The two key African ecosystems (Serengeti and Luangwa) are providing positive, lasting and wide-ranging biodiversity conservation and human livelihood benefits (impact and outcomes). Local communities are empowered and, with other stakeholders, actively engaged in conservation, sustainable use and sustainable livelihoods of the Serengeti and Luangwa Ecosystems through the piloting of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s ecosystem approach.
This 5-year project: “Building Community Roles and Incentives in Ecosystem Conservation and Management: Piloting the Ecosystem Approach in Africa’s Serengeti and North Luangwa” was approved in 2004 as a joint venture between the European Union (EU) and the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS).
Two distinct ecosystems were chosen that are geographically distinct (and thus distant):
SEMP (Serengeti Ecosystem Management Project)
NEMP (North Luangwa Ecosystem Management Project).
FZS has been partnering with government and other key stakeholders in support of the conservation and management of both these ecosystems for considerable time – in the Serengeti (Tanzania) for more than 30 years and in North Luangwa (Zambia) for more than 20 years. The EU has partnered with FZS on projects in the Serengeti ecosystem in the past.
This project is expected to contribute to improving the health of both ecosystems and thus to provide human livelihood benefits. The project will strengthen the policy that enables local communities to play a central role in ecosystem conservation and management, whilst sustainably using natural resources. The implementation philosophy is based on trialling the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Ecosystem Approach – which is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way.
Project activities focus on the Approach’s five operational guidelines:
a) establishing inter-sectoral ecosystem cooperation mechanisms
b) improving understanding of ecosystem processes and functions
c) decentralising management to local institutions
d) improving benefits and incentives for local stakeholders
e) introducing adaptive management systems.
Moses Nyirenda (NEMP)
Dennis Rentsch (SEMP)
SEMP:
European Union (EU)
Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA)
Wildlife Division (WD)
NEMP:
Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA)
CRS/12.7.08
