ABSTRACT
Natural sciences have provided evidence that the protection of biodiversity opens up opportunities to improve the land use and human life globally. Based on this evidence, the illusion is widespread that science is able to produce one best solution for a sustainable use of lands, especially forestlands. This global assumption ignores unsolved issues like that of problem and solution prioritising, as well as transfer of prioritised solutions from the global north into the land-use practices of the global south. This chapter shows, based on the Research-Integration-Utilization (RIU) model, that in a pluralistic world of users and their related conflicting interests, science-based solutions need to mobilise power in order to provide substantial improvement of the land use practice. The RIU model stresses that in addition to strong scientific standards (that remain vital in science) and their activities within the research sphere, scientists have the option to empower scientific information: within the integration sphere scientists can transfer new scientific information into practice by detecting specific user interests and addressing their information procurement channels (“integration forums”). Users also have options to empower scientific information: by identifying the relevance of a specific science-based solution; checking its scientific quality and its chances for being implemented in practice. All those requirements are particularly relevant in Africa, and their specificities in this continent significantly differ from the global north, where most of the transferred international biodiversity policies have been formulated.
