Tools for management and Sustainable Use of Natural vegetation in West Africa (SUN)
Investigator(s)
Principal investigator:
Anne Mette Lykke, Department of Systematic Botany, Aarhus University, Denmark
E-mail: lykke(at)biology.au.dk
Abstract
SUN works to improve management and increase sustainability of the vegetation resources that are essential to local people’s livelihood in arid and semi-arid West Africa. SUN is composed of 10 workpackages (WPs) that focus on three major activities:
- Action-oriented research specifically targeted towards management. The objectives are to improve the understanding of vegetation dynamics and their causal factors at local scale (WP1) and to extrapolate these results from local to regional (West African) scale by use of a database of scientifically gathered vegetation data and remote sensing (WP2). Local knowledge and socio-economic studies will identify economic instruments to improve policies and redress impediments to sustainable use (WP3).
- Development of new decision support tools in order to organise and target already available scientific data and make them freely available via the internet. This includes a vegetation database (WP4), an overview of indicators of sustainable use (WP5) and a GIS tool (see WP6). These tools will be developed for decision makers and scientists, who need a sound scientific basis for management decisions.
- Establishment of practical management and restoration actions in selected areas – planned in close collaboration between scientists and local people and carried out by local people with support from scientists (WP7 and WP8).
SUN also has a WP that takes care of dissemination at all levels (WP9), and one which takes care of project administration and coordination (WP10).
URL
For more details please see: here
