. This scientific literature review aimed to explore current knowledge and research gaps on interface processes regarding terrestrial PAs. At first, 3,515 references related to the topic were extracted through a standardized search on the Web of Science and analyzed with scientometric techniques. Next, a full‐text analysis was conducted on a sample of 240 research papers. A keyword analysis revealed a wide diversity of research topics, from 'pure' ecology to sociopolitical research. We found a bias in the geographical distribution of research, with half the papers focusing on eight countries. Additionally, we found that the spatial extent of cross‐boundary interactions was rarely assessed, preventing any clear delimitation of PA interactive zones. In the 240 research papers we scanned, we identified 403 processes that were studied. The ecological effects of PAs were well documented and appeared to be positive overall. In contrast, the effects of PAs on local communities were understudied and, according to the literature focusing on these, were very variable according to local contexts. Our findings highlight key research advances on interface processes, especially regarding the ecological outcomes of PAs, the influence of human activities on biodiversity, and PA governance issues. In contrast, main knowledge gaps concern the spatial extent of interactive zones, as well as the interactions between local people and conservation actions and how to promote synergies between them. While the review was limited to terrestrial PAs, its findings allow us to propose research priorities for tackling environmental and socioeconomic challenges in the face of a rapidly changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stewardship is a popular term for the principles and actions aimed at improving sustainability and resilience of social-ecological systems at various scales and in different contexts. Participation in stewardship is voluntary, and is based on values of altruism and long-term benefits. At a global scale, 'earth stewardship' is viewed as a successor to earlier natural resource management systems. However, in South Africa, stewardship is narrowly applied to biodiversity conservation agreements on private land. Using a broader definition of stewardship, we identify all potentially related schemes that may contribute to sustainability and conservation outcomes. Stewardship schemes and actors are represented as a social network and placed in a simple typology based on objectives, mechanisms of action and operational scales. The predominant type was biodiversity stewardship programmes. The main actors were environmental non-governmental organisations participating in prominent bioregional landscape partnerships, together acting as important 'bridging organisations' within local stewardship networks. This bridging enables a high degree of collaboration between non-governmental and governmental bodies, especially provincial conservation agencies via mutual projects and conservation objectives. An unintended consequence may be that management accountability is relinquished or neglected by government because of inadequate implementation capacity. Other stewardship types, such as market-based and landscape initiatives, complemented primarily biodiversity ones, as part of national spatial conservation priorities. Not all schemes related to biodiversity, especially those involving common pool resources, markets and supply chains. Despite an apparent narrow biodiversity focus, there is evidence of diversification of scope to include more civic and community-level stewardship activities, in line with the earth stewardship metaphor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]