"Towards Nature-Positive Actions!" Resource Nexus and Land Cover Change for Regional Sustainability Transformations in Southern Africa

Yamikani Harry Makwinja, United Nations University-Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and Of Resources (UNU-Flores)

Studies on Land cover change have existed for decades but mostly focused on geospatial analysis. Competing pathways including synergies and trade-offs have not been extensively addressed. This has perpetrated conflicts between nature conservation goals and improving human systems goals. We conducted a systematic review to critically analyse the existing knowledge levels that will further guide theorising the sustainability dilemma in the region. A total of 36 records from Web of Science and Scopus core collection databases were considered for inclusion and analysis. We further visualised the records using VOSViewer Explorer while inferential statistics for land cover change were generated in R Software. Our findings reveal that South Africa relatively has a higher number of records. The spatial auto-correlation shows a positive alpha agglomeration pattern of forest cover with Moran’s I >0 denoting a 'High-High cluster'.