**6. Conclusion**

Changes in land use patterns as well as its intensity had affected the lunette dune-pan complex and continue to cause significant spatial and temporal environmental changes in the Sekoma area. The general changes in the climatic factors over the years had influenced changes in the land use patterns, and also contributed to environmental changes observed in the area. The predominance of bush encroachment species, particularly *A. mellifera* was evidence of the precedence of land use intensity over other drivers of environmental changes. The establishment of a sustainable environmental management strategy that could mitigate against the impacts of major drivers of environmental changes in the area was therefore necessary. The fact that the Sekoma community exhibited a wealth of indigenous knowledge in relation to the environmental changes taking place in the lunette dune-pan complex was desirable from the sustainable environmental management perspective. The findings of this study, concomitant with the indigenous technical knowledge of the Sekoma community could therefore form the basis upon which sustainable environmental management planning for the Sekoma lunette dune-pan complex could be established to facilitate natural resources and ecosystem conservation. Furthermore, attention of scientists who conduct their research works in arid environments has been drawn to the need for special consideration of lunette dune-pan complexes that normally exist as interspersed micro-ecosystems in arid environments. More studies are therefore essential to further elucidate environmental changes and ecosystem dynamics of lunette dune-pan microecosystems in arid and semi-arid zones globally. This is particularly important in view of the empirical research observations (e.g., Chanda et al., 2003; Mosweu, 2008; Mosweu & Areola, 2008) which indicated that the livelihoods of most communities living in arid and semi-arid zones revolve around the sustainability of lunette dune-pan micro-ecosystems.
