Abstract
The Maloti-Drakensberg (MD) mountain system is a principal water source for southern Africa, providing water to people of South Africa, Lesotho, and southern Namibia. High rainfall and cool climate results in soils with high carbon contents and this area is an important carbon sink (hotspot). MD hosts globally important faunal and floral biodiversity, with high levels of endemism. The important ecosystem functions provided in the MD (water supply, carbon sequestration and hosting biodiversity) are, however, threatened by changing climate conditions as well as land management systems which impact the ecosystem, and livelihoods
of people depending on it, negatively. The importance of the ecosystem services provided by is recognized but often only studied in isolation and without continuity. Therefore, there is a need for a holistic, systematic long-term studies of socio-ecological interactions in the area. The concept of Long-Term-Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) represents a platform with approximately 80 initiatives globally, which can address this need. This narrative provides a motivation for the focus area and monitoring themes for the MD-LTSER, and lessons learned from establishing similar platforms based on experience from researchers who established the LTSER site in Val Mazia, Matschertal in Italy. The alpine region of the northern Maloti-Drakensberg LTSER is the recommended focus area, which includes understudied ecosystems and remote communities in the Highlands of Lesotho and escarpment of the South African Drakensberg. The LTSER should be driven by local challenges and research questions. This includes inter alia the characterisation and quantification of soil and wetland degradation, the considerable spatio-temporal heterogeneity of climate parameters and
increasing extreme weather events, sensitivity of the ecosystem to climate change processes and the perceptions of the local populations on ecosystem functioning as well as their activities to adapt to respective changes. The establishment of such an LTSER site in the MD will contribute valuable data to national long term monitoring platforms (e.g., EFTEON Northern Drakensberg) and the international LTSER networks. However, to add value to existing systems and to produce results of scientific interest an envisaged MD LTSER requires a solution-oriented design based on precisely defined objectives and parameters to be measures, a careful selection of appropriate data acquisition methods and instruments as well as the provision of long-term funding. The MD LTSER can build on lessons learnt in the initial and operational phase of other mountain LTSER sites, particularly of the LTSER site in Val Mazia, Matschertal Italy. This LTSER site (established in 2014) tackles comparable research fields such as hydrology, biodiversity and land management under rising temperatures. Some key lessons learnt in Val Mazia comprise: (a) Importance of clear short- and long-term research and monitoring objectives; (b) involvement of local stakeholders during planning and implementation phases; (c) personnel specially dedicated to the site management, maintenance, and stakeholder interaction; and (d) well-structured data management platforms.