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SIT ROJECT RACTICE
T SA P P
AND T SIT P SA OLICY P ROJECT RACTICE B RIEF P SERIES
AND P OLICY B RIEF SERIES
1 The Tsitsa Approach to Sustainable Land Management and Rehabilitation
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ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN RURAL LANDSCAPES
Rural landscapes can be viewed as interconnected social-ecological systems. This means that the well-being of local communities depends on natural resources, which provide
‘ecosystem services’. Whilst human well-being depends on these ecosystem services, the health and condition of these ecosystem services simultaneously depends on their sustainable management and governance by resource users and other relevant actors. Therefore, the health of the landscape, i.e., of the social-ecological system, is an outcome of the interactions between humans and ecosystems.
Rural communities are typically reliant on ecosystem services, and so are highly vulnerable to shocks and stresses, especially those that come with the increasing threats of climatic changes and associated natural disaster risk (e.g. higher temperatures and more variable rainfall).
The quality of the ecosystem services provided by landscapes is directly related to the quality or condition of that landscape, and threats like climate change can often impact on people’s ability to benefit from ecosystem services. Whilst local communities have been effective custodians of landscapes all over the world for centuries, global political and economic changes have compromised the efficacy of local governance of ecosystem services in many places, exacerbating social vulnerability and landscape degradation. Novel approaches are urgently needed to address the social-ecological sustainability challenges in rural landscapes with high levels of dependence on ecosystem services, fractured governance systems, and on-going leakages of human and natural capital.
SUMMARY OF THE TSITSA APPROACH
The situation described to the left is typical of many rural landscapes across South Africa, and indeed around the world. For a long time, landscape degradation has been treated primarily as a technical and ecological challenge, rather than an integrated, complex social- ecological challenge. The Tsitsa Approach is a process and a product which was developed to investigate the practical implications of adopting a social-ecological approach to sustainable landscape management.
This Practice and Policy Brief describes the novel approach adopted by the partners in the Tsitsa Project towards sustainable land management and rehabilitation, called the ‘Tsitsa Approach’. This approach aims to improve or maintain ecosystem services delivery and avoid degradation, in support of rural, land-based livelihoods in the Tsitsa River catchment.
The document captures the highlights of an integrated approach to long-term sustainable land management with, and for, local land users; key insights from the engagement and development process; and recommendations to readers such as: government at various levels, NPO and NGO’s; private enterprise; and national and international funders.
Whilst the ‘Tsitsa Approach’ has emerged from a particular context, in a particular place, many of its lessons are applicable in a wide range of similar contexts where local communities are highly dependent on ecosystem services, and where local governance systems are poorly functioning or compromised in some way. The Tsitsa Project team is on an on-going learning journey and looks forward to feedback and engagement on the ideas presented in this brief.
INTRODUCTION TO THE TSITSA PROJECT
The Tsitsa Project is a sustainable landscape management initiative that was co-initiated by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) and Rhodes University in 2014.
The initiative now includes a wide range of partners, including local catchment residents and authorities, and LIMA Rural Development Foundation. The project promotes the development of capabilities for local stakeholders and residents to be able to meaningfully participate in planning and decision-making processes pertaining to land use, restoration and livelihood activities in the Tsitsa River Catchment.
Certain critical capabilities have been identified as stepping stones or pathways for the achievement and sustainability of catchment management/land use initiatives and practices, including adaptation to climate risks and vulnerabilities, and increasing capabilities for critical skills of several kinds for many people. Different facets of the project are described in the Tsitsa Project Practice and Policy Brief Series (see pg.8 and the references to other briefs throughout).
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Contributing projects and organisations
Multiple projects, and their associated implementing organisations, informed the Tsitsa Project and, in turn, the Tsitsa Approach. These projects and organisations included the Association for Water and Rural Development (AWARD) RESILIM-O programme; the WRC ‘Towards Practicing a New Paradigm’ project (Institute for Water Research, Rhodes University), the Thicket Project (Rhodes Restoration Research Group (RRRG)) and the Umzimvubu Catchment Partnership Project (UCPP).
OVERVIEW OF THE TSITSA RIVER CATCHMENT, ITS PEOPLE, AND ITS CHALLENGES
Enabling funding and support from DFFE and
other partners
Contributing projects and organisations
Contributing ideas, theories,
frameworks
Foundational and constituent
research
The Tsitsa River catchment and its stakeholders The Tsitsa
Approach A
B
C
Enabling funding and support The Tsitsa Approach was developed with the funding and support of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, with the active participation of local land custodians and the engagement of Rhodes University and Lima Rural Development Foundation. This ongoing funding and engagement influenced the approach and the
approach then attracted additional funding and partners (Feedback A)
The Tsitsa River Catchment and its stakeholders The Tsitsa Approach was developed in a
particular geographic context, the Tsitsa River Catchment, with the active participation of community members, government actors, and traditional leadership.
Feedback B, in the diagram to the left, captures the fact that the piloting of the approach happened in iterations, underpinned by principles of reflexivity, learning by-doing, and co-learning.
Foundational and constituent research
The Tsitsa Project built upon foundational research in the Tsitsa River Catchment, much of which was biophysical mapping and modelling-oriented. The existing research base was then enriched and expanded with multiple social science studies, which included an increasing number of participatory and action research projects. Examples of these projects include the WRC-funded Green Village Project (which pioneered integrated planning workshops and trainings in the catchment) and the PhD and masters studies on participatory governance development for improved land and water governance. This research informed, and was informed by, the Tsitsa Approach, in an iterative fashion (Feedback C in the diagram).
The Tsitsa River forms part of the upper reaches of the Mzimvubu River catchment in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa (see map). The Mzimvubu Water Project (MWP) – a large dam-building project – was proposed, to alleviate poverty in the area through job creation, water supply and hydroelectric power. The Tsitsa Project was initiated in response to concerns about the feasibility of the MWP relating to erosion, land degradation, dam sedimentation, and financial feasibility. Land degradation in the catchment is attributed to a bundle of interconnected issues including geology and topography, climate, and compromised landscape management and governance. Despite delays to the dam-building project, landscape rehabilitation to underpin livelihoods, continues in the catchment.
The Tsitsa River landscape falls within the grassland biome. The land is utilised for private commercial farming (including plantation forestry) in the upper western part of the catchment, and for extensive grazing and small-scale subsistence cropping in the lower eastern part of the catchment. Invasive alien plants are a challenge in drainage lines and in many headwater catchments. The majority of Tsitsa Project’s work has been focused on communal land in the Tsitsa River catchment, where low levels of formal education, high unemployment and low household incomes result in dependency on government grants and remittances. A large proportion of the employed/employable population lives outside of the Tsitsa River catchment in larger urban centres, leaving youth and pensioners to remain in the landscape.
Crime, violence and abuse are widespread concerns.
EVOLUTION OF THE TSITSA APPROACH
The Tsitsa Approach, which is introduced in this brief, evolved through a combination of factors that can be summarised into five categories, with reference to the following diagram.
Contributing ideas, theories, frameworks
The Tsitsa Approach is informed by a wide range of theoretical and conceptual frameworks, including complex Social Ecological Systems (SESs); resilience theory; Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM); Sustainable Land Management (SLM); Transdisciplinarity (TD); systemic praxis, and the Capabilities Approach to Development.
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2 STRENGTHENING PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE, INCLUDING INTEGRATED VILLAGE LEVEL PLANNING THE TSITSA APPROACH
Enhanced rehabilitation and Sustainable Land Management (SLM) is about:
• integrating CUSTODIANSHIP, rehabilitation and livelihoods for SLM and climate change adaptation using an approach based on participatory principles;
• being flexible in terms of activities, timelines and targets;
• government funders, implementers, researchers and catchment residents working together to achieve an agreed outcome; and
• commitment by all to long-term investment: this is guided by a clear, shared vision for the future of the catchments, and the six objectives outlined below (which evolve over time).
1 AVOIDED DEGRADATION, SUSTAINABLE LAND MANAGEMENT (SLM) AND REHABILITATION
The Tsitsa Project aims to lower the anthropogenic drivers of degradation to bring about biophysical change that will yield long-term benefits to the land users.
A large part of this is to be pre-emptive about how land is and will be used and likely consequences. To move towards this aim, researchers, community members and leaders, government officials, and implementing agents work together to plan, implement and monitor sustainable land management and avoided degradation interventions by:
• learning and sharing knowledge towards identifying and prioritising key ecological infrastructure and services in need of protection and rehabilitation;
• understanding landscape processes, uses and vulnerabilities in the Tsitsa River catchment both from a land user and scientific point of view; and
• developing long-term community-based and locally accepted sustainable land management plans for improved livelihoods and climate change
resilience.
This requires plans and implementation that are locally appropriate, avoids degradation or further degradation of areas sensitive to degradation, and draws on inputs and support from a wide group of stakeholders. Rehabilitation of degraded areas is used as a tool to fast-track improved landscape functioning and associated benefits.
The Tsitsa Project sought to strengthen participatory governance in the Tsitsa River Catchment at multiple levels and via multiple pathways. The Tsitsa Approach to participatory governance development is described here in two parts: a higher-
level introduction to building governance capability and an operational-level introduction to doing participatory and integrated village-level planning. The foundational vision of the Tsitsa Project Governance CoP (GovCoP) was based on the recognition that development projects
should create functional relationships, understandings and practices that enable local people to engage with formal and traditional government, institutions, and governance processes, in order to represent their interests on
an ongoing basis. This often requires building new
relationships among actors and building on existing ‘boundary spanners’ (see Tsitsa Project Practice and Policy Brief #4). The GovCoP envisioned a participatory governance development ‘Capability Pathway’ and worked collaboratively to develop participatory governance capabilities, and to enhance productive further networking.
Participatory and integrated village-level planning in the Tsitsa Project was based on the recognition that local communities know their land best and make decisions on a day-to- day basis. Working in a participatory manner in planning and decision-making promotes equity and access to resources. Key activities included undertaking participatory mapping and co-learning with local land users; collaboratively agreeing on resource use and management; participation in community meetings, and facilitating training and short courses (see Capacity and Capability development section below).
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4
GREEN LIVELIHOODS AND CLIMATE CHANGE INNOVATIONS
CAPACITY AND CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT (CAPDEV)
Livelihood options are limited in the Tsitsa River catchment area. Sustainable land management and rehabilitation create new opportunities that can provide some income and food security, especially in the light of climate change stresses.
Several opportunities have been developed in the Tsitsa Project, including local residents (or ‘green-preneurs’) having multipurpose gardens to grow vegetables and grass plugs, with the grass plugs being sold to rehabilitation implementers for vegetation hedges
that prevent soil erosion.
The focus of these micro-enterprises is to derive income by supplying the land restoration work with grass plugs (vetiver grass and indigenous grasses) for establishing vegetation barriers or grass hedges as erosion control
interventions. In some gardens, the nurseries are designed in a way that also contributes to the improvement of food security through the introduction of rain water harvesting techniques, soil conservation and fertility.
A second opportunity facilitated by the Tsitsa Project for social, economic and environmental transformation is grazing management linked to grazing agreements.
These grazing agreements integrate grassland rehabilitation and ecoranger activities so that livestock production-related livelihoods are also improved. This can facilitate effective access to appropriate livestock markets such as offered by the MeatNaturally Ltd.
Grassland rehabilitation activities are promoted through a combination of one or more of the following:
• Rest and rotation of grazing areas;
• Livestock herding; and
• High-density kraaling (keeping livestock in small camps).
The combination of grassland rehabilitation and eco-ranger activities with the green-preneurs programme, together with broader
landscape scale rehabilitation interventions, support Ecosystem-based Adaptation as a sustainable response to manage the risks arising from climate change. These activities also have co-benefits for climate change mitigation.
(For more information, see the Tsitsa Project Practice and Policy Brief #3).
The Tsitsa Project has adopted a learned-centred approach as an overarching principle that guides all engagement in the project. Understanding how learning can be enabled and supported is an important component of the Tsitsa Project approach to enhanced
rehabilitation. CapDev activities in the Tsitsa Project take multiple forms, including:
• Structured training through accredited and non-accredited training courses;
• Workshops, seminars and symposia;
• Unstructured training (such as mentorship, learning exchanges, facilitated field trips and the use of demonstration sites); and
• Informal co-learning through participation in a shared practice.
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6 INTERNAL PROJECT GOVERNANCE
The project has a strong internal governance structure. The ‘internal’ governance interfaces, and helps promote, wider ‘external’ governance in the landscape and therefore the boundary between internal and external is fuzzy.
Key to the overall governance is a healthy relationship between the project team, stakeholders, and funders. This is enabled by: diverse configurations of governance actors at different levels; a partnership mindset with funders; safe, productive and inclusive work spaces; a panel of experts, and active handling of fast expansion and project sprawl (see the Tsitsa Project Practice and Policy Brief #2).
5 LOCAL MONITORING, EVALUATION, LEARNING AND ADAPTING
The Tsitsa Project has implemented a system called ‘PMERL’: Participatory Monitoring, Evaluation, Reflection and Learning. PMERL is part of a growing family of novel approaches to monitoring and evaluation (M&E). These approaches focus not just on ensuring accountability (as in standard M&E), but also enabling learning and adaptation. They focus strongly on local, community-based monitoring, and participatory learning and reflection among the diversity of stakeholders in the project. This enables more adaptive management and learning among stakeholders.
The PMERL system is designed to connect monitoring with evaluation in a participatory way. The Tsitsa Project employs different types of community-based monitors, who collect a range of social, ecological and social-ecological data.
Researchers and partner organisations contribute additional technical monitoring and research to complement this local monitoring. The PMERL team collates
and organises all data and observations, facilitates conversations, makes information available when needed, and creates opportunities for reflection, joint
evaluation and synthesis.
(For more information on the PMERL work of the project see Tsitsa Project Practice and Policy Brief #5).
So what has the Tsitsa Project achieved?
At this point in the brief, readers may well be asking themselves, what has the project concretely achieved by using the Tsitsa Approach?
Knowledge outcomes on biophysical aspects have included the development of baselines for biophysical monitoring; a better understanding of vegetation cover and fire dynamics; and a growing understanding of sediment dynamics. Knowledge generated on the social aspects includes a better understanding of residents’ needs, interests, motivations and knowledge related to natural resource management and potential opportunities within the Tsitsa Project.
Other process-based outcomes include a developing organisational and social network, both within the catchment, and with a wide range of other
stakeholders, such as those working in similar catchment initiatives.
Fundamentally though, the Tsitsa Approach has aimed to help capacitate residents in the system to participate effectively in
the governance and management of natural resources and build capacity for long-term sustainable and adaptable
achievement. This is ongoing.
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LEARNING AND INSIGHTS FROM OUR INTERACTIONS WITH ONE ANOTHER AND THE LANDSCAPE
Recommendations and ways forward Key pathways and enablers
The recommendations and ways forward proposed by the Tsitsa Project can be thought of as three intersecting pathways, along with a set of three enablers. Pathways criss-cross many rural South African landscapes. They are walked by livestock and people, taking them from one point to another, through twists and turns, following the lie of the land. The pathways are sometimes clearly defined, sometimes less so.
However, they are purposeful, and they help the walkers to find a way forward more easily, than if there were no pathway. Taking the pathways and enablers we propose here could lead to capability expansion and participatory governance to realise sustainable land management. They are of course not the only
pathways, and not all are necessary or suitable all the time in all places.
We encourage others to explore these pathways and work towards the enablers proposed here. From our experiences in the Tsitsa River
catchment, we believe that embarking on a journey together towards sustainable land management along the pathways
we propose in this brief may well lead to favourable outcomes.
We are learning about WORKING TOGETHER
• We need to work adaptively, and with respect, openness, care and inclusivity;
• this working together needs to be convened across multiple levels and forms of knowledge;
• active coordination, networking and relationship- building is key;
• it’s important to include time for informal communication – being present and listening;
• the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our ways of working and we are adapting.
We are learning about
LANDSCAPES - HOW THEY WORK, HOW TO MANAGE THEM
• Identifying and prioritising key ecological infrastructure and services is key;
• we need to understand landscape processes, uses, benefits and vulnerabilities;
• developing long-term community-based sustainable land management plans requires input from all stakeholders;
• enhanced rehabilitation administrative systems are required;
• a monitoring system that capacitates and employs local residents as monitors and interfaces with other monitoring systems brings multiple benefits.
We are learning about LEARNING TOGETHER
• Actively building a culture of reflection, learning and care;
• different kinds of knowledge matter:
everyone is a learner and a teacher;
• how learning processes are designed and facilitated matters;
• the language we speak matters;
• using the Capability Pathway helps to guide the emergence of participatory governance and learning;
• village-level engagements open up opportunities for social learning processes that enable capability expansion;
• consider the opportunities and constraints to moving face-to-face learning to online learning.
We are learning about
INTERCONNECTIONS BETWEEN PEOPLE AND LANDSCAPES
• It’s important to actively explore and develop a shared understanding of the history of local land use practices and related ‘problem issues’;
• integrating livelihood strategies with rehabilitation interventions brings benefits to both;
• land use management is sustained by catchment residents who have developed a common understanding of the project objectives and actively engage in decision-making;
• prototyping of green-preneur initiatives enables stakeholders to jointly interrogate and explore their feasibility.
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1 2
Pathway 1
3The research praxis pathway
Pathway 2
Supporting green
livelihoods and catalysing green innovations
Pathway 3
Building capacity to enable local agency and capabilities
What does this mean to enable engaged research-praxis and collaborative partnerships? It means helping scientists, managers, implementers, local residents and other partners to work together and make the most of the different kinds of knowledge they have. It means bridging the usual divide between scientific theory and practical actions. Praxis is about continuously integrating theory and practice.
Researchers and development practitioners can and should play a key role in supporting rehabilitation planning towards sustainable land management (SLM), but this requires an engaged, transdisciplinary, praxis-orientation to research that adopts an explicit social-ecological systems framing in its work. Partnering with researchers should become a standard way of setting up rehabilitation implementation. Making this work requires the creation of safe and equitable work spaces in which power dynamics are acknowledged, and inclusive and diverse research and engagement methodologies are prioritised.
Some specific recommendations within this pathway include:
1. Build the convening and advisory capacities of the project hub.
2. Identify local interests and potential benefits of the project.
3. Invest in early and on-going research and knowledge sharing on biophysical and social processes and interactions that interfaces with planning and management.
4. Target and respond to key drivers and threats of degradation.
5. Develop local monitoring, reflection and learning systems.
For more information on the importance of sustained praxis, see Tsitsa Project Practice and Policy Brief #2.
Supporting green livelihoods is about catalysing green innovation for sustainable development and the realisation of residents’ aspirations. Transforming the socio-economic context of rural landscapes requires the development of incubators for prototyping and experimenting with innovative green jobs and livelihoods activities. These require local innovation hubs, operating as multi- stakeholder platforms, to enable collaborative development of new markets and ways of driving the rural economy that contribute to sustainable land management (SLM) and climate change adaptation (CCA).
Some specific recommendations within this pathway include:
1. Integrate livelihoods strategies with rehabilitation interventions in order to achieve multiple goals in mutually supporting ways.
2. Facilitate the expansion of catchment residents’ core knowledge, skills and capability, incorporating climate change adaptation principles, where appropriate.
3. Combine capacity building opportunities with local level participatory planning interventions (e.g. Integrated Development Planning cycles).
4. Protype and test green-preneur initiatives, with residents, practitioners and researchers to explore the local feasibility of livelihood alternatives.
5. Secure access to market value chains to reinforce the green-preneurs motivation to engage in new ventures.
This pathway speaks to the importance of involving, empowering and, where appropriate, employing local people as central players in making a better future for their landscape to enable sustainable land management (SLM) and climate change adaptation (CCA). This includes moving beyond technical and ‘manual labour’ type skills to becoming monitors, co-researchers, co-innovators and entrepreneurs.
The importance of relationships and trust-building;
agency-building, future, and change-oriented activities;
and reflexive orientations for enhanced rehabilitation, SLM and CCA is becoming increasingly important.
To enable this requires drawing on mediating or facilitation tools in local participatory processes such as integrated planning, to catalyse participants’ agency to collaborate in shifting the status quo and pursuing their agreed goals or aspirations.
Some specific recommendations within this pathway include:
1. Be attentive to language, sensitive to context, and the multiple ways in which people learn.
2. Facilitate social learning processes and engagements at a village level.
3. Integrate an awareness of climate change risks and climate change adaptation approaches in relation to peoples’ livelihoods.
4. Plan and build capacity for increased participation, collaboration, and inclusivity in integrated land management and governance.
5. Develop a monitoring system that capacitates and employs local residents as monitors.
6. Recognise that ecosystem-based adaptation and green solutions require ongoing maintenance and resources.
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Working progressively towards an enabling
institutional and operational context An adaptive, reflexive, learning orientation to:
(a) Stakeholder engagement
(b) Rehabilitation and sustainable land management and planning
(c) Monitoring and evaluation.
A working culture of respect, humility, openness and inclusivity
1 2 3
The first set of enabling factors encapsulates the broad categories of working towards secure, long-term funding that is administered with empathy and flexibility;
striving for good working relationships and partnerships among key leaders of the initiative/project; and aiming to inform the development and testing of supportive policy frameworks.
Specific recommendations for this enabler include:
1. Strive to secure, and then maintain, a healthy partnership attitude to your initiative and its funders 2. Ensure there are safe spaces to practice all the steps
together.
3. Complex projects inevitably, and necessarily, grow to include multiple sub-initiatives: when this happens, develop a method to assess what should be peripheral and what should remain central, based on core values and principles.
4. Work from what is there: take time to learn about and, where possible, map existing governance structures, both formal and informal.
5. Identify and partner with competent actors based in the area.
This orientation needs to influence the work at multiple levels and is embodied, for example, in PMERL (see above) and Strategic Adaptive Management (SAM) approaches, which have been two of the key framings of the Tsitsa Project.
Specific recommendations for this enabler include:
1. Practice tolerance, openness and flexibility.
2. Plan and budget for informal interaction time.
3. Build a PMERL system that recognises synthesis and knowledge integration as central, and that is tightly linked to Strategic Adaptive Management processes.
4. Budget sufficient resources for online learning, working and interacting.
5. Consider different rates and types of change taking place in the system.
6. Actively surface and understand the history of local land use practices and related problem issues.
7. Target areas with a high likelihood of success first before more problematic areas are attempted. This will allow learning and method adaptation to take place before larger challenges are attempted.
This way of working also pays attention to the internal dynamics or governance of project teams, i.e. not only trying to ‘change the world out there’ but also internally.
The diversity of stakeholders is a central consideration, and attention is paid to issues of power dynamics, language, and different forms of knowledge.
Specific recommendations for this enabler include:
1. Develop a common, if heterogeneous, understanding with residents of the project vision, objectives and landscape management activities.
2. Practice inclusive trust-building, participation and reflection within the team.
3. Mediate tensions and relational dynamics among different catchment stakeholders as fairly as possible.
4. Actively build a culture of reflection, learning and care.
5. Develop effective and impactful capacity development processes according to principles of transdisciplinarity in which everyone is a learner, everyone is a teacher!
6. Pay careful attention to process design and practicalities to enable meaningful, equitable and beneficial capacity development and social learning.
Enabler 2 Enabler 3
Enabler 1
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INSIGHTS FOR GOVERNMENT
• Allow space in projects for on-going adaptation, learning and unexpected outcomes and changes.
• Enable effective work flow by reducing bureaucratic hurdles and ineffective reporting burdens.
• Avoid frequent stop-start with funding of projects/implementation.
• Allow adaptive processes that don’t fit existing rigid structures (see Brief #2).
• Allocate resources for capacity building towards more integrated, adaptive and learning-oriented ways of working.
• Integrate locally-driven livelihood strategies with rehabilitation interventions (see Brief #3).
INSIGHTS FOR RESEARCHERS
• Adopt a ‘sustained praxis’ approach (see Brief #2) in which reflection, adaptation and on-going interactions between research and implementation are enabled.
• Respect different forms of knowledge, not just academic or scientific knowledge by practicing inclusivity and acknowledging power dynamics among the knowledge systems.
• Ensure sufficient resources for coordination, convening and facilitation (see Brief #5), including via supporting boundary spanners (see Brief #4).
• Manage knowledge actively and ensure effective mediation of knowledge.
INSIGHTS FOR FUNDING AGENCIES
• Allow innovative and adaptive processes regarding outcomes and deliverables – this requires an adaptive, learning- focused orientation to monitoring and evaluation (see Brief #5).
• Allow longer-term funding commitments to ensure project stability and enable the slow and messy work of adaptive, collaborative work (see Brief #2).
• Build capacity locally with ongoing support of specialists and researchers (see Briefs #2 and #5).
• Adopt a collaborative partnership approach to implementation among diverse stakeholders.
INSIGHTS FOR NGOS, IMPLEMENTERS
AND DEVELOPMENT PRACTITIONERS
• Budget sufficiently to allow for effective and relevant monitoring and adaptation (see Brief #5).
• Be careful with raising expectations at the beginning of a project as this can undermine community trust in the long run.
• Visit similar projects in your region to exchange and share experiences, see examples, learn together and inspire one another.
• Partner with researchers who can provide support with knowledge co- production, synthesis, and reflection processes.
4
The Tsitsa Approach to sustainable land management and rehabilitation
2
3 5
1
Pathway 2 Supporting green livelihoods and catalysing
green innovations Pathway 1 The research praxis pathway
Pathway 3 Building capacity to
enable local agency and capabilities 1. The Tsitsa Approach to Sustainable Land
Management and Rehabilitation
2. Sustained Praxis is the Key to Sustainable Social-Ecological Systems
3. Amplifying Local Livelihood and Green- Preneurship Transformations for the Improvement and Management of the Degraded Tsitsa River Catchment in a Changing Climate
4. Supporting Boundary Workers in Integrated Natural Resource Management
5. PMERL: Building a Participatory and Sustainable System for Evaluating Impact Further briefs in the series are forthcoming.
THE TSITSA PROJECT PRACTICE AND POLICY BRIEF SERIES
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Acknowledgements
This policy brief is the result of an extensive collaborative process and we thank all the partners who contribute to the work of the Tsitsa Project. Drawing on this collective body of work, this policy brief was authored by Jai Clifford-Holmes, Jessica Cockburn, Bennie van der Waal, Harry Biggs, and Margaret Wolff. We thank the reviewers from the broader Tsitsa Project network for their helpful contributions.
The Tsitsa Project acknowledges funding from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE). The Tsitsa Project also acknowledges support from numerous partners including Rhodes University (Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes
Restoration Research Group, Institute for Water Research, Geography Department and the Environmental Learning Research Centre), and Lima Rural Development Foundation.
Photo credits: We thank Nosiseko Mtati, Kyra Lunderstedt, Siphakamise Ngobhane, Nicholaus Huchzermeyer, Dylan Weyer, Kate Rowntree, and Laura Conde-Aller for photographs used in the briefs. Our thanks to the following project participants for permission to use their photographs in these briefs: Sinethemba Msada, Sibongile Nodolo, Simphiwe Godola, Chumani Majikija, Ncediswa Grace Saunders, Nolitha Madakana, Mr M.G Nofemele, Chris Jackson and Nosiseko Mtati.
References
Cockburn, J., Palmer, C.G., Biggs, H., & Rosenberg, E. (2018). Navigating Multiple Tensions for Engaged Praxis in a Complex Social-Ecological System. Land, 7(4), 129.
Powell, M., Biggs, H., Braack, M., Ntabelanga and Lalini Ecological Infrastructure Project team. Ntabelanga and Lalini ecological infrastructure project. In A Better World Volume 3: Ensure Access to Water and Sanitation to All. Actions and Commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals;
Nicklin, S., Cornwell, B., Trowbridge, L., Eds.; Tudor Rose: Leicester, UK, 2018; pp. 83–87.
Tsitsa Project (2021). The Tsitsa Approach to Sustainable Land Management and Rehabilitation. Tsitsa Project, Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University, Makhanda.
Wolff, M.G., Cockburn, J.J., De Wet, C., Bezerra, J.C., Weaver, M.J.T., Finca, A., De Vos, A., Ralekhetla, M.M., Libala, N., Mkabile, Q.B., Odume, O.N., & Palmer, C.G.
(2019). Exploring and expanding transdisciplinary research for sustainable and just natural resource management. Ecology and Society 24(4):14.
How to cite this brief
Tsitsa Project, Clifford-Holmes, J., Van Der Waal, B., Cockburn, J., Biggs, H. & Wolff, M.
2021. The Tsitsa Approach to Sustainable Land Management and Rehabilitation. Tsitsa Project Practice and Policy Brief #1. Tsitsa Project, Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University, Makhanda.
Corresponding authors
Jai Clifford-Holmes: [email protected] Jessica Cockburn: [email protected]
