A community’s water supply is one of its most important infrastructures, as sufficient quality and quantity of water are as much prerequisites for human life as economic development. The rapid urbanization predicted for developing countries will cause serious water shortages in densely populated areas. The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) is taking precautions by planning and developing t...

Matobo district is renowned for a lot of rituals and taboos due to its association with the Njelele “sacred” shrine, which for a long time housed u Ngwali, the Ndebele spirit medium. Although the district lies within agro-ecological four which is characterised by erratic rainfall, the presence of wellmanaged wetlands has saved the local communities from the debilitating effects of droughts. The...

Nearly one-third of the world’s seafood supplies come from aquaculture industry, representing the fastest growing agricultural sector. Sustainable aquaculture production is crucial to meet the future demands for seafood globally. However, one of the biggest threats it faces is infectious bacterial disease, which effect livelihoods of communities causing heavy financial and production loses and ...

As part of a multi-collaborator research project on the potential of non-timber forest product (NTFP) trade for conservation and development we designed tools to assess the effects of NTFP trade on people’s livelihoods and the environment. To assess livelihood outcomes of NTFP trade we used the Sustainable Rural Livelihoods framework and identified indicators to capture changes in financial, ph...

Global conservation discourses and practices increasingly rely on market-based solutions to fulfill the dual objective of forest conservation and economic development. Although varied, these interventions are premised on the assumption that natural resources are most effectively managed and preserved while benefiting livelihoods if the market-incentives of a liberalised economy are correctly in...

Aquaculture activities are embedded in complex social-ecological systems. However, aquaculture development decisions have tended to be driven by revenue generation, failing to account for interactions with the environment and the full value of the benefits derived from services provided by local ecosystems. Trade-offs resulting from changes in ecosystem services provision and associated impacts...

Small-scale fisheries are responsible for high numbers of animals caught as bycatch, such as turtles, cetaceans, and seals. Bycatch and its associated mortality is a major conservation challenge for these species and is considered undesirable by fishermen. To gain insights on the impact of bycatch on small-scale fishermen and put it in context with other financial and environmental challenges t...

The potential of traditional natural resources management for biodiversity conservation and the improvement of sustainable rural livelihoods is no longer in doubt. In sub-Saharan Africa, extensive habitat destruction, degradation, and severe depletion of wildlife, which have seriously reduced biodiversity and undermined the livelihoods of many people in rural communities, have been attributed m...

In developing countries where access to and use of renewable natural resources essential to rural livelihoods are highly contested, improving cooperation in their management is increasingly seen as an important element in strategies for peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and longer-term social-ecological resilience. While researchers have made important advances in recent years in assessing th...

Two decades after their rapid rise to prominence, the place of livelihoods approaches in contemporary development conversations and programming is unclear. This status is in many ways deserved, as such approaches have often failed to deliver rigorous explanations of observed livelihoods decisions and outcomes. However, the recent refocusing of development and climate change discourses around th...