Perceptions of smallholder farmers on nature-based income generating activities as potential livelihood and biodiversity conservation strategies in Uluguru Mountains, Tanzania

Abstract

Nature-based Income Generating Activities (NIGAs) can enhance livelihoods of smallholder farmers and biodiversity conservation in highly degrading ecosystems. These practices are promoted by various development and conservation partners worldwide to combat land degradation and biodiversity loss. However, their adoption remains low for reasons not well understood by their promoters. This can largely be attributed to the failure of the promoters to recognise and acknowledge the perceptions and priorities of target communities. We use the case of Uluguru Mountains to investigate the perceptions of farmers regarding the NIGAs that have potential to enhance both livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. Specifically, we use the Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance (W)/Kendall's tau, the Spearman correlation/Spearman's (rho), and the Likert scale methods to identify the highly ranked NIGAs and test the hypotheses that: (a) the smallholder farmers in the study area did not agree among themselves about the ranking of potential livelihood and biodiversity-enhancing NIGAs, (b) the promotion of agroforestry has reduced the communities' reliance on firewood, building poles and wood from the Uluguru Forest Reserve (UFR). We used the latter as an indicator of improved biodiversity conservation. We found that agroforestry and beekeeping were the highly ranked NIGAs and the communities in the study area had moderately reduced their reliance on timber products from UFR. We conclude that NIGAs can significantly enhance livelihoods and conserve biodiversity in mountain areas. However, future efforts to promote them should be guided by a thorough understanding and recognition of the real needs and priorities of target beneficiaries. This is imperative for winning their support and for designing the right outreach package.

Effects of Avocado Farming on Livelihoods and Biodiversity: Perspectives of Smallholder Farmers in Hai and Rungwe Districts, Tanzania

“…They are also extensively used in the analysis of factors influencing the selection of product outlets (e.g. the study by Kadigi, 2013) and the adoption of environmentally friendly production systems or technologies (Kadigi et al, 2021). Very often, these methods are complemented by the testing of agreement in opinions among respondents using the procedure described by Legendre (2005Legendre ( , 2010.…”

“…The respondents were therefore concordant in ranking all the ten income sources at the asymptotic p-value of 0.005 which strongly suggests that the coefficient of concordance was not zero. However, it is important to note that Kendall's W being not equal to 1 (which would literally mean that the respondents did not perfectly agree amongst themselves) does not imply that they did not rank the income sources in the same order but each source faired well at the hands of some respondents and poorly at the hands of others (Kadigi et al, 2021). Under perfect disagreement, each income source would fare the same overall and would thereby produce identical values for equal total rankings for all income sources, consequently, Kendall's W would be equal to zero (ibid).…”

Land Tenurial System Influence among Smallholder Farmers’ Climate Smart Agriculture Technologies Adoption, Sub-Sahara Africa: A Review Paper

“…Agriculture in developing nations should bear a considerable transformation if it is to meet the developing and interconnected challenges of crop failure, animal diseases, pasture shortage and climate change [42,43]. These challenges are evident in Sub-Saharan African countries, where the population was expected to grow by one billion in 2010 that is between 1.9 to 2.4 billion people by 2050 [43,44].…”

“…These technologies are, tailored to address agricultural production and productivity challenges (e.g. yield variability, diverse climatic conditions) experienced by smallholder farmers in developing countries [42,43].…”