"International". Jali Ardhi [Care for the Land] project: Realising land management change in degraded Maasai grazing lands.

'Jali Ardhi' means 'Care for the Land' in Swahili. This is the short project name for the interdisciplinary Global Challenges Research Fund project "Socio-ecological resilience to soil erosion driven by extreme events: past, present and future challenges in East Africa" upon which this innovation proposal is based.

Soil erosion and downstream siltation problems challenge water, food and energy (i.e. HEP) security with growing threats from climate change. Even under 'normal' climatic conditions, soil erosion by water reduces water and nutrient retention, biodiversity and plant primary productivity on agricultural land putting stress on food production, notwithstanding ecosystem and water resource damage downstream. This undermines the environmental and economic resilience of communities that depend on soil and water resources, and shocks are often amplified by physical and socio-cultural positive feedback mechanisms. At community level, soil erosion has severe impacts through undermining food and water security and curtailing mobility between communities, resources and markets in fragmented landscapes. Environmental shocks can, however, lead to a learning experience that propels a system to a qualitatively different pathway and can support greater-than-previous levels of resilience (sometimes termed 'bounce back'). Co-design of sustainable land management practices and implementation of appropriate community-focussed legislation will enable rural communities to (1) recover from environmental impacts to a resilience level beyond the prior state through restoration/enhancement of degraded landscapes and (2) withstand shock of future extreme climatic events with longer-term sustainability and socio-economic benefits.

This Innovation follow-on grant proposal draws on in-depth evidence of soil erosion causes, processes and impacts in rural Tanzania, specifically Maasai communities that are in a fragile state of transition from pastoralism to more sedentary and mixed agri-pastoral livelihoods. It builds on proven and interdisciplinary stakeholder engagement to deliver a new action framework for the development of bottom-up policy instruments (byelaws) to achieve credible change in land management practice with long-term socio-economic benefits for these impoverished rural communities.

The Innovation programme will build on the resulting research evidence base of the problem and potential pathways to land management change that, in turn, underpin specific and tangible outcomes for the end-user communities such as diversification of agricultural activity, adoption of conservation agriculture/grazing approaches and alternative, sustainable livelihood development. Facilitating a step change in land management practice to reduce complex soil erosion impacts is a fundamental target within the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (e.g. SDG15, target 3 reducing land degradation while enabling communities to become more resilient e.g. SDG13), a challenge that requires the interdisciplinary approach developed and proven by our team.

Working with key partners in local government, a soil conservation NGO, specialists in participatory approaches and end-user communities (with whom we have a close working relationship from prior research), our proposed innovation activities will provide an exemplar for how land management change can be realised from research evidence. While this small innovation project offers an opportunity to demonstrate a new evidence-based, bottom-up approach with communities, scaling up the impact of the Jali Ardhi approach to the East African region remains our wider ambition.

The Pathways to Impact strategy encompasses four key stakeholder groups: (1) Policy makers and land managers/farmers in the host country, (2) organisations with regional (East Africa) engagement in soil conservation policy development, (3) inter-governmental bodies concerned with soil conservation policy and (4) UK citizens and taxpayers. Existing strong and well-established networks from the current Jali Ardhi Project research programme under GCRF will underpin this impact plan, which is inevitably integrated with the work programme.

1. Local land managers and policymakers integral to the main programme, links to key local stakeholders will be facilitated through the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) team, and links through NM-AIST to Belgian overseas development ecological research programmes to support ecosystem service provision in aquatic environments. Key groups are: (a) Mviwata smallholder farmer organisation which encompasses local agricultural community leaders.; (b) Ujamaa-CRT pastoralists group. The group exists to strengthen livelihoods and social justice for pastoralist, hunter-gatherer and agro-pastoralist communities; (c) The Tanzanian Internal Drainage Basin Water Board (IDBWB) that manages waterways, supply and irrigation as well as maintaining local meteorological data records; (d) The Tanzanian National Parks Authority (TANAPA) who have jurisdiction over larger areas of land in the Manyara Basin; (e) Non-farming communities are also key stakeholders in land management decisions.

2. Organisations with regional (East Africa) interest in soil conservation policy development: The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) Nile Basin and East Africa Office based in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia are partners in the prior Jali Ardhi project and we will maintain these links and disseminate the impact of this innovation programme though the IWMI network. We are partnered in this programme with ECHO East Africa, an information hub for development practitioners. ECHO gather solutions from around the world that are solving hunger problems and disseminate them to their active network to promote sustainable farming techniques, nutritional plants, and appropriate technologies.

3. International policy makers: The project is also relevant to the UN FAO Subregional Office for Eastern Africa (SFE) mission to contribute to enhancement of an enabling environment for economic growth and food security through sustainable agriculture and rural development in Eastern Africa. Impact via this route will be facilitated by the PIs links with UN FAO/IAEA through coordinated research programmes and training provided within the regional Africa-based project Supporting Innovative Conservation Agriculture Practices to Combat Land Degradation and Enhance Soil Productivity for Improved Food Security (RAF5063). The PI will disseminate project outcomes at scheduled training/workshops during 2018.

4. The UK public is an important stakeholder in the research itself as funding providers and wider benefits will be achieved through science communication initiatives (e.g. through use of photojournalism exhibitions and national press coverage as championed in the Jali Ardhi project i.e. a recent piece in the Guardian online - see link within main Case for Support) and schools liaison.