Doctoral thesis
Climate Change Impact has been a critical aspect of concern globally. This is because
both ecosystems and socio-ecological system are greatly affected by climate change
causing some (ecosystems and socio-ecological system) to disappear and die.
However, how pastoralists have been resilient and adapting to climate change impacts
has not been clearly known and established and also the adaptive climate change
framework has not been given out. In this perspective, this study aimed at
investigating on the pastoralists‟ resilience and adaptive strategies to the impacts of
climate change in semi-arid rangelands in Longido district.
The study used different approaches and methods for data collection: exploration of
secondary information, observation, household survey, structured interview and focus
group discussion as data collecting methods. The sample included 312 of respondents
in this study. This study revealed out that climate change has diverse impacts on
livestock domestication and on the livelihoods of the pastoralists in Longido district.
It was revealed that climate change in the district is attributed by various aspects: -
prolonged drought, disparity in temperature and erratic rainfall. The major climate
change impacts upon the pastoralists included shortage of water, loss of pastures,
eruption of livestock diseases, death of livestock, eruption of human diseases, loss of
income just to mention a few.
The study discovered that the pastoralists have resilience and innovative adaptation
strategies against climate change impacts which includes migration with livestock
for search of pasture and water, dam construction, supplementary food/feeds, savings,
finding an alternative source of income, traditional climate forecast and formation of
by-laws, adoption of drought resistant species of livestock, regulation of livestock
reproduction and livelihood diversification to mention just a few for precision.
It was revealed that, the pastoralists have acquired new traditional ways of
determining climate variability that is the use of signs of domesticated livestock and
that of Ngakwa techniques. Ngakwa is a star which is used by pastoralists to
determine whether regimes in their areas. Additional to that, it was revealed that
pastoralists have been using traditional trees to determine climate regimes; for
example, the use of Eiti” tree flowering signs is used as an onset of rainfall indicator.
For the roles of institutions and organizations in enhancing pastoralists‟ resilience and
adaptation to the calamity of climate change included restocking, dam construction
at least in every village, provision of education regarding livelihoods, provision of
education on helping pastoralists‟ children, provision of employment to many
pastoralists, capacity building, construction of water tanks, food provision and
livelihood diversification.
The study recommends that the establishment of integrated programs such bottom up
policy formulation strategy, where all problems caused by climate change are
discussed together and the solution, mitigation measures and coping mechanisms are
identified in order to adapt to climate change impacts. For effective and sustainable
livelihood, the local people should be fully involved in planning and making
decisions on how to curb the climate change impacts on people‟s livelihood.