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

ACES研究了森林损失如何改变莫桑比克农村贫困人口的生态系统服务和福祉。它的目标是将这些信息纳入土地使用政策和实践，以减轻莫桑比克的农村贫困。贫穷的农村家庭在很大程度上依赖非洲林地提供的生态系统服务。然而，人们对林地丧失和农业扩张对农村福祉的影响知之甚少。逐渐的土地利用变化很可能会导致农村生计的突然变化，但所涉及的关键生态和社会过程仍然不透明。在土地利用政策和实践的各个层面，显然需要关于土地利用变化对农村福祉影响的经验证据。ACES将在一个为参与土地使用决策的人设计的框架内提供这些证据。它将通过一种新颖的利益相关者参与贝叶斯信念网络的构建，沿着土地利用变化的梯度收集大规模社会生态数据集，以及它们的定量和定性分析，从而创建土地利用变化影响的未来情景，从而实现这一点。这些方法允许将不同类型的知识结合起来，对复杂的现实采取系统的方法，并共同生产影响最大的产出。这项工作将超越现有的文献，描述农村穷人如何依赖林地（Campbell和Byron '96），对社会生态过程的综合理解。我们的方法将为辩论和政策制定提供信息，这些辩论和政策制定将直接影响商业农业的扩张、小农农业的集约化、农村发展，以及在粮食、能源、木材、碳和生物多样性等林地管理方面可能存在的权衡。该项目将雇用来自莫桑比克和津巴布韦的四名博士后研究人员，他们将与来自两所英国大学的同源研究人员密切合作，由来自南部和北部机构的一个跨学科科学家小组领导。由来自津巴布韦、莫桑比克、巴西和欧洲的经验丰富的科学家和实践者组成的指导委员会将提供战略指导和国际政策联系。该项目建立在莫桑比克三个地点数十年的工作以及长期参与莫桑比克基于科学的扶贫土地管理政策的基础上。它利用莫桑比克的其他6个项目，价值100万至210万英镑，国际项目价值3000万英镑。特别是，该项目与我们研究区域190万英镑的扶贫土地使用投资密切相关，使我们的研究产生直接影响，并吸引利益相关者的兴趣和实践社区的发展。

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.