Perceptions of Socio-Ecological Changes and Their Implications on Changes in Farming Practises and Agricultural Land Uses in the Savannahs of Northeast Ghana

Peter Boateng,Divine Appiah,Prince Adjei,Henry Mensah

doi:10.3390/environments3040033

Peter Boateng, Divine Appiah + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/environments3040033

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Abstract

This study assesses the perceptions of local farming households in the savannahs of northeast Ghana about the patterns of ecological and social changes happening around them over the years. It then unpacks how those perceptions are influencing farming practices and agricultural land use changes. Theoretical and empirical understandings of the value of local resource users’ perceptual judgements about changes in their socio-ecological environment and how they respond to those changes have far-reaching implications for design of agricultural development and sustainable land management policies. Consideration of local perceptions offers more informed basis to design and implement agricultural development policies in ways that encourage active local participation, sustainable livelihoods development, and responsiveness to changing conditions. This departs from current conventional implementation systems, which are usually top-down and based on technical and political aspects of agricultural land management, but do not necessarily comprehend processes influencing the agency of local communities in shaping various agricultural land use outcomes.

Highlights

In the face of rapid changes in the ecology of the highly variable and fragile environments of semi-arid biomes [1,2] and changes in the social structure of the human communities that inhabit those environments, there is a critical challenge for understanding how changes in social systems interact with changes in ecological systems to influence farming practices and agricultural land use trajectories
We assess the perceptions of local farming households on the patterns of ecological and social changes happening around them over the years, and we tease out how those perceptions are shaping the production of varied agricultural land uses in the savannahs of rural northeast Ghana
It is widely acknowledged that policy and institutional arrangements at higher scale levels have far reaching implications on perceptions and land use decisions at the local community scale [3], this research largely concentrated on the Environments 2016, 3, 33; doi:10.3390/environments3040033

Summary

Introduction

In the face of rapid changes in the ecology of the highly variable and fragile environments of semi-arid biomes [1,2] and changes in the social structure of the human communities that inhabit those environments, there is a critical challenge for understanding how changes in social systems interact with changes in ecological systems to influence farming practices and agricultural land use trajectories. We assess the perceptions of local farming households on the patterns of ecological and social changes happening around them over the years, and we tease out how those perceptions are shaping the production of varied agricultural land uses in the savannahs of rural northeast Ghana. Understanding local communities’ responses to changing conditions around them first requires an understanding of their perceptions of the changes that are occurring around them. This position is based on the theoretical principle that (changing) perceptions affects behaviours and attitudes [5], and this in turn influences (changing) land use/management practices

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