What if we don’t care about Ecosystem-based Adaptation in Rwanda?

Prof.Beth Kaplin, Director of CoEB

Prof. Beth Kaplin attended third Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) Africa Regional Conference. This is where she addressed her keynote about Ecosystem-based Adaptation. It is part of the annual cycle of ESP regional conferences around the globe. The regional conferences follow our world conferences of which the last world conference in Germany hosted more than 750 delegates from over 65 countries.
Ecosystem Services Partnership conferences are open to both Ecosystem Services Partnership members and non-members.

 Third ESP Africa Regional conference 2022 took place in Musanze, Rwanda, on 8-10 June 2022. The conference theme was about 'Ecosystem services for the future: Delivering value for Nature, Livelihoods and Economic Investment'.

Since 2008 ESP has organized several conferences about ecosystem services. Since 2016 ESP organizes world conferences in the uneven year and regional conferences in the event year in a bi-annual cycle.  In this conference different keynote speakers addressed the conference theme from their experience and reflected on Ecosystem Services for the Future: Delivering value for Nature, Livelihoods and Economic Investment. Director Center of Excellence in Biodiversity & Natural Resource Management (CoEB), University of Rwanda, Professor Beth Kaplin was the one of keynotes speakers in this conference. She talked about Ecosystem-based Adaptation experience in Rwanda.

In her talk, she said that Ecosystem- based Adaptation has tremendous potential to contribute to climate adaptation and human wellbeing in Rwanda. “But we need to pay more attention to the details of implementation (its more than just planting trees) - true participation, traditional knowledge, learning process, monitoring achievement of ecosystem functioning, common understanding of goals for restoration” Beth Kaplin said.

Beth Kaplin kept highlighting that Ecosystem- based Adaptation has connections to nature-based solutions and social-ecological restoration approaches and these can be explored more deeply.

“We need to pay attention to how we can develop and promote stewardship of the EbA intervention sites by the local communities” Beth said

Her current projects include buffer zones, biodiversity indicators, primate ecology and conservation, climate smart agriculture and biodiversity, and climate change adaptation.  She is very interested in evaluating and monitoring effectiveness of ecosystem-based adaptation and landscape restoration initiatives. 

 

Story by: Emmanuel Munezero, CoEB Communication Officer