ACES: Abrupt Changes in Ecosystem Services and Wellbeing in Mozambican Woodlands

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ACES examines how woodland loss is changing ecosystem services and wellbeing of the rural poor in Mozambique. It aims to integrate this information in to land use policy and practice to alleviate rural poverty in Mozambique. Poor rural households depend vitally on ecosystem services derived from African woodlands. However, little is known about the impacts of woodland loss and agricultural expansion on rural wellbeing. It is likely that gradual land-use change can cause abrupt changes to rural livelihoods, but the key ecological and social processes involved remain opaque. At all levels of land use policy and practice, there is a clear need for empirical evidence on the impacts of land-use change on rural wellbeing. ACES will deliver such evidence, within a framework designed for, and by, those involved in land use decisions. It will do so through a novel mixture of stakeholder participation in the construction of Bayesian Belief Networks, the collection of large scale socio-ecological data sets along gradients of land-use change, and their quantitative and qualitative analysis, leading to the creation of future scenarios of the impacts of land-use change. These methods allow the incorporation of different types of knowledge, a systems approach to complex realities, and the co-production of outputs that maximise impact. This work will move beyond the existing literature which describes how the rural poor rely on woodlands (Campbell and Byron '96) towards an integrated understanding of the socio-ecological processes at play. Our approach will inform debate and policy formulation that will directly influence the expansion of commercial agriculture, intensification of small-holder agriculture, rural development, and the likely trade-offs in management of woodlands for food, energy, timber, carbon and biodiversity. The project will employ four post doctoral researchers from Mozambique and Zimbabwe who will work in close collaboration with cognate researchers from 2 UK Universities, led by an interdisciplinary team of scientists from Southern and Northern institutions. A steering committee of experienced scientists and practitioners from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Brazil and Europe will provide strategic guidance and international policy linkages. The project builds on decades of work at three sites in Mozambique, and long involvement in pro-poor science-based policy on land management in Mozambique. It leverages 6 other projects in Mozambique with a value of >£2.1M, and international projects >£30M. In particular, this project is closely linked to a £1.9M investment in pro-poor land use in our study area, allowing our research to have a direct impact, as well as attracting stakeholder interest and the development of communities of practice.