The future Okavango project: SP05 - Impacts of altered land use practises on the plant related ESF&S. TFO fieldwork report 2010 - 2012 for task 6 of SP05: Timber provision of Burkea Woodlands

Abstract

This short field work report gives an overview of the forest inventory work done during the first two years of The Future Okavango (TFO) project, a project implemented till 2015 and funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research. TFO aims to integrate ecosystem functions and services into an ecological and economic approach to sustainable land management at a regional scale. Forest assessments are part of subproject 5 of TFO, which focuses on the vegetation in the Okavango basin of Angola, Namibia and Botswana. Objectives include : (1) qualitative and quantitative assessment and valuation of the plant based ecosystem functions and services, (2) a functional analysis of important aspects of the multiple interdependence between ecosystem compartments and drivers of change, (3) the study of the projection of current trends with regard to possible scenarios and their cumulative consequences, (4) the study of the potential for regional improvement given by the spatiotemporal composition and patterns of different land use options with the involved trade-offs and synergies.