NDLI: Efficacy of Integrating Herder Knowledge and Ecological Methods for Monitoring Rangeland Degradation in Northern Kenya

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Roba, Hassan G. Oba, Gufu
Copyright Year	2009
Abstract	The world-wide debate on land degradation in arid lands, usually linked to local land use practices, does not reflect methodological advancements in terms of assessments and monitoring that integrate local communities’ knowledge with ecological methods. In this paper, we evaluated the efficacy of three different methods related to herder assessments and monitoring of land degradation; herder knowledge and ecological methods of assessing impacts of livestock grazing along gradients of land use from settlement and joint monitoring of selected marked transects to understand long-term vegetation changes in southwestern Marsabit northern Kenya. The performance of each method was carefully evaluated and interpreted in terms of the indicators used by herders and ecologists. Herder interpretations were then related to ecologists’ empirical analysis of land degradation. The Rendille nomads have a complex understanding of land degradation which combines environmental and livestock productivity indicators, compared to conventional scientific approaches that use plant-based indicators alone. According to the herders, the grazing preference of various livestock species (e.g., grazers versus browsers) influences perceptions of land degradation, suggesting degradation is a relative term. The herders distinguished short-term changes in vegetation cover from long-term changes associated with over-exploitation. They attributed current environmental degradation around pastoral camps, which shift land use between the alternating wet and dry seasons, to year-round grazing. We deduced from long-term observation that herders interpret vegetation changes in terms of rainfall variability, utilitarian values and intensification of land use. Long-term empirical data (23 years) from repeated sampling corroborated herder interpretations. Land degradation was mostly expressed in terms of declines in woody plant species, while spatial and temporal dynamics of herbaceous species reflected the effects of seasonality. The efficacy of the three methods were inferred using explanatory strengths of ecological theory; insightfulness of the methods for describing land degradation and the likelihood of using the methods for promoting local community participation in the implementation of the UN Convention on Combating Desertification (CCD) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Starting Page	589
Ending Page	612
Page Count	24
File Format	PDF
ISSN	03007839
Journal	Human Ecology
Volume Number	37
Issue Number	5
e-ISSN	15729915
Language	English
Publisher	Springer US
Publisher Date	2009-07-31
Publisher Place	Boston
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Ecological indicators Herder knowledge Land degradation Monitoring Northern Kenya Rendille Sociology Geography (general) Environmental Management Anthropology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Sociology and Political Science Ecology Arts and Humanities Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis Health (social science) Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health Anthropology

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