BMBF-Förderschwerpunkt "Sustainable Landmanagement"

The subproject addresses three highly relevant socio-economic issues: In a first step, we analyse the influence of existing economic, legal, and social institutions on individual or collective action in ESF&S in land, forest, pasture, wildlife, and water management in the Okavango Basin. To that end, we carefully describe the status quo of the relevant existing economic, cultural and legal framework on the national, sub-regional, regional and global level and to identify short-run and long-run objectives of major stakeholders. In a second step, we develop and test economic and legal mechanisms that help to improve governance patterns in the region. We identify socio-economic conditions that support sustainability. In cooperation with stakeholders, we investigate possible changes in tenure systems, the distribution of property rights and district level organizations that favour ESF&S-friendly land-use practices. Finally, we derive policy implications for the practical implementation of these ESF&S-friendly institutions.