Therezah Achieng

MPhil (Sustainable Development), School of Public Leadership


terrytrizahachieng@gmail.com

Download CV (PDF) Supervisors: Prof. Reinette (Oonsie) Biggs, Dr. Kristi Maciejewski

Field of research

Investigating whether land use change can be seen as a regime shift.

Profile

Therezah is from Kenya and specialises in Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) and social work. She worked with the Kenya Forestry Research Institute as a research assistant in the GIS/RS unit before registering as a full-time student at Stellenbosch University, for the masters programme presented at the Sustainability Institute. Therezah is currently doing her research in a social field, investigating regime shifts and their implications to human well-being in Amakhala game reserve, Eastern Cape. She seeks to make a difference working with a vulnerable community to help understand inherent complex interactions and uncertainties for more robust community resilience towards sustainable societies.

Description of research project

To investigate whether land used change, specific to Amakhala private protected area can be seen as a regime shift. Certain changes in ecosystems which might occur gradually or abruptly hold implications for ecosystem service provision which underpin critical aspects of human societies. Ecosystems, precisely socio-ecological systems are inter-connected making them complex systems. The functions and structures of these systems should be well understood, to keep balance or make them more robust, to increase resilience.