Wilding Grasslands

Context

Grassy ecosystems cover ~40% of land on Earth, and 50% of southern hemisphere land. The role of grassy ecosystems in NbS may be significant because of their underestimated biodiversity, large and resilient carbon stores, and importance for hydrological cycles and people’s livelihoods. However, they are among the least protected ecosystems globally and severely threatened by land use change incl. afforestation, mining, and conversion to agricultural land. Despite their many values and huge extent, <10% of studies on NbS focus on grasslands and the majority of those are on temperate, northern hemisphere systems.

Focused on African grasslands, our program will develop and evaluate wilding as an NbS for grassy ecosystems, i.e. the restoration of natural processes and biodiversity to improve ecosystem functioning. Wilding potentially enhances climate change mitigation, while improving biodiversity, water availability and livelihood functions. We will develop wilding as NbS in an inclusive and just way, building on needs, visions and knowledge of the people living in these landscapes. Specifically, we aim to evaluate (1) how wilding creates synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity, climate, water and livelihoods under diverse biophysical and socio-economic conditions, (2) how wilding interventions mitigate drivers of biodiversity change and (3) how to develop wilding-based NbS via co-creation processes with local communities and stakeholders to promote just transformation.

Main objectives

We have the following main objectives:

1. Mapping, scoping and gap analysis of existing wilding efforts and gradients in the case study area.
2. Co-create scenarios for wilding as a NbS and pathways to these scenarios, integrating indigenous and scientific knowledge and analysing trade-offs and synergies between biodiversity, water, climate change mitigation and livelihoods;
3. Measure biodiversity, water, climate change mitigation and livelihood values along existing wilding gradients and land tenure systems through indigenous knowledge approaches;
4. Measure biodiversity, water, climate change mitigation and livelihood values along existing wilding gradients and land tenure systems through scientific knowledge approaches and participatory monitoring;
5. Enable knowledge utilisation to generate impact locally and upscale our African-centred NbS and living lab work via local and transnational learning exchanges, training and policy documents.

Main activities

In an inter- and transdisciplinary approach, we mix methods from humanities, social and natural science, and co-create knowledge and scenarios in teams of researchers, non-academic partners and local community members. We will focus on a 5 000 km2 living lab in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, with strong environmental and socio-economic contrasts. We build on existing wilding interventions in the landscape that our key NGO partners have developed and implemented with local communities for over a decade.

From this, we will develop specific guidelines and blueprints for wilding as an NbS in grassy ecosystems that creates co-benefits for biodiversity, water, livelihood and climate. Ultimately, we expect to generate impact locally and transnationally by upscaling our African-centred NbS and living lab work via local and transnational learning exchanges and guidelines. This will not only broaden the portfolio of NbS for grassy ecosystems on the African continent but also inspire innovative NbS approaches elsewhere.