REPORT WITH THE RESULTS FROM THE BBN WORKSHOP IN XAI-XAI

Xai-Xai (Gaza province) – Mozambique 13/08/2014

Julieta Matediane and Pedro Zorrilla-Miras
01/10/2014

ACES PROJECT: LIVELIHOODS AND LAND USE CHANGE IN MOZAMBIQUE
WP 1 AND WP5

© University of Edinburgh

The workshops in Xai Xai – Gaza province was carried out the 13th of August 2014 and we obtained the participatory data necessary to design the structure of the BBN model. The method used followed the “BBN_Workshop_1_Methodology” document. 

Most of the participants came from provincial public institutions related to agriculture, forestry, livestock, tourism, and environment. There were also participants from provincial NGOs related with environmental issues, with agriculture and with civil organizations. 
The 4 most important wellbeing components related with ecosystem services identified by each of the working groups for the construction of the BBNs were those included in table 6. The wellbeing components identified by 2 or more groups were food security, energy availability and access to drinking water.
Table 1. Four most important wellbeing components related with ecosystem services identified by each working groups. 
Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	
Food security	Food security	Food security	
Energy availability	Energy availability	Energy availability	
Access to drinking water	Protection against catastrophes	Access to drinking water	
Access to education	Availability of good quality machambas		

As well as in the National workshop, each group constructed one proposal of BBN structure relating the wellbeing components with ecosystem services, the factors affecting them and a proposal of actions and policies. At the end of the session, each group explain the others the reasoning behind their own constructed causal diagram. 

1.	Group 1
The most important variables selected were 8. Those most related with wellbeing were: energy availability, food security, to have a good quality farm and protection against weather calamities. They said these four variables are all connected. A better forest management was identified as useful for the 4 wellbeing components. The last three were related with forest fires, droughts and heavy rainfall followed by floods. Some proposed actions were crop rotation and agricultural practices for the conservation of soils (specially agricultural practices influence quality of machamba, so conservation agriculture would be important to improve quality of machamba). They propose also to spread the use of improved biomass technologies and agro-silvo-pastoril production systems. They wrote all the activities that cause forest fires: Subsistence agriculture (when they burn new farms lands), hunting (they burn so that the animals come off the fire and can be captured), traditional drink production (it is extracted from trees that are more accessible after burning of the surrounding vegetation), charcoal production (accidents during the process), pastures management (farmers burn the areas to produce more pastures), honey extraction and other cultural habits. For all those problems they propose educating and training in good environmental practices to the public. They identify the scarcity of water management infrastructures, forest fires and deforestation as a cause of floods and droughts. So one proposed action is to improve irrigation infrastructures, and land zoning and planning. Water resources management is identified as a key factor for protection against extreme weather events. Finally, they propose a series of policies needed for the improvement of the general system and for the proposed actions in particular: Advocacy of public policy implementation (so improve the execution of the law), institutional strengthening, create institutional synergies (between public bodies that nowadays work independently), research and studies and improving the markets, the exchanges, the finances, the information to the public and the value chains. About energy availability they took into account renewable sources of energy (wind, biomass, photovoltaic energy). The way the energy is obtained has a great relation with biomass (firewood and charcoal production). That is way deforestation could affect energy availability (because there is a great dependence on biomass).

Oral recording: WS760066_Grupo1. Minutes 35-47. 

Figure 1. BBN structure constructed by Group 1. 

2.	Group 2
The most important variables selected were 8. Those most related with wellbeing were: energy availability, food security, drinking water and education. Education was not related with any other factor. The main ecosystem services they detected were droughts, plagues, rainfall, production of organic matter, medicinal plants, poaching, stoves, deforestation and erosion. The causes of the existence of plagues are the droughts, the scarcity of food and the migration of plagues. Rainfall and droughts are affected by deforestation and climate change. The use of wood fuel is connected with deforestation and emission of gases. Food security and deforestation are the central nodes of this BBN. Food security is affected by poaching, food scarcity, plagues (pests), soil erosion, droughts, high population density and use of organic materials. Deforestation is produced by the use of firewood, by insufficient knowledge, by local knowledge and rules and beliefs, and by shifting cultivation. 
The actions proposed to avoid the uncontrolled forest fires are community training and sensitization. They also propose to promote agriculture for soil conservation (agricultura de conservacao) to avoid soil erosion and uncontrolled fires. And proposed improving the mechanized agricultural practices and an improvement of irrigation as means to avoid uncontrolled fires and shifting cultivation. They also proposed the popularization of improved stoves, the use of dung for fuel and the use of biogas as ways of using less firewood. For diminishing the effects of the industry on climate change, they proposed to improve gases (residues) management. The construction of hydraulic infrastructures is proposed for diminishing the effects of droughts.  Reforestation is proposed as a way of diminishing climate change. They proposed to use integrated plagues management for diminishing the migration of plagues. They said that all the actions should be done in an integrated way, for example mechanization and conservation agriculture (agricultura de conservacao) should be developed at once. 

Oral recording: WS_20006_Grupo2. Minutes 23-33. 

Figure 2. BBN structure constructed by Group 2. 

3.	Group 3
The most important variables selected were 8. Those most related with wellbeing were: drinking water, food security and energy availability. For drinking water the problems detected were high soil salinity and the high depth of groundwater levels (what makes them very difficult or expensive to reach, and in some cases the water is salty). This was connected with droughts, and the actions proposed were the construction of dikes, dams and ponds, and the construction of water supply systems. 
Energy availability was related to food security through desertification, and is being affected by the excessive collection of firewood and charcoal production, by forest fires and by deforestation. The proposed actions to improve this situation are to limit (narrow) the number of charcoal licenses, to promote renewable energies, the growth of gas for cooking, the construction of energy infrastructures and to change the taxes of domestic energy (currently the taxes on gas make it even more expensive to poor people, so they have to buy charcoal). 
There are several factors affecting the food security: soils degradation, soil erosion, desertification, poaching, energy availability, soil salinity, excess of fertilizers (I do not understand this, since the people in the field did not apply fertilizers; they said it promotes the salinization of soils), use of external seeds (not adapted to the country), low production and low purchasing capacity. Soils degradation and erosion are mainly affected by heavy rainfalls, by the carrying capacity of the ecosystems (cattle), the existence of a low forest protection, the production of agriculture in bad quality soils and uncontrolled forest fires. Low production is caused because people do not follow a suitable agricultural management neither use suitable technologies and because there is a very Low rainfall. The low purchasing capacity is caused by the low income of rural families, because there are high rated of unemployment and a high number of children in each family. They proposed a long list of actions to change this situation. Improve cultivation methods and technologies (I agree with this, since there is a great potential to improve the farming system in the villages), new productive alternative activities (this could be possible, but needs a great work, and more for the extension to the whole country….some NGOs could proposed  those alternatives (production of honey, collection of mushrooms for exportation, etc)), introduction of policies for the reduction of birth rates (to diminish the number of people in the families), and good agricultural practices related to ecological agriculture and for the conservation of soils (agricultura de conservacion) (Biological methods of pest control, utilization of natural enemies, crop rotation and agriculture following contours). 
Finally, deforestation is caused by the production of charcoal and the collection of firewood, because the existence of uncontrolled forest fires, because of a bad forest management, by the exceeds of the carrying capacity of ecosystems. Uncontrolled forest fires are produced mainly by an excessive charcoal production, by poaching and by shifting cultivation. The proposed actions to improve forest degradation are the promotion of farms for the exploitation of wild animals, to improve the government control against poaching, and promote the rotation of grazing areas.
Oral recording: WS310114. Minutes 48-59. 

Figure 3. BBN structure constructed by Group 3.