Core Topic (CT)

Land use changes: agriculture and restoration

 Topic (T)

Locally Protected Area (LPA-) network

 Title

Ethnological and ecological research towards LPA management and network constitution

 Project leader(s)

Prof. Dr. Brice Sinsin and Prof. Dr. Adjima Thiombiano
Dr. Nikolaus Schareika
Prof. Dr. Mark-Oliver Rödel
Prof. Dr. K. Eduard Linsenmair
PD Dr. Judith Korb
Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Kalko and Jakob Fahr
Dr. Karen Hahn-Hadjali and Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Wittig

 Project description

Joint or co-management is nowadays often considered as a tool to integrate local populations in national and regional conservation schemes. Thus local people shall benefit from and take interest in resource protection instead of becoming opposed to it. On a local level the establishment of Locally Protected Areas, such as botanical and medicinal plant gardens is a recent development, in which ecologically and socio-culturally important species can be maintained in collaboration with local stakeholders caring for biodiversity conservation. Research will contribute to the implementation process by assessing local systems of land tenure and evaluating socio-political relations between different stakeholder groups searching for access to natural resources.

The role and aim of BIOTA researchers is to initiate and support the creation of the network by delivering ethnological and ecological expertise and – to a small extent – to logistically support the network. The aim of this network is to serve as a platform a) for exchange of experience in LPA implementation and management, b) to enable and improve the transfer of local knowledge on species and planting techniques, c) to exchange plant and seed materials of decreasing species, and d) to support exchanges on cases of best practice and sensitisation activities.

The work focuses on four issues:

1. Conflict and co-operation: ethnological analysis of stakeholder interests and participation in land and natural resource management in the LPAs
2. Biodiversity inventories and monitoring
3. Income generation and sustainable use of species
4. Traditional conservation: assessment of the present status of sacred forests