Abstract
ABSTRACTAgro-pastoral communities have been regulating their livelihood assets in response to global climate change. This paper analyzes the livelihood assets owned by the agro-pastoral communities and how they are used to enhance community resilience so as to reduce vulnerability. Data were collected from 411 agro-pastoralists in five districts of northern and central Tanzania. The analysis was based on indices constructed from carefully selected indicators of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Results indicated that the agro-pastoralists in northern Tanzania were more vulnerable to current climate risks than those of central Tanzania. Therefore, the paper recommends that stakeholders create opportunities for non-farm livelihood options to improve the cash income among agro-pastoralists.
Highlights
Climate variability has been and will always be a challenge to human livelihoods
Several vulnerability studies conducted in Tanzania focus on poverty and climate change in crop farming systems (FSs) (Paavola 2003; Sarris and Karfakis 2006; Lyimo and Kangalawe 2010; Mongi, Majule, and Lyimo 2010), but the present study focused more on the vulnerability of climate-related risks to agro-pastoral FSs in semi-arid parts of Tanzania using Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI)
The vulnerability of the agro-pastoralists is basically influenced by the exposure, which in this study has three indicators as identified in the methodology, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity which is made of five livelihood assets
Summary
Climate variability has been and will always be a challenge to human livelihoods. Human-induced climate change has lent a complex new dimension to this challenge. Evidence shows that natural climatic variability, compounded with climate change, will adversely affect millions of livelihoods around the world (IPCC 2007). Climate change is a global phenomenon; its impacts vary locally, as do adaptation capacities, preferences, and strategies. Climate change vulnerability can be defined as ‘the capacity to be wounded’ by climate change impacts. Vulnerability implies weak adaptive capacity, whereas strong adaptive capacity means reduced vulnerability (Paavola 2003, 7)
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