Bio-diversity

About The NGO The Department of Forestry and Horticulture at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Bunda College was established in 1999 in the University of Malawi and its mission is to advance and promote knowledge, skills and entrepreneurship in natural resources management including forestry and horticulture sectors and their related fields for improved and sustainable livelihoods of rural and urban populations through teaching, research, outreach and consultancies. The Department offers three major programmes of Agroforestry, Forestry and Horticulture both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The Forestry and Horticulture Department has 17 well trained staff ten of which are PhD holders and five have MSc degrees. The staff is practically experienced academic staff in anthropology, biodiversity management, governance ocial forestry, resource assessment, agribusiness, environmental management, agricultural production and socio-economics. To ensure quality and efficient service delivery to the client, Department of Forestry and Horticulture supports formation of multi-disciplinary teams where different team members offer service in different areas of their expertise for good quality assurance to the satisfaction of the client. The Department offers services in six main areas namely: i) Project formulation and baseline survey, ii) Project monitoring and evaluation, iii) Agriculture, food security, and natural resources management, iv) Environmental Impact assessment v) Mainstreaming gender and HIV in agricultural and Natural Resource management vi) Development of curriculum and modules in agriculture and natural resource management. The Department has worked mainly with vulnerable communities (women, HIV/AIDs infected people) with grass roots from area development committees (ADC), village development committees (VDC) in participatory methodologies: livelihoods analyses and food security, natural resources management, income diversification, agribusiness development human rights, gender, through a common sustainable livelihoods approaches. Context In June 2011, UNDP launched the 2-year Project Community Development and Knowledge Management for the Satoyama Initiative (COMDEKS) in partnership with the Ministry of the Environment of Japan (MOEJ), the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD), and the United Nations University (UNU), to promote sound socio-ecological production landscapes, as part of UNDP s broader support to the Satoyama Initiative the initiative officially adopted as part of sustainable use in the Biodiversity Convention at the COP (Conference of the Parties) 10 in October 2010. Project`s Main Objective The main objective of the Project is to develop sound biodiversity management and sustainable livelihood activities with local communities in socio-ecological production landscapes to maintain, rebuild, and revitalize landscapes, in accordance with the following five perspectives of the Satoyama Initiative: Resource use within the carrying capacity and resilience of the environment Cyclic use of natural resources Recognition of the value and importance of local traditions and cultures Natural resource management by various participating and cooperating entities Contributions to local socio-economies The Project will focus primarily on supporting and coordinating concrete actions at the grassroots by providing small-scale finance for local community-led projects within given priority landscapes, to achieve landscape-scale impacts in developing countries. The Project will review, analyze, and codify results of these on-the-ground actions to distill and disseminate lessons which can be used for replication in other parts of the world. UNDP s existing delivery mechanism, the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP) will be utilized to deliver small-scale finance to communities in selected participating countries. The selection and implementation of community-based projects in each country will be guided by a COMDEKS Country Programme Landscape Strategy. To facilitate this process, a project grant was awarded to Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Bunda College Implementation Strategy - Community workshops - Participatory resource inventory/surveys - Consultation of key informants - Focus group discussions - Landuse change and land surveys including GIS Key Project Outputs - COMDEKS Landscape Development Strategy - List of tested and recommended indicators for the landscape - Case study material compiled Sustainability of Project Results - Participatory project planning and implementation - Community ownership of project activities - Local leadership in project activities - Established partnerships with other institutions - Follow up with community grant projects

Malawi