Sustainable livelihoods

The Lake Victoria Basin is internationally recognised for its high freshwater species diversity and endemism, which are of critical importance to local livelihoods and national economies within the basin. However, freshwater ecosystems within the region are highly threatened, with current safeguards proving inadequate and the focus of much past and ongoing conservation work in the region focussing on terrestrial ecosystems.

The objective of this background paper is to report on qualitative social sciences frameworks, and mixed methodologies, that could be incorporated into the HDNF assessment tool.

IUCN Sri Lanka is the National Secretariat of Mangroves for the Future (MFF) regional initiative that is being implemented in the country since 2008. MFF Sri Lanka implemented over 82 small grants to date and as an innovative step, decided to allocate resources to better understand the post-project sustainability of MFF projects. Fifty nine (59) projects have been implemented during 2009-2012 of which 54 were evaluated.

In an increasingly crowded world reconciling environmental ‘conservation’ with the ‘sustainable use’ of natural resources is now our greatest challenge. Nature conservation has traditionally focused on protecting iconic and important areas of biodiversity from human exploitation through the establishment of National Parks and World Heritage Areas.

Mangroves for the Future (MFF) is a partnership-based regional initiative promoting investments in coastal ecosystems that support sustainable development. This booklet documents selected MFF Small Grants Facility Phase 2 projects, implemented in Sri Lanka, with emphasis on the sharing of good practices and lessons learnt. The projects are categorized into four thematic areas, namely, Generating Knowledge, Education and Awareness, Ecosystem Restoration, and Livelihood Enhancement.

The World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism (WISP) has now been in existence for a decade, a period during which considerable progress has been made globally towards sustainable pastoral development. Many challenges remain for pastoralists, but in the areas where gains have been made it is vital these are built upon and achievements are not squandered. This book follows WISP’s global approach and highlights key examples from its work with partners around the world.

Participatory Learning and Action is the world's leading informal journal on participatory approaches and methods. In this final issue of PLA, which includes articles submitted by the readers, the authors explore the links between participation, sustainable natural resource management and improving livelihoods. 

This report outlines the findings of the Coastal Livelihood Assessment for the Kuruwitu – Vipingo community, which lies on a Kenyan coast potentially significant for its marine biodiversity, as it has a distinct coral reef ecosystem with diverse coral assemblages which host a wide variety of tropical fish species as well as beaches that provide breeding and nesting sites for endangered sea turtles and birds.

Overall, this thesis contributes to the understanding how marketing can help to solve sustainability problems in pastoral areas, in particular the Horn of Africa. It also contributes to the extension of marketing theories from high income countries to informal economies in emerging markets. This research therefore informs marketing researchers that marketing theory is generalizable to the informal economies such as pastoralists in emerging markets.