Multilevel assessment of biodiversity and climate change in Mozambique: local pathways to sustainable development

• Autor(a) principal: Mucova, Serafino Afonso Rui
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/31562
• topic: Sustainable development; Biodiversity; Ecosystem services; Rural communities; Land cover change; Climate change; Mozambique

Global changes characterized by the biodiversity loss, marine pollution and coastal degradation, deterioration of air and water resources, climate change, depletion of stratospheric ozone, land use and land cover change, and habitat loss could challenge survival and change patterns of consumption and use of ecosystem services to more than 7 billion people worldwide, if current trends in the natural resources consumption, rising global temperature, rapid and exponential growth of the world population remain unchanged. The scenario could become dramatic in latitudes where most of the population depends directly on biodiversity, ecosystem services and other natural resources (sensitive to environmental factors) for their livelihood, such as Mozambique. Mozambique is considered one of the African countries most exposed and vulnerable to extreme weather events, as well as reduced coping capacities. With a population equal to 28 million people, of which more than 60% living in rural and coastal areas, it faces social, economic, and environmental challenges to reach the sustainable development agenda. Coastal and rural regions are progressively under pressure from multiple social and economic factors and are exacerbated by the adverse impacts of climate change and local extreme events. The combination of those and other factors has increased the vulnerability of local biodiversity, habitats, ecosystem services and peoples. Contributing to the increase of hunger, poverty, and deterioration of essential environmental assets for local development. According to the current context, the main concern has been to rapidly reduce the multiple local pressures, balance social, economic, environmental interests, and promote sustainable actions to increase the well-being of local communities. However, the absence of robust scientific data and information, limited approaches that inform ways to achieve local sustainable development, as well as the absence of strong institutions and legal instruments that guide efforts towards sustainable development, have been considered as one of the barriers and limiting factors for achieving sustainable development goals. In this setting, this PhD thesis intends to contribute to increase the local evidence and knowledge to support solutions towards sustainable development. Therefore, two main goals were defined: 1) To develop multilevel assessments to understand the current status of ecosystems, biodiversity, people and climate change in northern Mozambique, and their implications for progress towards local sustainable development. 2) To broaden the understanding of the topics and contribute to the increase of local scientific evidence that strengthen to the development of integrated policies and decision-making, which promote concrete actions towards local sustainable development. A set of methodological procedures, such as analysis of environmental components using satellite imagery, systematic literature reviews, application of questionnaires, as well as analysis of climate models were applied as tools to support the objectives. We found that the Cabo Delgado province presented limited scientific data and information capable of supporting efforts towards local sustainable development. Terrestrial ecosystems are progressively under pressure due to multiple factors, such as social and economic. Local biodiversity tends to reduce its geography and to confine in regions relatively less pressured and with adequate conditions for its survival. The mean sea level rise tends to increase rapidly compared to global means. The adaptive capacity of the local communities is low, quite vulnerable and exposed to local extreme climate events. Local ecosystem services are poorly recognized by communities, and reduced capacities for managing biodiversity, natural resources, and ecosystem services compromise balanced management, weakening options for equitable sharing of resources between rural communities and other stakeholders. The current context of Cabo Delgado province reveals that the agenda, as well as the sustainable development goals is unlikely to be achieved in the current trajectory. Integrated responses and multilevel actions are necessary to direct efforts towards sustainable development. This thesis presents and discusses a set of pathways for reaching the local and regional sustainable development agenda.