Search results

This paper aims to investigate the effect of using indigenous forecasts (IFs) and scientific forecasts (SFs) on pastoralists’ adaptation methods in Rwenzori region, Western Uganda.

Data were collected using a household survey from 270 pastoralists and focus group discussions. The multivariate probit model was used in the analysis.

The results revealed that pastoralists using of IF only more likely to be non-farm enterprises and livestock sales as adaptation strategies. Pastoralists using both SF and IF were more likely to practise livestock migration.

Other factors found to be important included land ownership, land tenure, gender, education level, non-farm and productive assets, climate-related risks and agricultural extension access.

Increasing the number of weather stations in pastoral areas would increase the predictive accuracy of scientific climate information, which results in better adaptive capacity of pastoralists. Active participation of pastoral households in national meteorological dissemination processes should be explored.

A two-prong approach that supports both mobile and sedentary pastoralism should be adopted in rangeland development policies.

This study has shown the relevance of IFs in climate change adaptation methods of pastoralists. It has also shown that IFs compliment SFs in climate change adaptation in pastoralism.

Climate variability and extremes adversely affect the livestock sector directly and indirectly by aggravating the prevalence of livestock diseases, distorting production system and the sector profitability. This paper aims to examine climate variability and its impact on livestock system and livestock disease among pastoralists in Borana, Southern Ethiopia.

Data were collected through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods using household questionnaire, field observations, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Areal grid dikadal rainfall and temperatures data from 1985 to 2014 were collected from national meteorological agency. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed and interpreted using appropriate analytical tools and procedures.

The result revealed that the study area is hard hit by moisture stress, due to the late onset of rainy seasons, decrease in the number of rainy days and volume of rainfall. The rainfall distribution behavior coupled with the parallel increase in minimum and maximum temperature exacerbated the impact on livestock system and livestock health. Majority of the pastoralists are found to have rightly perceived the very occurrence and manifestations of climate variability and its consequences. Pastoralists are hardly coping with the challenges of climate variability, mainly due to cultural prejudice, poor service delivery and the socio-economic and demographic challenges.

Pastoralists are vulnerable to the adverse impact of climate variability and extreme events.

The finding of the study provides baseline information for practitioners, researchers and policymakers.

This paper provided detailed insights about the rainfall and temperature trend and variability for the past three decades. The finding pointed that pastoralists’ livelihood is under climate variability stress, and it has implications to food insecurity.

This chapter attempts to critically examine the wildlife conservation discourse that argues for curtailing the livestock grazing inside the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary, situated on the India’s international borders with China in southeast Ladakh. The conventional conservation discourse points at the (supposed) greed of the Changpa pastoralists in accumulating an increasing number of pashmina goats as a primary environmental cause of wildlife loss in Changthang; however, there is a critical lack of insight into the political and historical mechanisms that lie within the dynamic interaction between resource access and socio-economic inequalities, critical for understanding Changpa pastoralism today.

Ethnographic inquiry into the Changpa economy before the closure of Ladakh–Tibet border trade in 1962, and afterwards, has highlighted the political and economic transformations in the area, as well as the cultural politics of market integration and increasing inabilities of the mobile Changpa pastoralists to access vital productive resources. Inequalities reflected in the contemporary livestock data, acquired from the pastoralists, underscore the processes of institutional bricolage, non-cooperative labour, exchange/wage herding and capital-dominated market networks, making pastoralism impossible for several of the households.

The chapter argues against making livestock withdrawal a major aim of conservation sciences. It calls instead for the recognition of state-provisioned commodified pashmina rearing, seen through the prism of changing abilities and shifting institutions, where unequal access to productive resources is a reflection of both historical dispossessions and also economic impoverishments of Changpa today.

This chapter presents a preliminary discussion of potential impacts of climate change on nomadic pastoralists on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). Both climate model projections and observations suggest that (1) the QTP is becoming warmer and (2) precipitation is increasing. Evidence also suggests that (3) glaciers on the QTP are declining and (4) the permafrost is degrading. Nevertheless, little is known as to how climate change will affect nomadic pastoralists although environmental variability is likely to increase, which may again exacerbate production risks. Pastoral risk management strategies, such as mobility, may thus increase in importance. It is, however, difficult to translate changes in important climate measures like precipitation and temperature to effects on pastoralists and livestock since they mainly affect livestock indirectly via their effect on vegetation productivity. Consequently, to increase our understanding of climate change-related effects on pastoral adaptations, satellite-based measures directly linked to both vegetation characteristics and climatic variables should be utilized in future studies rather than, for example, overall changes in precipitation and temperature. Finally, official policies that constantly introduce reforms that reduce pastoral flexibility represent a far more significant threat for nomadic pastoralists on the QTP than climate change because they may result in the wholesale extinction of the pastoral culture.

Most of the studies done on pastoralists in Ethiopia either rely on qualitative data or mainly focus on descriptive analysis and thus lack rigorous econometric measures. As a result, very little is known about the economics of household level activities in pastoral production systems. Thus, the aim of this paper is to use analysis factors influencing household income among (agro‐) pastoralists of southern Ethiopia. This information therefore can contribute to more evidence‐based decision making occurring across pastoral areas and inform policy decisions regarding the design of income generating strategies in pastoral areas.

Multi stage sampling technique was followed to select 197 household heads. Descriptive statistics like mean, standard deviation and percentages were used to explain the socioeconomic characteristics of respondents. The relationship between the household income and the independent variables were estimated using multiple regression procedure.

The finding shows that wealth and income are highly skewed; agro‐pastoralists earned two‐fold more than pastoralists by virtue of their crop activity. The variables explaining the variations in income level are family size, market distance, land size, education level and livelihood diversification status. Households with larger family members, farm land, nearer to market centres, diversification status and literate heads have earned larger income than their counterparts.

Improving market access and developing marketing opportunities are essential to (agro‐) pastoralists to get the best value for their products; alongside the expansion of crop cultivation and creation of alternative livelihood opportunities and access to education should be emphasized.

The paper presents an analysis of original survey conducted by the author from December to January 2010/11.

This study aims to examine contemporary factors underlying farmers and pastoralists’ conflict in Nasarawa state. These two communities had rosy and symbiotic relationships which have transmogrified into sour tales of mutual suspicion, destruction, deaths and violence.

Exploratory research design was used. Data was collected using qualitative tools of data collection such as in-depth interview (IDI) and key informant (KII) guides to extract responses from farmers and pastoralists.

In a bid to end the conflicts between these two groups, Benue State Government enacted the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law also known as anti-open grazing law in 2018. Although the law altered the conflict landscape in Benue, it recorded trans-territorial backlashes in the neighbouring Nasarawa State where herdsmen relocated. The relocation of herders to Nasarawa State, setting up of livestock guards to check open grazing by pastoralists, rumour and politics triggered contemporary violent conflicts between these groups.

As against existing studies, this study examines contemporary trigger of the conflict.

Investigates the dimensions of accounting information prepared for use in managing non‐corporate pastoral entities in pre‐Federation Western Victoria and the local, time‐specific environmental factors which shaped these dimensions. Based on examinations of 23 sets of surviving business records prepared during 1836‐1900, provides evidence of the structure and usage of pastoral accounting information in an unregulated financial reporting environment. Draws conclusions about the likely impact of cultural, legal and political, professional, educational, economic and other factors as key explanatory variables. Also argues a case for lost relevance based on the evidence of accounting change in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between gender and social capital in adapting to climate variability in the arid and semi-arid regions in Turkana in Kenya.

This paper undertook literature review of secondary data sources, conducted focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews (KIIs). The statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze data for the quantitative part of the paper.

Vulnerability is influenced by age, gender, education and disability. Elderly women are considered to be the most vulnerable to climate variability and change because they are the poorest in the community, followed by elderly men, the disabled, female-headed households, married women, men and, finally, the youth. Less than 30 per cent of women and men in both Katilu and Loima are able to read and write. The cross-tabulation results show that there is a statistical significant relationship between gender, age and education level and climate change vulnerability. This implies that gender, age and education level have a significant effect on climate change vulnerability.

The research coverage was limited to only two regions in Turkana because of time and economic constraints.

The lack of attention to gender in the climate change literature has time and again resulted in an oversimplification of women’s and men's experience of climate risks. Improved development assistance, investments and enhanced targeting of the truly vulnerable within pastoral societies demand an acceptance of underdevelopment in arid and semi-arid regions in Kenya because of historical imbalances in investment; the recognition that vulnerability of pastoralists is neither uniform nor universal and the need to consider differences like age, gender and education. Policy-makers should understand that pastoralists in the past have used indigenous knowledge to cope with and adapt to climate change. The current-recurrent and intensity droughts require investment in modern technology, equipping pastoralists with relevant information and skills to make them resilient to climate change and implementing existing and relevant policies for northern Kenya.

This paper draws from several other efforts to show the critical relationships between gender, social capital and climate change. They are tracking adaptation and measuring development framework; ending drought emergencies common programme framework; and feminist evaluation approach.

This paper is important in identifying the link between gender, social capital and adaptation to climate change.