Capstone Publications

Conservation Conversations

Publication year: 2024

Resource type: Magazine

Authors: Tijs Bergmans, Eloïse Ferreira, Sophie Groenewegen, Ipo Kok and Missa Rantala, and Yasmin Wakker,

A group of CHARM-EU students spent three months at the University of Pretoria's Hans Hobeisen Wildlife Research Station. While there, they explored the transition from imposed to engaged conservation and researched topics including the co-management of wildlife fencing, food security, benefit-sharing, foot-and-mouth disease, eco-art education and alternatives to militarised anti-poaching. Their findings are presented in this interactive, digital magazine which is open to all. The magazine outlines the students' experience at the research station, the stories of local stakeholders with whom they engaged, and their own personal stories and suggestions for visitors to the region.

Understanding Agricultural Systems Vulnerability to Climate Change - The Case of Botswana in the Lompopo River Basin

Publication year: 2024

Resource type: Magazine

Authors: Maryan Blas Lobo, Jordan Eustace, Robert Fitzgerald, Migle Labeikyte, Aneta Nerguti, Femke van der Zaag.

Agriculture remains the backbone of many economies in Africa. With most of the population dependent on rainfed agriculture, the impacts of climate change are ravaging many agricultural systems on the continent - manifesting through among other phenomena, droughts and floods. In Botswana, the agriculture sector is the second-largest employer of the labour force (after the diamond industry), yet the country is prone to droughts given its location in the Kalahari Desert. It was against this background that Botswana was spotlighted to address a knowledge gap (lack of knowledge on the sensitivity of agroecological zones across the sub-region to historic and future climate change) identified through the Lima Adaptation Knowledge Initiative for the Southern Africa sub-region.

The replication of Tolou Keur food forests across the Great Green Wall in Senegal

Publication year: 2023

Resource type: Brief

Authors: Linda Bovo, Limi Kalapurackal, Lisa Kranz, Diana Laborda Jou and Lena Sauer, and Cèlia Valls Rodríguez. 

The policy brief was prepared by a group of students of the CHARM-EU university who worked in collaboration with the UNCCD on their capstone project. They researched the replication of the Tolou Keur agroecological initiative, which is a part of the Great Green Wall initiative in Senegal. Based on the findings of their research, which also involved a field visit to Senegal, they produced several recommendations. The audience for this policy brief includes decision-makers, national and global financial and political partners, national GGW agencies and Senegalese ministries of environment and agriculture.