Effects of Livelihood-Diversification on Sustainability of Natural Resources in the Rangelands of East Africa: Participatory Field Studies and Results of an Agent-Based Model Using the Knowledge of Indigenous Maasai Pastoralists of Kenya

Mwangi, Margaret

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-25053-3_10

Cited by 5 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…3. For example, practiced by over 80% of Maasai households, the most common livelihooddiversification is individualized/private arablefarming [9], Fig. 3(ii).…”

Section: Maasai Livelihood Strategies/ Diversifications and Linked Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3), but also include browse forage as livestock types in this system are diversified, water, and salt-lick spaces [2] are the key ecoservices. In arable-farming, the predominant livelihood-diversification among the Maasais of Kenya and indeed other non-Maasai people [9], water and soil resources are the ecoservices used. In the extraction and sale of fuelwood, woody-plants, often an entire tree/shrub is extracted.…”

Section: Maasai Livelihood Strategies/ Diversifications and Linked Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, that harmonious sharing has gradually eroded due to unremitting permeation of various social-biophysical conditions. For example, diverse modes of livelihood strategies and land-use/resourceextraction have encroached into vast areas of the savannas within where traditional Maasaipastoralism was practiced [2,7,8,9] often triggering competition for space and resources therein. Consequently, a situation of discordant sharing of land-space and impaired integrity of ecological services (ecoservices) is created.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…cit; [10,11]). Among the Maasai people, the emerging agropastoralists were the most affected: an interview conducted with these pastoralists revealed that over 90% have adopted diverse intensive arable-farming strategies [2,9]. Therefore, a concern arise vis-à-vis the sustainability of Maasai's livelihood strategies and/or their various diversifications (hereafter strategies/diversifications, and collectively livelihoods) and survival of wild faunas, particularly as the challenges of the changing climate persist.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Maasai Livelihoods, Terrestrial Wild Megafauna and Ecosystem Services Synergies and Tradeoffs in the Savannas of Kenya: Scenarios and Implications of Climate Change in DPSIR Model

Mwangi

2019

AJGR

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Impaired sustainability of livelihoods, threatened survival of wildlife, and altered integrity of environments and ecosystems are the most persistent critical challenges plaguing the Maasai-inhabited savanna rangelands of Kenya. This study engages the Drivers-Pressures-States-Impacts-Responses (DPSIR) model to integratively and simultaneously examine those challenges. Causal social-biophysical components and links driving shifts in the interactions of Maasai’s livelihood strategies/diversifications and terrestrial wild megafaunas via ecological services (ecoservices) are explored; plausible scenarios under changing social-biophysical conditions explicated; and practical interventions illuminated. The study reveals that Maasai’s traditional and emerging livelihoods contextually interact with diverse social-biophysical conditions, particularly those related to land-use/resource-extraction and recurrent/extreme droughts, to occasion diverse and shifting ecoservice-interactions. Sharing of provisioning ecoservices predominate Maasai’s traditional strategies; emergence of heretofore rarely-extracted ecosystem goods become evident as livelihoods increasingly diversify. The study indicates that under recurrent and/or prolonged droughts occasioned by the changing climate, the existing ecoservice-tradeoffs between water needs for arable-farming and livestock, and amongst water-dependent ungulates will, ceteris paribus, intensify. Intensified ecoservice-tradeoffs among wild and domestic faunas under similar ecological-gild and/or trophic-level will plausibly unfold under that scenario. Under the same scenario, lion (Panthera leo) predation on Maasai’s livestock will intensify, and ceteris paribus, increased retaliatory killings of such nuisance terrestrial wild faunas will ensue. Apropos these rangelands, the existence of nuisance lions is revealed as a human generated reality. Collectively, persistent shifts in cross-scale social-biophysical conditions will alter and are altering, in ways yet unknown, the existing ecoservice-tradeoffs/synergies, and therefore the very sustainability of the Maasai’s livelihoods and the survival of terrestrial wild faunas. Therefore, interventions toward ensuring sustainability of ecoservices and of linked livelihoods and terrestrial wild faunas should simultaneously be adaptive to shifts in those interactions and in the changing geography of the various social-biophysical landscapes. The DPSIR model suffices as a practical tool to guide and support such interventions. The need for practical interventions entailing paradigm shift from the existing relevant policies/practices to incorporate the causal-links of the disharmonious human-wildlife interactions, in the context of various dynamic socio-ecological systems, cannot be overemphasized. Collectively, the current study reveals that it is through simultaneous assessment and systematization of the causal and proximate social-biophysical conditions linked to the presently pressing ecoservice-interactions that informed goals can be set, critical indicators defined, and evaluation and prioritization of plausible interventions made.

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“…3. For example, practiced by over 80% of Maasai households, the most common livelihooddiversification is individualized/private arablefarming [9], Fig. 3(ii).…”

Section: Maasai Livelihood Strategies/ Diversifications and Linked Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Maasai Livelihood Strategies/ Diversifications and Linked Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Maasai Livelihoods, Terrestrial Wild Megafauna and Ecosystem Services Synergies and Tradeoffs in the Savannas of Kenya: Scenarios and Implications of Climate Change in DPSIR Model

Mwangi

2019

AJGR

Self Cite

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“…Further information on data acquisition and analyses is detailed in Mwangi [6]. It is pointed out that any data and information gathered for the district-wide work is beyond the scope of this paper and is, therefore, not reported herein; instead it is detailed in other relevant publications, e.g., [6,[22][23][24]. For the purpose of this study, data for the period 1961-2006 and 1983-2006 is, respectively, denoted as long-and short-term; and the period before 1983 and after 2006 is denoted as pre-1983 and post-2006, respectively.…”

Section: Data Acquisition Management and Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverse Drought Spatiotemporal Trends, Diverse Etic-Emic Perceptions and Knowledge: Implications for Adaptive Capacity and Resource Management for Indigenous Maasai-Pastoralism in the Rangelands of Kenya

Mwangi

2016

Climate

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The study examined the spatiotemporal distribution of drought in the Maasai rangelands of Kenya. The implications of this distribution, in concert with the documented existing and/or projected social and biophysical factors, on critical rangeland resources in Maasai-pastoralism are discussed using an integrated approach. Participatory interviews with the Maasai, retrieval from archives, and acquisition from instrument measurements provided data for the study. Empirical evidence of the current study reveals that drought occurrences in this rangeland have been recurrent, widespread, cyclic, sometimes temporally clustered, and have manifested with varying intensities across spatial, temporal, and, occasionally, social scales; and they have more intensity in lower than higher agroecological areas. An estimated 86% of drought occurrences in this rangeland, over the last three decades alone, were of major drought category. The 2000s, with four major drought events including two extreme droughts, are an important drought period. A strong consensus exists among the Maasai regarding observed drought events. In Maasai-pastoralism, the phenomenon called drought, pastoralist drought, is simultaneously multivariate and multiscalar: its perception comprises the simultaneous manifestation of cross-scale meteorological, socioeconomic, and environmental factors and processes, and their various combinations. The inherent simultaneous multivariate and scalar nature of the pastoralist drought distinguishes it from the conventional drought types, particularly the meteorological drought that predominantly guides drought and resource management in the rangelands of Kenya. In Maasai-pastoralism, the scarcely used (33%) meteorological drought is construed as rainfall delay/failure across spatial and/or temporal scale, and never its reduced amount. Collectively, the current findings reveal that knowledge about drought affects the way the manifestation of this climatic hazard is perceived, communicated, and characterized; hence, ceteris paribus, alongside its spatiotemporal distribution, shapes the nature of the adaptive capacity of and resource management in Maasai-pastoralism. Studies that anticipate enhancing the drought-adaptive capacity of the Maasai should account for cross-scale social and biophysical factors, their processes, and interactions; they must engage the affected inhabitants, and utilize and integrate multiple data sources and approaches. These necessities become more crucial for informing adaptation under the present spatiotemporal distribution of drought as well as in relation to the projected increase in occurrence and intensity of this climatic hazard as the climate continues to change, and as pressures from socioeconomic globalization persistently proliferate into the Maasai's social and biophysical landscapes.

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Landscape-scale effects of farmers’ restoration decision making and investments in central Malawi: an agent-based modeling approach

Djenontin

Ligmann-Zielińska

Zulu

2022

Journal of Land Use Science

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Effects of Livelihood-Diversification on Sustainability of Natural Resources in the Rangelands of East Africa: Participatory Field Studies and Results of an Agent-Based Model Using the Knowledge of Indigenous Maasai Pastoralists of Kenya

Cited by 5 publications

References 20 publications

Maasai Livelihoods, Terrestrial Wild Megafauna and Ecosystem Services Synergies and Tradeoffs in the Savannas of Kenya: Scenarios and Implications of Climate Change in DPSIR Model

Maasai Livelihoods, Terrestrial Wild Megafauna and Ecosystem Services Synergies and Tradeoffs in the Savannas of Kenya: Scenarios and Implications of Climate Change in DPSIR Model

Diverse Drought Spatiotemporal Trends, Diverse Etic-Emic Perceptions and Knowledge: Implications for Adaptive Capacity and Resource Management for Indigenous Maasai-Pastoralism in the Rangelands of Kenya

Landscape-scale effects of farmers’ restoration decision making and investments in central Malawi: an agent-based modeling approach

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