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

ACES研究了林地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。其目的是将这一信息纳入土地使用政策和做法，以减轻莫桑比克的农村贫困。贫穷的农村家庭主要依赖非洲林地提供的生态系统服务。然而，人们对林地流失和农业扩张对农村福祉的影响知之甚少。土地使用的逐渐变化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进程仍然不透明。在各级土地利用政策和实践中，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将在为参与土地使用决策的人员设计的框架内提供此类证据。为此，将采取一种新的混合方式，让利益攸关方参与贝叶斯信念网络的构建，收集沿着土地利用变化梯度的大规模社会生态数据集，并对其进行定量和定性分析，从而为土地利用变化的影响创造未来的情景。这些方法允许整合不同类型的知识，对复杂的现实采取系统的方法，并共同生产最大限度地发挥影响的产出。这项工作将超越现有的文献，其中描述了农村贫困人口如何依赖于林地（坎贝尔和拜伦'96）对社会生态过程的综合理解在发挥作用。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性农业的扩大、小农农业的集约化、农村发展以及在管理林地以获得粮食、能源、木材、碳和生物多样性方面可能进行的权衡。该项目将聘请来自莫桑比克和津巴布韦的四名博士后研究人员，他们将与来自英国两所大学的同源研究人员密切合作，由来自南方和北方机构的跨学科科学家团队领导。由津巴布韦、莫桑比克、巴西和欧洲经验丰富的科学家和从业人员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工作的基础上，并长期参与莫桑比克以科学为基础的扶贫土地管理政策。它利用莫桑比克的其他6个项目，价值超过210万英镑，国际项目超过3000万英镑。特别是，这个项目是密切相关的190万英镑的投资在扶贫土地使用在我们的研究领域，使我们的研究产生直接的影响，以及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.