Graham Von Maltitz

• Phd
• Researcher at South African National Biodiversity Institute

The sustainability of southern Africa’s natural and managed marine and terrestrial ecosystems is threatened by overuse, mismanagement, population pressures, degradation, and climate change. Counteracting unsustainable development requires a deep understanding of earth system processes and how these are affected by ongoing and anticipated global cha...

The production of commodity crops such as oil palm, sugarcane, cotton or cocoa has important ramifications for sustainability at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Food security is among the most heavily debated impacts of commodity crop production, especially in developing regions characterized by high rates of malnutrition and food insecurity...

There is a lack of long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) measurement infrastructures in Africa. This limits our understanding of the temporal dynamics of the biosphere-atmosphere exchange of carbon in response to climate change. Where relevant infrastructures have been established in externally funded research projects, they have often not been successful...

Biofuels have been promoted as a renewable energy option in many countries, but have also faced extensive scrutiny over their sustainability. Food security is perhaps the most debated sustainability impact of biofuels, especially in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa that experience high rates of malnutrition and have been a major destination for b...

Biofuel feedstock production has been identified as a possible avenue to boost rural development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the extensive promotion of biofuel crops such as jatropha and sugarcane, there are no cohesive and robust studies exploring how different types of involvement in their production affects rural income generation. This paper...

Several climatic indices have been contributed by the scientific community to analyse climate change implications on the environment, society, and economic growth. In this study, daily temperature time series for minimum and maximum temperatures were used to compute 12 extreme climate indices and 2 plant heat resource indices. The indices for the h...

Access to clean, affordable, reliable and sustainable energy is one of the greatest sustainability challenges currently facing sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This is largely due to the fact that most households in the region continue to rely on traditional biomass energy to meet their cooking energy needs. Despite its importance for the poor that cannot...

Achieving sustainable development requires evidence-based policy development using the best and most up-to-date data and scientific understanding of the underlying sustainability challenges. However, science appropriate to facilitate policy development is scarce, and, even when available, it is rather challenging to convert it into policy. The inte...

For decades, economic development has been a major challenge for scientists, policy makers and NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa. Among the alternatives, agro-industries have been acknowledged as a way to catalyze foreign investment and kick-start agricultural development through the engagement of smallholder farmers. In Mozambique, the outsourcing of sug...

>>>Free read-only version: https://rdcu.be/b1tMU <<< The assessment of land degradation and restoration by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services shows that land degradation across the globe is a wide and severe issue and is showing no signs of slowing down. This trend must be halted and reversed.

A number of industrial crops have been promoted in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to meet a range of policy objectives including economic growth, rural development, agricultural modernization and energy security. The food security impacts of industrial crop production have received extensive policyattention and have been widely discussed in the academic...

South Africa undertook a national Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) target setting process during 2017/18 in response to the United Nations Convention to Combatting Desertification’s call for signatory countries to voluntarily commit to LDN as also requested under Sustainability Development Goal 15.3. The process was supported by the Global Mechani...

Land degradation is one of the threats to human and natural systems. Fortunately, over the past few decades awareness of this challenge has grown, and 122 countries have committed to setting land degradation neutrality (LDN) targets, of which 84 have officially validated their targets, and 51 have put their targets into legislation. In this concept...

Management models are needed that empower local communities to produce biofuel feedstock in a manner that drives rural development. Much can be learnt through the accumulated experiences of sugarcane outgrower schemes in southern Africa. Early schemes provided limited empowerment, but protected outgrowers from the risks of volatile sugar value chai...

The two datasets outlined in this paper contain information related to (a) the local impacts of biofuel feedstock production, and (b) the factors that influence the adoption and/or sustained use of ethanol stoves in southern Africa. The first dataset was generated through extensive household surveys around four operational jatropha and sugarcane pr...

The benefits of biofuels depend on the feedstock, conversion pathway and local context. This paper assesses biofuels technology readiness and developments to provide foresight to biofuels development in Southern Africa. Efficient conversion pathways, coupled with biomass from waste or high-yielding energy crops, will reduce both the costs of biofue...

Ethanol has been proposed as a clean cooking fuel to reduce the use of charcoal in urban and peri-urban households in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This could have the twin benefits of reduced impacts on human health and deforestation. The aim of this study is to better understand the barriers to the uptake of ethanol stove technologies by eliciting us...

There is wide consensus that land degradation is a global phenomenon resulting in a substantial loss of both biodiversity and ecosystem services (well established). However, the global extent, severity and trends in degradation remain inconclusive. The negative impact of degradation on ecosystem services has been well established in numerous local...

Biofuel feedstock production can be a significant driver of landscape modification, ecosystem change and biodiversity loss. There is growing body of literature that shows how biofuel landscapes provide various ecosystem services (e.g., feedstock for fuel, carbon sequestration) and compromise other ecosystem services (e.g., food, freshwater services...

Southern Africa south of 150° S latitude includes all or part of several countries. The situation in the dryland portion of each of them is described and the underlying factors are explained. Land degradation affects significant areas of most of the countries. Measures taken to arrest and reverse land degradation are explained. Climate change, tren...

South Africa's natural resources are severely impacted by invasive alien plants (IAPs). As water is a scarce resource, the national Working for Water (WfW) program was established in 1995 to restore landscapes by eradicating IAPs. Since then, considerable progress has been made with about three million hectares cleared. However, the costs of doing...

There is a long-term concern that the cultivation of biofuel feedstocks could have negative impacts on communities involved in, or adjacent to, such projects. In southern Africa, the acquisition and allocation of large blocks of land for biofuel feedstock production has been especially contentious. The present study investigates the local multi-dim...

Jatropha-based biofuels have undergone a rapid boom-and-bust cycle in southern Africa. Despite strong initial support by governments, donors, and the private sector, there is a lack of empirical studies that compare the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of Jatropha's two dominant modes of production: large plantations and smallholder-based pr...

Provides a preliminary idea of the content of the future World Atlas of Desertification

Jatropha is the latest in a list of “miracle crops” that have been promoted in southern Africa for their perceived development benefits. This was based on promises of high yields, low water requirement, ability to grow on marginal land and lack of competition with food. In less than 10 years, tens of thousands of hectares were acquired for jatropha...

Jatropha curcas L. (Jatropha) has emerged as a biodiesel crop of great contemporary importance. The global hype surrounding this crop, the relatively poor understanding of its agronomy and the unpredictability of its yields, generates the potential for unsustainable practice of biodiesel production. The aim of this research is to ascertain if Jatro...

Biofuel expansion is happening rapidly within Southern Africa, and already tens of thousands of hectares have been planted, with millions more being contemplated. As is expected with such a new and dynamic industry, this development has taken place in a relatively ad hoc fashion with the various role-players adapting as they respond to lessons lear...

Since about 2005, there has been a growing enthusiasm around biofuel development within southern Africa, with almost all countries in the region initiating biofuel projects. The key driver for biofuel expansion in the region is its potential to boost rural development and national energy security and to improve national trade balances, given that i...

Southern Africa has been identified globally as one of the areas with high potential for extensive biofuel production. Unlike most commodities, biofuel is not market-limited. Instead, access to feedstock—and more particularly the land on which to grow the feedstock—is the main constraint for biofuel production, and hence the greatest competition in...

Aim To examine the different uses and perceptions of introduced Australian acacias (wattles; Acacia subgenus Phyllodineae) by rural households and communities. Location Eighteen landscape-scale case studies around the world, in Vietnam, India, Réunion, Madagascar, South Africa, Congo, Niger, Ethiopia, Israel, France, Portugal, Brazil, Chile, Domini...

The South African government, as part of its efforts to mitigate the effects of the ongoing energy crisis, has proposed that biofuels should form an important part of the country’s energy supply. The contribution of liquid biofuels to the national fuel supply is expected to be at least 2% by 2013. The Biofuels Industrial Strategy of the Republic of...

The Global Drylands Observing System proposed in this issue should reduce the huge uncertainty about the extent of desertification and the rate at which it is changing, and provide valuable information to scientists, planners and policy-makers. However, it needs careful design if information outputs are to be scientifically credible and salient to...

The implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) needs agreed, scientifically sound and practical methodologies for monitoring and assessing the state and trend of land degradation as well as for monitoring the performance of management programmes. The lack of sufficient and integrated monitoring and assessment...

Questions: What are the patterns of remotely sensed vegetation phenology, including their inter-annual variability, across South Africa? What are the phenological attributes that contribute most to distinguishing the different biomes? How well can the distribution of the recently redefined biomes be predicted based on remotely sensed, phenology and...

Abstract: The mandatory biofuel blending targets of the European Union (EU) have been influential in the establishment of a global biofuels market, as they are likely to be achieved through importation from areas with high potential for biofuel expansion, predominately parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia. Prospects of economic and rural develop...

By its nature, combating desertification is a complex, multidisciplinary activity that requires coordinated responses at a multitude of levels spanning both scientific disciplines and government departments. In the final analysis, it is at the level of the land user where the bulk of activities take place, and where the greatest impact is to be gai...

Minimising the cost of repeatedly estimating C (C) stocks is crucial to the financial viability of projects that seek to sell C credits. Depending on the price of C, this may imply less or more sampling effort than would be applied for science objectives. In systems with heterogeneous C pools, such as savannas, this translates into a variable-effor...

This study used remotely-sensed phenology data derived from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), in a fully supervised decision-tree classification based on the new biome map of South Africa. The objectives were: (i) to investigate the long-term spatial patterns and inter-annual variability in satellite-derived vegetation phenology in...

Biofuel development projects are proceeding at a pace that outstrips normal planning and feasibility evaluation. We present a theoretical framework for planning for sustainability for biofuel production at the policy, plan/programme or project (PPP) level. The objective of this framework is to foster and preserve the social ecological system in whi...

Copyright: 2009 Center for International Forestry Research The world’s population consumes more oil than any other single energy source, including coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro and renewables (EIA 2005). By 2030, global demand for oil is expected to have increased by 50 per cent (IEA 2008:116). Rising prices, concerns about energy security and...

The value of woodland products to rural livelihoods was investigated within six selected villages in the northeast of the Limpopo Province, South Africa. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 180 householders. Amount of woodland products used by villagers was determined by weighed them in a portable mass balance. We also review...

Biofuels Program in India The Indian Biofuels Program began over 60 years ago but has gained significant momentum only in the past decade and especially in the past 5 years. While until early 2000 the major focus was on ethanol as a blending additive to gasoline, in 2003 the National Biodiesel Mission was established by the Planning Commission that...

17th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition. Hamburg, Germany, 29 June - 3 July 2009 This poster focuses on a typology of biofuel projects and how to ensure sustainability.

17th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition. Hamburg, Germany, 29 June - 3 July 2009 Focusing on the situation relating to bioenergy in India, this paper provides analyses of the currently available methodologies for assessing the varied impacts, both positive and negative, of bioenergy production. This contextual information is then framed wit...

Satellite-derived phenology allows monitoring of terrestrial vegetation on a global scale and provides an integrative view at the landscape level . Understanding these seasonal phenological patterns is essential to (i) the characterisation and classification of vegetation, (ii) studying the impact of climate change , and influence of rainfall varia...

Science real and relevant: 2nd CSIR Biennial Conference, CSIR International Convention Centre Pretoria, 17 & 18 November 2008 Biofuels have been promoted as an environmentally-sustainable solution to the global energy crisis, and a way to counterbalance global increases in CO2. The reality is more complex; under some circumstances biofuels can be a...

AIACC Working Papers, published on-line by Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change (AIACC), is a series of papers and paper abstracts written by researchers participating in the AIACC project. Papers published in AIACC Working Papers have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication in the on-line series as being (i) fundamental...

Natural resource valuation techniques have been applied in recent years to savannas and savanna resources in South and southern Africa. Results from these studies have been used to demonstrate the importance of savannas, and to assist in resource-use planning. Because these studies have been conducted to meet different research objectives a large n...

The floristic composition and structure of secondary dune forest, established on old lands and in grassland, was investigated on the coastal dunes of the north-eastern coast of KwaZulu-Natal. Two distinctly different pathways from disturbance to forest were identified. One is typified by an even-aged stand of Acacia karroo, the other by bush clumps...

Fuelwood harvesting is considered sustainable when consumption is equal to or less than production. An empirical model was developed to estimate potential fuelwood production from savannas. The model is based on the observation that in semiarid savannas, biomass production is linearly dependent on rainfall. Woody basal area is linked to mean annual...

Executive summary Managing water scarcity represents one of the key challenges in the trade offs between economic growth, social justice and ecological integrity for developing countries. The poor are disproportionately affected by water scarcity due to their greater reliance on natural resources to generate sustainable livelihoods. Research in Lim...

South Africa – (ksteenkamp, kwessels)@csir.co.za b Natural Resources and the Environment, CSIR, Meiring Naude Ave, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa – (sarchibald, gvmalt)@csir.co.za Abstract – Remotely-sensed phenological metrics (or phenometrics) were derived from AVHRR vegetation-index time-series data and to describes seasonal growth in terms of sta...

A report prepared as part of the South Africa Country Study for the international collaborative research project steered by IIED: Instruments for Private Sector Forestry Partners in the South Africa Country study and CSIR-Environmentek. In association with: Department for Water Affairs and Forestry in South Africa The softwood sawmilling industry p...

A report prepared as part of the South Africa Country Study for the international collaborative research project steered by IIED: Instruments for sustainable private sector forestry Partners in the South Africa Country study: CSIR-Environmentek International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) In association with: Department for Water...

Science real and relevant: 2nd CSIR Biennial Conference, CSIR International Convention Centre Pretoria, 17&18 November 2008 Satellite-derived phenology allows monitoring of terrestrial vegetation on a global scale and provides an integrative view at the landscape level. Understanding these seasonal phenological patterns is essential to (i) the char...

17th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition. Hamburg, Germany, 29 June - 3 July 2009 Re-Impact "Rural Energy Production from Bioenergy Projects" is a project funded by the European Union Aid Cooperation office which is promoting a sustainability assessment framework for bioenergy projects focussed on rural development in developing countries. T...