Biodiversity, Ecosystem services, Social sustainability and Tipping points in African drylands

BEST addresses the research issue that African drylands are fast approaching a tipping point of range enclosure, with associated loss of wild and domestic grazer mobility, and attendant loss of ecosystem services and of poor people's livelihoods. The shift to an enclosed (or conversely back to an open) state is driven by the interplay of changing policies on land tenure and natural resource management. The effects of these policies, which are integrated at the level of household tradeoff decisions and subsequent land use choices, are expressed in environmental and social sustainability implications. BEST asks the research question: How do different policy and economic drivers shape household decisions on land use choices, and with what ecosystem services and poverty implications? BEST's objectives are therefore: (1) to develop a conceptually innovative approach focusing on the intersection of changing land tenure and NRM policies and their impact on tipping drylands from open, resilient rangelands with mobile domestic and wild animals and often cash-poor but relatively secure and resilient pastoral livelihoods, into a closed, impoverished state (2) to leverage existing datasets (biophysical and socioeconomic), extract maximum analytical power and develop policy relevant lessons from cross-border comparative analyses of Kenya/ Ethiopia Boran and Kenya/Tanzania Maasai systems (3) to model household-level decisions on drylands resource use choices in different policy and economic contexts, integrating biophysical and socioeconomic dimensions, maintaining a disaggregated level of analysis across household types and conditions, and exploring policy and economic incentives fostering conservation-compatible choices (4) to develop policy scenario evaluations to support better ecosystem management, making more visible and comprehensible poor people's resource use choices, and enhancing their livelihoods (5) to build on local knowledge, engaging stakeholders at all levels, through networking, field consultation, workshops, and media outputs, from concept to beyond project end. BEST will also share knowledge and build capacity across the whole partnership and beyond, through collaborative working, stakeholder engagement and a wide range of outputs pitched at policy as well as scientific audiences - to build capacity across the collaboration and beyond, - to ensure maximum impact, leveraging dissemination through non-funded project partners, research and practitioner networks alongside the stakeholder engagement activities BEST research design, methods and materials use conceptually innovative modelling, alongside major extant datasets, and a cross-border comparative analysis encompassing three of the poorest African countries, to develop understanding of household decisions over land use. The BEST partnership combines in depth experience of the biophysical and socioecological dimensions of the ecosystems studied, advanced modelling capabilities, and outstanding experience in communications and engagement, with significant research, policymaker and practitioner networks. UK and non-UK members of the BEST partnership already manage major datasets necessary for the work. Together with non-funded partners ASARECA, STEPS and TAWIRI, and the involvement of BEST research partners with current research collaborations, the BEST partnership aims not only to deliver findings that will help evaluate policy scenarios, giving credible and relevant insight into the ecosystem services and poverty implications of different land tenure and NRM policies, but also to ensure those findings and tools are embedded into policymaking and practice.