Build partnership to implement projects in biogas in niassa reserve and other reserves in Mozambique

Generate, through the processing of current satellite images in a geographic information system, the necessary geospatial information on biodiversity, built space, surface temperatures, green and blue infrastructure, among others, in order to have the "raw material" for the development of the Atlas. For this purpose, Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2B sensor images were used, which were processed and analyzed by personnel with knowledge in database management and remote sensing, as well as understanding of the social-spatial relationship.

This vulnerability assessment methodology allows for the accurate targeting of nature-based solutions to critical areas of need in cities and sectors of the population. It specifically includes a gender focus to ensure that adaptation efforts take into account how climate change affects women differently than men, given their varying roles in society. The vulnerability studies allow identifying the areas of greatest danger from weather-related events (such as landslides, floods, etc.) based on the exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity of the analyzed territory. They are carried out through participatory processes with communities and key stakeholders and climatic scenarios that integrate climatic, environmental and socioeconomic variables at the same time. The analysis also allows estimating the risk of loss of ecosystem services and therefore the potential needs for adaptation to climate change. This exercise is the basis for designing and implementing nature-based solutions to strengthen the resilience of communities in urban and peri-urban systems. Finally, this process builds a sense of co-ownership and relationships for partnerships to carry out the project.

These three decision-making tools were crucial to address power dynamics and promote stakeholders' participation and engagement in collective action in the National Park:

• An analytical tool to characterize types of governance arrangements in the protected area. Formal and informal governance arrangements were classified in terms of stakeholders’ responsibility (shared vs. concentrated) and influence (equal vs. unequal) into four types: prescriptive, informative, consultative, and cooperative. By applying this tool in the National Park we identified challenges for more socially inclusive conservation while enhancing existing participatory mechanisms and delineating new ones;
• Theatre-based facilitation techniques to address power dynamics between stakeholders. By using them in a virtual workshop, participants deliberated on their roles and power relations around conservation governance and how these may be reconciled to improve collaboration;
• A context-specific boundary object to facilitate collective action for conservation governance. Using this graphical tool in a workshop, participants assessed their level of willingness to put several strategies into practice. The tool visualized the results graphically as a proxy of the potential willingness to move from theory to practice.

These three tools help to identify visions and elaborate future scenarios, in a participatory way, for protected areas management:

• Participatory mapping (PGIS), a tool to visualize information in a particular geographical context focusing on a certain issue of interest. This tool was used in surveys to elicit the residents’ visions based on perceptions of landscape values and local knowledge;
• Streamline, an open-source narrative synthesis tool that integrates graphics in the form of canvases and tiles, facilitating interviews and discussion groups in a creative and stimulating way. Streamline was used with stakeholders’ expressing their values and preferences for management actions, and sharing their knowledge of changes in the landscape;
• Participatory scenario planning exercise, a deliberative process that was facilitated about plausible and desired futures through a two-day online workshop (due to the Covid-19 pandemic) with stakeholders. Based on the current socio-ecological conditions and the factors driving change, participants weighed up what could happen in the coming 20 years, discussed implications for biodiversity conservation and the quality of life of those who currently enjoy the ecosystem services it provides, whilst identifying the strategies to address them.

To facilitate place-based processes that foster inclusive conservation it is necessary to collect local/traditional knowledge, views, and values from multiple stakeholders. Some methods to gather such information were used in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park:

• Oral histories and historical datasets review to reconstruct how past visions and drivers of environmental impact have changed over the last 50 years and inform current and future conservation goals;
• Interviews with local stakeholders on 1) how participation works in the protected area and potential barriers/opportunities for more social engagement, and 2) their visions for park management, the values and knowledge that underpin the visions, and their perceptions of landscape changes and the underlying drivers;
• Face-to-face surveys with residents, including participatory mapping tools (i.e. Maptionnaire) about landscape values and ecological knowledge. Online surveys with local stakeholders to identify changes in their visions, values and perceptions of the landscape after the COVID-19 pandemic; and
• Deliberative processes embedded in a participatory scenario planning exercise that used cognitive and emotional maps to collect collective knowledge of the protected area while capturing intertwined affective relationships.

Under state legislation, the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) is charged with providing advice to government regarding the use of public land, with public consultation a key component of the process. The Victorian government accepted VEAC’s clear, evidence-based recommendations that domestic stock grazing not be permitted on public land along the Ovens River; that a collaborative approach be undertaken with land holders and natural resource agencies to remove stock grazing and develop practical solutions for fencing issues; and that the land along the lower Ovens River be gazetted as National Park. A range of other statutes also facilitated the removal of grazing.

Life systems are connected across geo-political and social boundaries. The Beach Co-op works within a global understanding of environmental and social opportunities and challenges but acts at the local and national level to address them.

In recent times, a participatory research programme led by the private partner has been working towards allowing the new heritage authority to promote a genuine values-based and participatory heritage management. Understanding heritage in terms of who assigns just what importance can inform site conservation and improve the management of change in the wider landscape. Diverse perceptions of, and relationships with, the World Heritage property and other heritage have been mapped, and this has allowed previously neglected connections and interdependencies to emerge.

The initiative also works to identify capacity within civil society, institutions and among local heritage specialists to contribute to heritage agendas and so steps beyond classic cultural mapping to understand what triggers positive change in a broad local network.

The first tangible results emerging are geo-referenced tools aimed at improving decision-making regarding change and continuity and harnessing local capacities in the process. The overarching aim is that of capturing the full potential of heritage’s contribution to sustainable development in this difficult and complex area.

The nature of Herculaneum’s burial 2000 years ago meant that open-air excavation in the early 20th c. revealed an extraordinary level of preservation of the Roman town but had to be accompanied by the stabilization of these multistorey ruins, and the reinstatement of roads and drainage systems. The site today requires conservation of the archaeological fabric but also of these aging restoration interventions, and at an urban scale.

However, efforts at Herculaneum in the late 20th c. approached the site as a series of individual elements. This was partly due to limited access to interdisciplinary expertise and steady funding sources – sporadic capital funding for one-off localised projects predominated.

With the turn of the millennium, a new approach was taken that mapped conservation issues and interdependencies between them across the entire site, and acted on them. Initial efforts focused on resolving situations in areas at risk of collapse or with vulnerable decorative features. Over time the focus shifted to long-term strategies for reducing the causes of decay and developing site-wide maintenance cycles sustainable by the public authority alone so that the site would not revert back. With these now entirely sustained by the public partner the overarching objective has been achieved.