East African Mountain social ecological dynamics (AFRI-CAN)

Objective

Mountains globally are under pressure from a perfect storm of changing climates, growing populations, biodiversity threats and agricultural transformations; challenges that increasingly impact not just mountain communities, but also the surrounding lowlands that rely on highlands for the provision of resources, most obviously water. But such changes have global impacts too, since mountains are often hotspots of biodiversity and act as carbon sinks. These services provided by ecosystems are referred to here as Nature's Contribution to People (NCP), with the recognition that human systems and ecosystems are now so interlinked that they must be understood as social-ecological systems; in our case mountain socioecological systems (MtSES). Focussed on nine contrasting East African mountain settings, we will combine state-of-the-art modelling and valuation assessments to co-produce pathways for sustainable futures; an innovative, highly complex, and truly transdisciplinary ambition made possible by our emphasis on the principal material components of NCP (food, energy and water) and by understanding the past, present and future of MtSES within the Nature's Future Framework (NFF) that characterises how societies exploit, co-exist with, or enhance nature. Three workpackages examine NCP and biocultural diversity at three time scales: ‘The Past’ (6000 years ago to the present); ‘The Present’ (1970-2025); and ‘The Future’, that will forecast within the NFF at the short- (2030), medium- (2063) and long term (2100), with models of novel and sustainable futures informed by, and tested against, past MtSES dynamics. WP4 will apply our new understanding of the drivers of change to other African and global MtSES through our strong connections with the Mountain Research Initiative and the Global Mountain Biodiversity partnership, co-producing scenarios and pathways of change with diverse stakeholders to inform how MtSES worldwide could navigate future opportunities and challenges.