196 research outputs found
Typologies of South African small-scale farmers and their risk perceptions: an unsupervised machine learning approach
No full textPurpose Small-scale farmers are highly heterogeneous with regard to their types of farming, levels of technology adoption, degree of commercialization and many other factors. Such heterogeneous types, respectively groups of small-scale farming systems require different forms of government interventions. This paper applies a machine learning approach to analyze the typologies of small-scale farmers in South Africa based on a wide range of objective variables regarding their personal, farm and context characteristics, which support an effective, target-group-specific design and communication of policies. Design/methodology/approach A cluster analysis is performed based on a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative survey among 212 small-scale farmers, which was conducted in 2019 in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. An unsupervised machine learning approach, namely Partitioning Around Medoids (PAM), is applied to the survey data. Subsequently, the farmers' risk perceptions between the different clusters are analyzed and compared. Findings According to the results of the cluster analysis, the small-scale farmers of the investigated sample can be grouped into four types: subsistence-oriented farmers, semi-subsistence livestock-oriented farmers, semi-subsistence crop-oriented farmers and market-oriented farmers. The subsequently analyzed risk perceptions and attitudes differ considerably between these types. Originality/value This is the first typologisation of small-scale farmers based on a comprehensive collection of quantitative and qualitative variables, which can all be considered in the analysis through the application of an unsupervised machine learning approach, namely PAM. Such typologisation is a pre-requisite for the design of more target-group-specific and suitable policy interventions
A global survey of the societal benefits of trophy hunting in Africa
No full textAfrican trophy hunting is controversial. Central to the debate on this practice is whether it may be justified by any broader provisions to African society. These typically include meat supply to poor communities, problem animal control, and the funding of conservation and community development. The societal role of African hunting is as contested as the practice itself, with proponents advocating for the benefits of hunting, while critics point to these being inadequate. Little is known about the role of location and demography in the debate on hunting benefits. Here we circulated an anonymous online survey through our international networks. We asked respondents to indicate which (if any) benefits they thought may justify the practice and whether they supported African trophy hunting, or not. We also collected data on respondent geographic location, age, gender, and employment within conservation. The 5755 responses were analysed using multiple correspondence analysis and provided strong evidence for an association between the level of support/rejection of trophy hunting and potential benefits that were perceived to justify the practice. Funding of wildlife conservation through hunting was the most frequently selected benefit, even among many respondents with a neutral or slightly negative view toward trophy hunting as a practice. Respondents strongly opposed to trophy hunting were more likely to reject all societal benefits of hunting. There was some divergence in views between Africa-based respondents, and those outside of Africa. We suggest that any policy development on African trophy hunting be required to incorporate the views of all African stakeholders
A Narrative of One’s Own: Twine and Community in the Classroom (Panel D)
No full textOne of the best aspects of the Digital Humanities is their strong emphasis on praxis, especially the making of digital tools and archives that serve our scholarly and public communities. In this spirit, the Digital Humanities can challenge educators to reconfigure learning around making and doing, and furthermore to find new ways to create in a digital world. My presentation will focus on a recent course I taught at MSU on video games, narrative, and culture, in which I tasked my students with learning through creating their own games and stories with Twine. Twine is a free, web-based software for authoring interactive fictions and games, and by using it I encouraged my students to build their own understanding of narrative through hands-on experience, rather than just reading what scholars and authors say about it (though we did some of that too). With Twine my students could see that narrative is more than abstract theory for humanities scholars–it can be an incredible personal tool for making meaning and shaping understanding. As Twine games such as Squinky’s Quing’s Quest VII (created in response to GamerGate two years ago) demonstrate, a crucial aspect of this personal meaning making is navigating one’s relationship to larger communities and social structures, including building senses of belonging, critique, and even rejection. Furthermore, through the shared act of creating students become part of a new community of their own in the classroom, and it is up to the instructor to ensure that that community is inclusive and supportive of individual voices and narratives. Building on my experience in teaching with Twine, I argue that educators in the humanities should ground their teaching in practices of making and doing that go beyond traditional activities of reflection and critique (important, and indeed creative, as those often are). Doing so foregrounds the question of why humanities work matters, and answers that challenge head on by demonstrating how humanities concepts can be put into action. A renewed focus on praxis can even transform our understandings of our theories in generative ways, opening new perspectives and possibilities for our scholarship
Natural resource use and environmental perceptions in different types of rural villages in Bushbuckridge, South Africa
No full textA dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, to the Faculty of Science, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024Households in rural communities in developing countries rely on natural resources that contribute to income generation, food, medicine, cooking energy, and act as livelihood safety nets. Levels of dependency vary between households within communities due to factors such as wealth status and household size. However, less is known about differences in household resource use between communities within an area. Environmental awareness, values, and preferences are shaped by various factors including, local context. Thus, perceptions of the environment and natural resources, and changes in these are likely to vary between communities. This study aimed to compare the levels of natural resource use and environmental perceptions across village types and determine if there is any relationship between the level of natural resource use and environmental perceptions across village types in the Bushbuckridge Local Municipality in the Mpumalanga province, South Africa. Village types were defined and categorised based on their size, socio-economic factors, access to basic services, connectedness, and remoteness. The level of natural resource use was analysed using existing data from a survey of 491 households across 12 villages located in the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System (AHDSS) site. This included data on the use, collection, buying, and selling of a range of natural resources used locally (e.g., wild foods, firewood, and medicinal plants), annual consumptions, ownership of resources made from natural resources, and livestock (cattle) ownership. The survey included questions on respondents’ perception of the change in the supply of natural resources over the past 5 years (2016-2021) before the survey. Focus group discussions were conducted in 10 of the study villages asking participants their perception of the changes in the environment and the causes thereof, the importance of the natural environment, natural resources used for their daily needs, income generation, their culture, as well as the changes in availability of natural resources and impacts on their livelihoods. The study villages were classified according to a village typology that had been developed for the AHDSS study site, based on factors such as connectedness, access to amenities and services, and the proportion of Mozambican refugee households. ANOVA and Kruskal Wallis tests were used for continual data, while the Chi-squared test was used for categorical data to test for significant differences across village types in the quantitative part of the study. For qualitative, responses of participants from each village were recorded and grouped into village types, and an overall picture of the perception of natural resources that participants used was developed using the focus group schedule. Similarities and differences in natural resources between villages were assessed by grouping widely and less used resources by villages and village types. There was no significant difference (p>0.05) in the mean prevalence of use, collection, buying, and selling of natural resources, or annual consumption of natural resources across villages and village types. Households in better-serviced villages owned more products from natural resources and were to greater extent, likely to own livestock than poorly-serviced villages. As to environmental perceptions, more respondents in the poorly serviced village types (refugee settlements (RS) and underdeveloped communities (UC)) perceived a decrease in the supply of natural resources than better-serviced village types (established communities (EC) and central communities (CC)). Participants in focus group discussions also noted a decrease in the supply of natural resources across all villages and village types. There was a relationship between village types, natural resource use, and perceptions of change in natural resource availability. Established communities correlated with a higher number of resources perceived as decreasing and central communities were associated with higher cattle ownership. Underdeveloped communities and refugee settlements were associated with a higher number of resources used/owned, a higher number of resources used often (more than 4 times a month), and a higher number of resources sold, and buying firewood. Natural resources were more highly used in, better-serviced village types (central communities, and established communities), than in poorly-serviced village types (underdeveloped communities, and refugee settlements), which was unexpected. However, there were quite a few proxies such as the collection and selling of resources, which were used that did not help back up these findings which could explain the unexpected results. Most respondents in remote and poorly-serviced village types perceived a change in the supply of natural resources, the greatest decrease being in the supply of natural resources. This is associated with awareness of the value of the environment and high reliance on natural resources for these poorly-serviced village types. This study suggests that differences exist in resource use patterns between villages, even in the same area. However, village characteristics were not a good predictor of all aspects of resource use. Changes in proxies of resource utilization and re-evaluating the existing village typology would be useful for further studies.MMM202
The influence of environmental change on the provision of cultural ecosystem services in selected rural villages, Limpopo Province
No full textA research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science to the Faculty of Science, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023Rural communities in communal areas in South Africa are vulnerable to significant environmental change, due to their heavy dependence on the local environment. The influence of local environmental change on the provision of ecosystem services (ES) has been well studied, but less attention has been paid to cultural ecosystem services (CES than the other categories of ES (provisioning, regulating, and supporting)) in the literature. This study fills this gap by focussing on the influence of environmental change on CES in rural communities. The study documents local environmental changes perceived by local communities, how these were perceived to impact the provision of CES, and how these perceptions differ across socio-demographic factors. Data were collected using key informant interviews (20) and survey questionnaires interviews (n=100). Survey respondents were stratified by village, gender, age group, and farmer type. The key findings were that residents identified a great variety of CES provided by the natural environment, including resources important in ceremonies, and as significant places for culturally important practices. These also included ES that would usually be classed as provisioning (e.g., wild foods) and supporting (e.g., grazing for livestock) services that had particularly important cultural value in addition to contributing to livelihoods. Furthermore, the residents identified significant changes to climate, soil, plants, animals, and water bodies, which were driven by local and external drivers. The most important finding was that the perceived influences of environmental change on the provision of cultural ecosystem services were mostly the changes influenced by climate. The village in which the respondents resided had a greater influence on the perception of CES and environmental change than other socio-demographic factors. This study provides valuable information and insight about local communities’ perceptions of cultural ecosystem services, and how they might be affected by environmental change.National Research Foundation (NRF)
University of the WitwatersrandTL (2024)MM202
Divergent views on trophy hunting in Africa, and what this may mean for research and policy
No full textOver the past decade, trophy hunting in Africa has seen increased public and scientific interest. Much of that attention has come from outside of Africa, with little emphasis on local views. We circulated an online survey through international networks to explore demographic and regional differences in opinion regards support for African trophy hunting, trophy import bans, and outside funding of conservation estates supported by hunting. We received ∼5700 responses and found that location, demography, and conservation background influenced opinion. African and North American respondents showed (significantly) more support for trophy hunting than respondents from Europe or other areas, as did respondents with conservation backgrounds. Unlike North Americans, Africans supported external subsidies of wildlife areas presently funded by hunting. Many factors affected opinions on African hunting, but respondent location played a major role. Realistic policy on African trophy hunting should thus integrate African perspectives, in particular those of rural communities
“A story with many rooms”: Twine as a tool to expand life writing practice about place and space
No full textThis article will explore how hypertext technology in Twine might be used by writers to expand and augment creative nonfiction life writing about place and space. Twine is a digital storytelling platform for creating interactive, nonlinear choose-your-own-adventure type narratives. Using a case study of a personal essay on homesickness written by the author of this article using Twine, this paper argues that Twine’s functionalities can be employed to represent and explore associative networks of memories and multi-directional thought pathways. Drawing on place theory by Gaston Bachelard and Edward Casey, it responds to the questions: how might writers represent living and moving through the multi-directional and multitemporal nature of place? And what new mediums could be employed to reflect the exploratory creative research process of life writing about place
Spatial Gradients of Ecosystem Health Indicators across a Human‐Impacted Semiarid Savanna
No full textDrivers of soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics involve a combination of edaphic, human, and climatic factors that influence and determine SOC distribution across the landscape. High‐resolution maps of key indicators of ecosystem health can enable assessments of these drivers and aid in critical management decisions. This study used a systematic field‐based approach coupled with statistical modeling and remote sensing to develop accurate, high‐resolution maps of key indicators of ecosystem health across savanna ecosystems in South Africa. Two 100‐km2 landscapes in Bushbuckridge Local Municipality were surveyed, and 320 composite topsoil samples were collected. Mid‐infrared spectroscopy was used to predict soil properties, with good performance for all models and root mean squared error of prediction (RMSEP) values of 1.3, 0.2, 5, and 3.6 for SOC, pH, sand, and clay, respectively. Validation results for the mapping of soil erosion prevalence and herbaceous cover using RapidEye imagery at 5‐m spatial resolution showed good model performance with area under the curve values of 0.80 and 0.86, respectively. The overall (out‐of‐bag) random forest model performance for mapping of soil properties, reported using R 2, was 0.8, 0.77, and 0.82 for SOC, pH, and sand, respectively. Calibration model performance was good, with RMSEP values of 2.6 g kg−1 for SOC, 0.2 for pH, and 6% for sand content. Strong gradients of increasing SOC and pH corresponded with decreasing sand content between the study sites. Although both sites had low SOC overall, important driving factors of SOC dynamics included soil texture, soil erosion prevalence, and climate. These data will inform strategic land management decisions focused particularly on improving ecosystem conditions
Gifts
No full textPhotograph used for a story in the Oklahoma Times newspaper. Caption: "Sherri Maytubby, 12, left, Mrs. Wayne Prentiss and Cindy Ernce, 12, finish the twine work.
People and rangelands a review of the contribution of the African Journal of Range and Forage Science to advancing knowledge on the human dimensions of African rangelands
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