Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Human Mobility and Tree Management in Mozambique's Limpopo National Park

在当今南部非洲国家的战后、独立后和种族隔离后的背景下，人口流动仍然存在。由于开放地区正在扩大，历史上移动的人与空间上有界限的保护区之间的接触越来越多。 以前的研究将非洲的景观变化与移动的人砍伐树木联系起来，这些人砍伐树木是为了要求土地的使用权。 然而，也有研究表明，农村资源使用者也种植和保护树木。因此，人类流动与景观变化之间的关系需要进一步研究。本论文的研究将探讨在莫桑比克的林波波国家公园（LNP）的人类流动性，树木管理和土地要求之间的关系。 国家警察位于大林波波河跨界公园（GLTP）的莫桑比克一侧，这是一个国际和平公园，也包括南非的克鲁格国家公园和津巴布韦的戈纳雷周国家公园。 在利国警察的景观中，资源管理正在从传统制度转向公园制度，因此，Shangaan人口的居民正在搬迁。维特是格鲁吉亚大学的博士候选人，他将专注于：1）移动的和流离失所的人如何管理树木来要求土地，2）这些树木管理实践如何随着人们的移动而改变。 她将采用观察，访谈和绘图技术的综合方法来研究大约60年的居民流动性和树木管理在LNP。 该项目将促进我们对人类流动性和树木管理之间关系的理解，并有助于对历史上移动的人和历史上居住的景观进行社会和生态良好的管理。

Human mobility persists in the post-war, post-independence, and post-apartheid contexts of present-day Southern African nations. Because onservation areas are expanding, there is an increasing interface between historically mobile people and spatially bounded protected areas. Previous research has linked landscape change in Africa to tree clearing by mobile people, who clear trees to claim user-rights to land. However, there is also research that shows that rural resource users also plant and protect trees. Thus the relationship between human mobility and landscape change needs further investigation. This dissertation research will examine the relationship between human mobility, tree management, and land claims in Mozambique's Limpopo National Park (LNP). The LNP ison the Mozambican side of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP), an international Peace Park that also encompasses South Africa's Kruger National Park, and Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou National Park. On the LNP landscape, resource management is shifting from a customary regime to a park regime, and as a result, residents of this Shangaan population are being relocated. Witter, a PhD candidate from the University of Georgia, will focus on: 1) how mobile and displaced people manage trees to claim land and 2) how these tree management practices change as people move. She will employ an integrated methodology of observation, interview, and mapping techniques to examine approximately 60 years of resident mobility and tree management in the LNP. This project will advance our understandings of the relationship between human mobility and tree management and contribute to the socially and ecologically sound management of historically mobile people and an historically inhabited landscape.