Livelihoods

This project investigates feedbacks among locusts, livestock, nutrients and people. Current fieldwork focuses on understanding these relationships in Senegal, building on past work in China and Australia. We are investigating two overarching questions: (1) How do insect-nutrient relations and livestock grazing strategies interact to affect food security, and rangeland degradation? (2) How do property rights regimes affect the adaptive capacity of societies to respond to the linkages between overgrazing and locust outbreaks?

This project developed our understanding of the links between human welfare and ecosystem services by tracing rural welfare dependencies back to local ecosystems and land uses. We developed methods for capturing these dependencies through household surveys, land use data, and models of ecosystem service flows. Our primary collaborating partners were the Chinese Academy of Science and the Natural Capital Project.

This paper examines spatial spillovers associated with the adoption of organic dairy farm- ing. We hypothesize that neighboring farmers …