Conservation planning in Maputaland

Training

The Maputaland project has a strong capacity element, which builds on the missions of both DICE and the Darwin Initiative. The training focusses on four main elements, which are described below:

Training through the MSc in Conservation Biology at DICE

Two students, one from Mozambique and one from South Africa, are currently undertaking the MSc in Conservation Biology at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology. This will provide them with a broad knowledge of conservation issues and will be supplemented by their research dissertations, which will focus on conservation planning in Maputaland.

Training for the Maputaland stakeholders in using CLUZ

CLUZ is the conservation planning software that has been developed as part of this project. It is a user-friendly ArcView GIS extension and we will provide training on using this software through a series of workshops for all of our stakeholder partners. This will help ensure that the Maputaland conservation planning system continues to be used and updated after the end of our project.

Training people as part of research projects

The Maputaland project has a strong research component and all of these elements involve working with project partners and local communities to collect relevant data. For example, our work on understanding and mapping resource use in the Usuthu Gorge Community Conservation Area involved four representatives of the Mathenjwa community who helped collect questionnaire data and use GPS units to record spatial information. Our future work will involve training members of other communities, as well as students from local universities.

Training people outside Maputaland how to use CLUZ

Our project has produced a piece of conservation planning software that is both user-friendly and available without charge from the CLUZ website. We are keen for this software to be widely adopted by the global conservation community and have produced a freely available tutorial and handbook in the hope that this will be achieved.