Coordination Funds

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Across the world, human population growth and increasing demands for natural resources lead to the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, mostly driven by land-use, climate and governance change. A key global challenge is, thus, to develop sustainable relationships between people and nature. Addressing this pressing topic requires social-ecological research toward understanding major components of the feedback loop between nature and people, including biodiversity, nature’s contributions to people (NCP), human well-being, governance and indirect and direct anthropogenic drivers. However, such integrative social-ecological research approaches are still in their infancy.The present proposal addresses these challenges at Kilimanjaro, an excellent study region with uniquely large environmental gradients and an unusual variety of stakeholder groups. In Kili-SES we will use a fully integrated, interdisciplinary approach to understand major components of the social-ecological system of Kilimanjaro under land-use, climate and governance change. We address the influence of a broad range of biodiversity components on the supply of regulating, material and non-material NCP. We investigate the supply of NCP in relation to the demand for them by major stakeholder groups, the values they attach to them and their impact on different constituents of human well-being. We consider how institutional and governance systems determine land use and supply of NCP. Finally, we address the direct effect of land-management and conservation measures on biodiversity.The proposal builds on unique data and knowledge obtained during a first ecological Kilimanjaro research unit and during over 30 years of research by A. and C. Hemp. Data will be obtained with various natural and social science methods. This will include the representative sampling of NCP on 65 established research plots. Beyond that, data from interviews, surveys, and social field experiments will be obtained from various stakeholder groups. Combining spatial attributes of plot and stakeholder data with remote sensing information will allow us to upscale data across the whole study region.Our approach will allow us to quantitatively describe and integrate the major components of the Kilimanjaro social-ecological system and their interlinkages in a spatially explicit manner. For example, we plan to analyse trade-offs and synergies in NCP supply, match and mismatch between NCP supply and demand, and relationships between governance, NCP demand and human well-being. With Kili-SES we will advance fundamental social-ecological research and provide a scientific basis for political and societal decision-making that will facilitate transformation towards sustainable relationships between nature and people at Kilimanjaro.