Evaluation of land user's climate variability and change vulnerability perception, Mount Kenya region

How people perceive and respond to the management of environment is critical for ecosystem protection and sustainable development especially where people’s livelihood is dependent heavily on ecological services. The constantly evolving dynamics of public perception necessitate development of durable information by creating, disseminating and evaluating public knowledge periodically if public perception is to be used to direct relevant policy alternatives formulation. Generally such a process should be an iterative one involving; discussion of problems and opinions that result in more stakeholders surfacing, who then enrich the problem definition which can produce useful information that can be acted upon by policy makers (Manfredo et al., 2004). Responsiveness of policy to citizens’ preference is a central concern even for climate variability and change adaptation. Management strategies that lack social acceptance are unlikely to be implemented by land owners/users who are the decision-makers in land use. Unless mass views have some place in shaping policy, acceptability suffers great impediment and rendering such policy unsustainable however good the policy may be.

Climate change is being driven by human activities like greenhouse gasses emission and land use/cover change. Local activities like land clearing and burning can cause impacts that are only felt at regional or global scale. These are perfect examples of how mismatches between the spatial scale of human-decision making and natural processes contribute to environmental problems such as global warming and biodiversity loss (Akiko et al., 2007). It is important to understand land user’s perception of climate variability and change in order to formulate acceptable adaptation and mitigation policies from the bottom to address such mismatches. Future climate change is bound to occur regardless of current mitigation efforts (IPCC, 2001). The changing climate is exacerbating existing vulnerabilities- social, ecological (Schneider, 2001). Adapting to climate change will therefore become necessary in socioeconomic and environmental systems (IPCC, 2001, 2002; 2007). Relevant studies indicate that the impact of Climate change will be spatially heterogeneous and greater among the poor agricultural households particularly in Sub Sahara Africa (e.g. Adger et al., 2003, 2001). There is therefore need for gauging and prioritizing societies and ecosystems vulnerability to guide policy and management strategies such that an anticipatory action plan is rolled out to address the vulnerable first(Burton et al, 2006). Land user’s perception evaluation can be a handy tool in linking decision makers and planners and thus enhancing social acceptability and sustainability of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Tools that can reduce risk and uncertainty in decision support system are needed and the idea of ‘integrated’ conservation and development that have sprung from many fields used for interdisciplinary approach explored at local level (Brown, 2002). These may increase adaptation capacity at household level.

Population growth is on the increase in Mount Kenya region and other high potential agricultural areas in Kenya. This is putting pressure on resources like land. Land use/cover change decision making under such competitive objectives like in Mount Kenya are decisions under uncertainty (Ahern, 2002). There is need for deliberate effort to employ sustainable approaches that focus on the land user’s prioritized needs for adaptation and mitigation in such uncertain situations. In most cases where Land users are used just as an alibi, like has been the norm rather than active participants in policy formulation, chances of dissonance and low acceptance of adaptation and mitigation effort can be high (Stoorvogel et al., 2001).

Kenya, like some parts of Africa is believed to be feeling the greatest impact of climate change compared to other parts of the world. This is because of lack of economic development, and institutional capacity, agricultural based economies like tea and coffee farming which is sensitive to climate change thus is likely to be among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (IPCC, 2001). The negative impacts associated with climate change in this region may also be compounded by many factors including widespread poverty, human diseases, and high population density, which is estimated to double the demand for food, water, and livestock forage within the next 30 years (Davidson et al., 2003). The answers to these demands on ecosystem services need to be better understood from the land user’s perspective and planned for in a way that decision makers’ (landowners) priority is addressed in a holistic manner.

This contribution has been extracted from the proposal, Evaluation of Land user’s Climate variability and change vulnerability perception as a guide to resilience building options and adaptation strategies in Mount Kenya region, submitted to Climate Frontlines