Topic: 

The CASEST project (French acronym for “Anthropogenic constraints to Tropical Savanna Social-ecological systems”) aims to investigate the interfaces between nature and society particularly between wildlife and agricultural practices around protected areas (PAs). Biodiversity conservation has become a prominent human-ecological community issue at regional, state or worldwide scales. While countries have implemented many rules and laws, biodiversity erosion has accelerated in recent decades. Agricultural practices and land use changes dynamics have been pointed out by worldwide experts as major causes of biodiversity erosion (cf. IPBES 2018). 

The CASEST project will gather regional and international research units studying interplays between nature and human activities involving production landscapes around protected areas (PAs). Although PAs are supposed to protect natural habitats within their boundaries, peripheral zones around PAs became so anthropogenic that they seem to fail to maintain their buffer roles. Savannas are one of the most threatened areas in the tropics because of the high dynamics of land use and agricultural expansion in the last decades. In this context, a worldwide, integrative and sustainable network between all stakeholders of the savanna Social-Ecological System (SES) aims to include researchers with diverse and complementary skills at the interplay between social, ecological, agricultural and economic sciences. This project aims to build a conceptual framework for the management of interfaces between protected areas and production landscapes in savannas, using social-ecological systems (SES) perspectives. This project will improve the worldwide knowledge of regional research for biodiversity conservation and forging international research partnerships through a valuable and active research network.

The project is hosted by three LTSER

 (Long Term Social-Ecological Research) labeled site: 

- PELD Planalto da Serra da Bodoquena (Mato-Grosso do Sul, Brazil) (http://peldbodoquena.wixsite.com/home) 

- Zone Atelier CNRS Hwange (Zimbabwe) (http://www.za-hwange.cnrs.fr/?page_id=130&lang=fr) 

- Garden Route (South Africa) (http://sru.mandela.ac.za/)

Post-Doctoral position 1

• Landscape and land use dynamic: remote sensing analysis and field data collection to produce a diachronic analysis of land use and landscape structure changes within the three sites. 
• Data analysis to investigate and model the drivers of landscape and land use dynamics
• Supervision of Master students 
• Writing of scientific papers (several per year are expected) 
• To integrate the landscape and land use model into the global Social-Ecological framework.

More details and application procedure here.

Post-Doctoral position 2

• Stakeholder’s analysis: identify relevant stakeholders and assess their views and interests on sustainable management of agriculture/biodiversity interface. The assessment can investigate economical, sociological, ethnological, political interests. 
• Propose a mental map oriented analysis to be included into the global Social-Ecological framework. 
• Data analysis to investigate and model impact of mental maps and stake holders' game in sustainability of public policies for agriculture/biodiversity interface. 
• Supervision of Master students 
• Writing of scientific papers (several per year are expected)

More details and application procedure here.

From Dr. Pierre-Cyril Renaud