Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Space4Giants (Safeguarding Space for Giants: building sustainable infrastructure for the benefit of nature and people)
Reporting period: 2022-01-04 to 2024-01-03
The key aim of the Space4Giants project will be to assess the changing nature of the impacts of transportation infrastructure, directly and indirectly on elephants, their habitat, use of the land by local communities to inform future human-elephant coexistence, and the development of more harmonised sustainable transport infrastructure.
Space4Giants has five specific objectives thus:
1. Build personal capacity, expertise and leadership in global change research and landscape conservation planning through cross-disciplinary training and collaboration with UoY-based institutions and external institutions, make contributions to ongoing research at UoY, teaching and research supervision.
2. Undertake a spatial assessment of land-use land cover change (LULCC) to establish the extent of habitat fragmentation and disturbance on elephants in the wider Amboseli-Tsavo Conservation Area (ATCA) in southern Kenya.
3. Investigate the intensity and the extent to which elephant activity may be impacted by transportation infrastructure, traffic and associated land-use change within the Amboseli-Tsavo Conservation Area (ATCA) in southern Kenya.
4. Identify the socio-economic and ecological factors affecting community and elephant relationships with transport infrastructure using the KESHO land-use scenario tool through participatory workshops within the Amboseli-Tsavo Conservation Area (ATCA) in southern Kenya.
5. Communicate and disseminate the key findings of the project to key project partners through various platforms and media in Kenya and across the globe.
6. Increase external leveraged support by drafting an application submitted for continued development of the Corridors research, possibly to the Adaptation Research Alliance or GEF.
Space4Giants has five specific objectives thus:
1. Build personal capacity, expertise and leadership in global change research and landscape conservation planning through cross-disciplinary training and collaboration with UoY-based institutions and external institutions, make contributions to ongoing research at UoY, teaching and research supervision.
2. Undertake a spatial assessment of land-use land cover change (LULCC) to establish the extent of habitat fragmentation and disturbance on elephants in the wider Amboseli-Tsavo Conservation Area (ATCA) in southern Kenya.
3. Investigate the intensity and the extent to which elephant activity may be impacted by transportation infrastructure, traffic and associated land-use change within the Amboseli-Tsavo Conservation Area (ATCA) in southern Kenya.
4. Identify the socio-economic and ecological factors affecting community and elephant relationships with transport infrastructure using the KESHO land-use scenario tool through participatory workshops within the Amboseli-Tsavo Conservation Area (ATCA) in southern Kenya.
5. Communicate and disseminate the key findings of the project to key project partners through various platforms and media in Kenya and across the globe.
6. Increase external leveraged support by drafting an application submitted for continued development of the Corridors research, possibly to the Adaptation Research Alliance or GEF.
Scope and plan out the Fellowship: Following the delays occasioned by my personal health issues, the project timelines shifted slightly to allow me to focus on key deliverables within the remaining period. The research activities organised and accomplished included:
Between May and October 2022: Desk-based and online work and building on previously collected data on human-wildlife-infrastructure interactions (see the progress below); land-use land cover change analysis using freely available online data sources (Google Earth Engine) (see the progress below); training and capacity building, workshops/conferences and meetings/collaborations within York and broadly within the UK that require little or no long distance travelling or through online interactions (see academic citizenship below).
Between November and December 2022: The project undertook comprehensive in-person meetings, workshops and focus group discussions with select actors and community groups inKenya. These activities aimed to collect data on human-elephant-infrastructure interactions building on the desk-based land-use land cover analysis outputs (maps), share preliminary outcomes of the desk-based analyses with stakeholders and plan future engagements in Kenya and the University of York.
Below is the status of the activities: Develop manuscript on human-wildlife conflict and infrastructure: A manuscript titled: “Influence of linear transportation infrastructure on human-wildlife conflict in Shimba Hills and Tsavo ecosystems, Southern Kenya: does distance matter” has been submitted for consideration in Systematics and Biodiversity Journal.
Develop manuscript on human-wildlife conflict and potential management intervention: A draft outline of a paper on human-elephant conflict mitigation across Africa has been developed to assess the state of conflict mitigation including efficacy and uptake among actors and communities. The paper, based on a literature review, will build on the work done by the IUCN’s Hoare et al., (2015) that collated the activities over 20 years.
Develop insights into land use change across the greater Tsavo: A LULCC map was produced and used in participatory workshops in Kenya in December 2022. The process will be replicated for 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020 with the aim of producing historical LULCC maps for subsequent analyses.
Discussions with Kenya-based partners including the DRSRS on access to elephant census data was completed and all the relevant data was obtained.
Between May and October 2022: Desk-based and online work and building on previously collected data on human-wildlife-infrastructure interactions (see the progress below); land-use land cover change analysis using freely available online data sources (Google Earth Engine) (see the progress below); training and capacity building, workshops/conferences and meetings/collaborations within York and broadly within the UK that require little or no long distance travelling or through online interactions (see academic citizenship below).
Between November and December 2022: The project undertook comprehensive in-person meetings, workshops and focus group discussions with select actors and community groups inKenya. These activities aimed to collect data on human-elephant-infrastructure interactions building on the desk-based land-use land cover analysis outputs (maps), share preliminary outcomes of the desk-based analyses with stakeholders and plan future engagements in Kenya and the University of York.
Below is the status of the activities: Develop manuscript on human-wildlife conflict and infrastructure: A manuscript titled: “Influence of linear transportation infrastructure on human-wildlife conflict in Shimba Hills and Tsavo ecosystems, Southern Kenya: does distance matter” has been submitted for consideration in Systematics and Biodiversity Journal.
Develop manuscript on human-wildlife conflict and potential management intervention: A draft outline of a paper on human-elephant conflict mitigation across Africa has been developed to assess the state of conflict mitigation including efficacy and uptake among actors and communities. The paper, based on a literature review, will build on the work done by the IUCN’s Hoare et al., (2015) that collated the activities over 20 years.
Develop insights into land use change across the greater Tsavo: A LULCC map was produced and used in participatory workshops in Kenya in December 2022. The process will be replicated for 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020 with the aim of producing historical LULCC maps for subsequent analyses.
Discussions with Kenya-based partners including the DRSRS on access to elephant census data was completed and all the relevant data was obtained.
An analysis of the historical LULCC: A detailed analysis of the LULLC across the study area is ongoing and preliminary maps have been developed for the 1970s, 2000s and 2022. Training on the application of Google Google Earth Engine (GEE) has been undertaken and support on need basis is ongoing. Elephant census data has been acquired from the DRSRS in Nairobi and additional data is expected from IFAW, Nairobi. These data and the analysis have been used to develop two draft papers:
Historical land use land cover change analysis (Draft)
Assessing underlying drivers of habitat (dis)connectivity for the African elephant Loxodonta africana under infrastructure (Draft)
Four future land-use scenario workshops with stakeholders were undertaken in Kenya. These workshops generated data on past, present and future land use land cover change scenarios and the drivers within the study area in Kenya. In addition, the workshops offered opportunities to train stakeholders on the application of the KESHO tool in eliciting stakeholder participation in LULCC analysis and planning. The results of these workshops will be used to develop at least two papers thus:
Land use land cover change scenarios for Amboseli-Tsavo Ecosystems.
Land use land cover change Scenarios for Coastal Kenya Landscapes
Kesho Tool Methodological Review
Other research outputs through publications include manuscripts submitted and those under preparation:
Submitted: Influence of linear transportation infrastructure on human-wildlife conflict in the Shimba Hills and Tsavo ecosystems, southern Kenya: distance matters
Draft: Environmental Impact Assessment and public participation
Draft: Wildlife mortality on highways crossing the Tsavo Conservation Area, south-eastern Kenya
Draft: Insights from Five Years of Human-Elephant Conflict management in Africa
Historical land use land cover change analysis (Draft)
Assessing underlying drivers of habitat (dis)connectivity for the African elephant Loxodonta africana under infrastructure (Draft)
Four future land-use scenario workshops with stakeholders were undertaken in Kenya. These workshops generated data on past, present and future land use land cover change scenarios and the drivers within the study area in Kenya. In addition, the workshops offered opportunities to train stakeholders on the application of the KESHO tool in eliciting stakeholder participation in LULCC analysis and planning. The results of these workshops will be used to develop at least two papers thus:
Land use land cover change scenarios for Amboseli-Tsavo Ecosystems.
Land use land cover change Scenarios for Coastal Kenya Landscapes
Kesho Tool Methodological Review
Other research outputs through publications include manuscripts submitted and those under preparation:
Submitted: Influence of linear transportation infrastructure on human-wildlife conflict in the Shimba Hills and Tsavo ecosystems, southern Kenya: distance matters
Draft: Environmental Impact Assessment and public participation
Draft: Wildlife mortality on highways crossing the Tsavo Conservation Area, south-eastern Kenya
Draft: Insights from Five Years of Human-Elephant Conflict management in Africa