Natural resources (or Natural Capital) are a source of raw materials for industries, source of livelihoods for communities, and income for economies. For continued supply of these resources, they need to be sustainably utilized, managed and conserved for the benefit of future generations as well. Wise-use and management of these resources requires comprehensive understanding of their state, extent and pressures (threats) so as to design effective and efficient management strategies and plans. BSL supports clients with pragmatic solutions that fosters conservation and sustainable natural resources use and management to ensure prosperity of the Natural Capital.

BSL recognizes that for a successful natural resources management, all key stakeholders should be involved, as well as the various elements of natural resources and their utilization (e.g. biophysical, socio-political and economic) should be incorporated. We apply principles of Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM), as well as multifaceted approaches of Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM), and Integrated Natural Resources Management (INRM).

Our services here include but are not limited to;
Water resources assessment and management

We analyze, develop and implement strategies for sustainable water resources management at either basin-wide or site-specific levels, integrating environmental, economic, and social aspects. Particularly we develop water catchment or wetland management plans that ensure sustainable resource use.

Land-use change and Landscape dynamics

Landscapes are dynamic and change over time. Changes in land-cover occur due to both natural and anthropogenic causes through land-use change amongst others. Changes in land-use particularly through infrastructural development can have effects on both biodiversity and ecosystem services in various ways such as loss, degradation, or fragmentation of habitats. Effects on ecosystem services could affect community livelihoods dependent on these natural resources such as loss of water, grazing land, fuel wood, and other raw materials.

Therefore, addressing this problem from a landscape scale and including all social actors in the decision-making process is especially useful for proposing effective management options adapted to the region. We apply GIS and remote sensing to model, predict and analyze landscape dynamics. We conduct research on changes in land-cover and land-use by using long temporal series of satellite images and verified by ground-thruthing; and also assess effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Human-wildlife conflict and Bushmeat Management

Human wildlife conflicts (HWC) and bushmeat trade are one of the major threats affecting Protected Areas management in Africa. It's also very challenging to develop effective mitigations measures. Assessing and understanding the dynamics of HWCs is therefore very important to set-up reliable, effective and efficient mitigation measures. It's important to understand the hotspots, drivers, types, prevalence and trends of the events to allow proper planning.

We design, implement and monitor effective long-term mitigation measures involving affected local communities and other key stakeholders. We apply a holistic approach that involves local people, wildlife, livestock, crops and habitat in the assessment to allow designing robust long-term mitigation measures that will ensure safety of human and their assets, wildlife and their habitats.

Ecosystem services surveys, analysis and mapping

We apply cutting-edge tools such as InVest for assessing, valuing and mapping priority ecosystem services to understand their distributions, threats, value, amongst others.

We assess threats, risks and potential impacts of global change such as developmental activities and environmental change such as land-use/cover change, climate change and extractive industry impacts amongst others on priority ecosystem services.

To support management planning, we produce maps useful for spatially explicit prioritization, decision making and problem identification, especially in relation to synergies and trade-offs amongst different ecosystem services, and between ecosystem services and biodiversity.