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Rural commons inEast-Africa have historically played key socio-economic and environmental sustainability. Despite growing interest in this arena, there are still surprisingly few studies that examine rural customary management of pastoral communities in East Africa. This is striking given that this region is an exemplary area for pastoralism and thus ideal for communal systems such as commons. Deficient studies and political support in this area could be linked to widespread prejudice of branding pastoralism as perilous to the environment. We set out to conduct a study to examine and test pastoralists' customary norms that underpin environmental sustainability/ unsustainabity of pastoral commons focusing on Mwanda-Marungu, in Taita hills, Kenya where the first author originates and brought up as a pastoralist up to the age of 24. Through ethnographic approaches and semi-open interviews to 193 respondents conducted in 2019-2021 during water and pasture stress during the dry months of July-October, we examined whether customary governance of Mwanda-Marungu would offer sustainable model that conforms to the IUCN's Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs). Our study showed that pastoral communities in this area have been developing inventive measures for generations that improve good management and ecological protection. These may be tied to the principles of OECMs which contests the misconception about pastoralism.

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Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (EbA), Climate Change Africa is threatened by climate change, yet adaptive capacity of local communities continues to be weakened by ineffective and inefficient livelihood strategies and inappropriate development interventions. Practical and good activities for adaptation in Kenya is urgently and much needed to support adaptation actions, interventions and planning. The adaptation role of forest ecosystems has not been as prominent in the international discourse and actions as their mitigation role. This study therefore focused on the forest ecosystems as one of the natural resources used for adaptation to climate change impacts. The objective of this study was to evaluate Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) to climate change in Kakamega Tropical Rainforest Ecosystem. This study was descriptive and cross-sectional in design and relied on a mixed methods methodology. Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory and Adaptive Management Theory were used to guide the study. A conceptual framework showing the interrelationship between the dependent and independent variables was outlined. The study utilized both secondary and primary data. The target population was 20,000 households living up to 10 km from the forest edge in the selected communities neighbouring Kakamega Tropical Rainforest and 20 government officials within Kakamega County. A total of 184 members of the households and 20 forest officers were sampled as respondents in the study. The study findings revealed that EbA are measures which use ecosystem services to attain or support adaptation to climate change. The EbA initiatives included; policy and behavioral changes, targeted management, conservation activities, restoration of highly degraded dry forest and reducing biodiversity loss. It was concluded that forest ecosystems help to adopt or mitigate climate. The study recommended that there is need to conserve the forest to get rid of extreme temperatures and precipitation since it was a source of many services to the surrounding communities and that the forest ecosystem also helped to adapt or mitigate climate change among others.

The main objective of this study was to establish the spatial and temporal characteristics of climate change in the Kakamega Tropical Rainforest. This study was descriptive and cross-sectional in design and relied on a mixed methods methodology. Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory and Adaptive Management Theory were used to guide the study. A conceptual framework showing the interrelationship between the dependent and independent variables was outlined. The study utilized both secondary and primary data. The target population was 200 households living up to 10 km from the forest edge in the selected communities neighbouring Kakamega Tropical Rainforest and 20 government officials within Kakamega County. A total of 119 members of the households and 20 forest officers were sampled as respondents in the study. The study findings revealed that the spatial and temporal characteristics of climate change were very extreme temperatures and precipitation (the results revealed that temperature is increasing by 0.04 °C per annum while rainfall amounts have dropped by 150 mm for the past fifty-three years in the region). The study recommended that there is a need to conserve the forest to get rid of extreme temperatures and precipitation since it was a source of many services to the surrounding communities and that the forest ecosystem also helped to adapt or mitigate climate change among others.