Abstract-There is consensus that rural farmers' livelihoods are vulnerable to climate change. Also, literature suggests that locally driven adaptations are critical complementary strategies that can be targeted to reduce the negative effects of climate change in the short-run. Thus far, through using a cross sectional survey sample of 200 rural farmers from the Amathole district municipality of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, the paper estimated farmers' climate change adaptation strategies, adaptation portfolio diversity and factors that condition farmers' adoption behavior. The results reveal several crop, livestock and non-farm based adaptation strategies skewed in favour of crop and non-farm floral based techniques. The results further indicate that rural farmers in general are low adopters of climate change adaptation strategies with poor adaptation portfolio diversity. Regression estimates reveal several socio-economic and institutional factors as drivers of adoption and adaptation portfolio diversity worth targeting to promote the ability of rural farmers to cope with climate change.

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An understanding of factors influencing smallholder farmers’ livestock ownership at the household level is vital in formulating pro-poor livestock production policies and technologies. Hence, this study examined factors that influence livestock ownership of smallholder farmers. The data was collected randomly from three purposively selected study areas in the OR Tambo District (King Sabata Dalindyebo, Port St Johns and Ingquza Hill local municipalities) in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa using a cross-sectional survey of 650 households. A multivariate probit model (MPM) was used to estimate correlates of livestock species ownership at the household level. Results indicated that education, age, household income, marital status, religion, rainfall, gender, household size and employment status influence livestock species ownership at the household level. Therefore, efforts to promote livestock ownership and production should be guided by these significant explanatory variables in the study area. Interdependence among species was also noted (cattle and sheep; goats and pigs; sheep and pigs; cattle and goats; goats and sheep), suggesting complementarity among the different types of livestock species. This complementarity among the species can possibly be explained by functional diversity generic with multi-species livestock farming which is worth supporting to enhance biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, rural resource use efficiency and socio-economic sustainability at the household level.

Africa`s elephant population continues to decline towards extinction in the face of globally crafted elephant conservation policies. Thus far, society questions the initial design structure, contribution of local communities and relevance of these policies. Using cross-sectional survey data from Zimbabwe the paper investigates local communities` perceptions of elephants and their relative influence towards conservation of elephants using the multinomial logistic regression model. Results indicates that, high human-elephant conflict and low revenue from elephant farming promote elephant decimation while, observable positive direct returns from elephants to local communities promote conservation. The paper therefore concludes that to save African elephants, it may be necessary to engage local communities as active main stakeholders in the policy formulation so as to internalise local interests -thus avoiding errors of omission and commission.