Underutilised Indigenous Vegetables’ (UIVs) Business in Southwestern Nigeria: Climate Adaptation Strategies

The impact of climate change, especially on agricultural sector, calls for a global and more localized strategies such as cultivation of underutilized indigenous vegetables (UIVs) which adapt better to local climate change. This chapter, therefore, examines the perception of UIVs farmers to climate change, their experiences of UIVs’ responses to climate change, adaptation strategies employed, and the determinants of the decision to adopt them in Southwest Nigeria. The study uses quantitative and qualitative primary household data from 191 UIVs farmers, 8 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and secondary climate data from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency. Descriptive and econometric analyses are employed in the data analyses. The results show that farmers’ perceptions of climate change are high temperature and a high variability in rainfall pattern that has affected the yield, increased insects, pests, and diseases infestations, and reduced soil fertility. The results further show that the responses of UIVs to these resultant effects differ as such, and adaptation strategies farmers adopt are UIVs-specific. The adaptation strategies mostly employed by the UIVs farmers are cultivating UIVs along the river bank and the least is agroforestry and perennial plantation. The determinants of the decision to adopt adaptation strategies include UIVs revenue, age, years of experience, access to climate information, climate change awareness, agro ecological zone, and access to credit. Thus, promotion of UIVs business is advocated and provision of information on climate change essential and will encourage farmers to adopt appropriate climate change adaptation strategies to boost UIVs business.

Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Tipping Points in Botswana

Climate adaptation planning requires new ways of thinking and approaching the analysis of risks. Such thinking needs to be systemic in nature and practice/action-oriented while respecting the complexity of the physical and social sciences. Through this chapter on climate tipping points in Botswana, it is proposed that a generic and practice-oriented analysis framework be applied with a mathematical foundation including modeling methods based on complex science. The objective is to promote a framework that privileges a worldview to avoid biased and partial explanations of risks. An Institutional-Socio-Earth-Economical-Technical systems (ISEET) approach is based on a systems science philosophy for risk governance analysis, with particular emphasis on tipping points and emergence which are some of the key elements that can support sound adaptation planning. Through the lens of the biodiversity sector in Botswana, the complex interrelationships of ISEET principles are explained. They provide a new, efficient, and practical framework for moving rapidly from theory to action for planning and implementing climate change adaption projects.

Do-It-Yourself Flood Risk Adaptation Strategies in the Neighborhoods of Kano City, Nigeria

The urban poor in developing countries is hit hardest by climate-related extreme events such as flooding. Also, informal settlements lacking municipal support and immediate public response to flooding incur losses and thus exacerbate their sufferings. Left out or left alone, the vulnerable people from some parts of the ancient city of Kano develop their own efforts to protect themselves against the recurrent flood events. Hence, this chapter examines the nature of community-driven do-it-yourself (DIY) adaptation The data was collected through field-based surveys, interviews, and questionnaires to enable in-depth analysis of the problem from socioecological point of view. The results identified flood drivers to include the nature of surface topography, torrential rainfalls, lapses, and inadequacies in the availability of drainage infrastructure and human behavioral lapses in drainage management. On the other hand, the DIY adaptation manifests in the use of sandbags, de-siltation of drainage, construction of fences, and drainage diversions. It is important to highlight that DIY adaptation is a good strategy; however, municipal authorities must come to the aid of such communities and revisit the absence of urban planning by supporting them through capacity building to find more effective solutions to the challenges of the changing climate and environment.

Gendered Vulnerability to Climate Change Impacts in Selected Counties in Kenya

Extreme climate change events such as frequent and prolonged droughts or floods associated with climate change can be very disruptive to peoples’ livelihoods particularly in rural settings, where people rely on the immediate environment for livelihood. Shocks in the people’s livelihoods can trigger diverse responses that include migration as a coping or adaption strategy. Migration takes many forms depending on the context and resources availability. Very few studies in Kenya have used qualitative analysis to bring up women’s voices in relation to gender, climate change, and migration, especially along hydrological gradient. This chapter presents results of qualitative research conducted from 58 participants in 2018 in three counties in Kenya, namely, Kiambu County, Machakos, and Makueni. The study sought to examine gender perceptions related to climate-induced migration, that is: whether climate change is perceived to be affecting women’s livelihood differently from that of men; examine in what ways experiences of climate induced migration differed for men and women; explore perceptions on the county government efforts to cope with climate-induced migration; and examine perceptions of the role of nongovernmental agencies in helping citizens cope with climate change. From the results obtained on ways in which climate change affected women livelihoods more than men had four themes: (1) women exerted more strain in domestic chores, child/family care, and in the farm labor; (2) women also experienced more time demands. The sources of water and firewood were getting more scarce leading to women travel long distances in search to fetch water and firewood; (3) reduced farm yields, hence inadequate food supply; and (4) the effects of time and strain demands on women was a contributory factor to women poor health and domestic conflicts. Several measures that the county government could take to assist women to cope with climate change-induced migration had five themes which include the following: (1) developing climate change mitigations, and reducing deforestation; (2) increasing water harvesting and storage; (3) develop smart agriculture through the use of drought-resistant crops and drought mitigation education; (4) encourage diversification of livelihoods; and finally (5) providing humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable populations such as orphans and the very poor. Thirdly, the measures mentioned that NGO’s could take to assist rural communities to cope with climate change-induced migration did not vary significantly from those mentioned for county government, except probably for a new theme of increasing advocacy for climate adaption policies.

Just Societal Transformation: Perspectives of Pastoralists in the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia

Pastoralists’ livelihoods in Africa are highly endangered by adverse forces – the climate change being one among those. Against this background, climate change adaptation is conceptualized as strategic agency in the field of risk-laden livelihood environments, that is, agency in the face of risky options and non-calculable uncertainties.The chapter conceptualizes pastoralists’ livelihoods exposed to a four-fold hierarchy of environmental risks and forces defining the actors’ arena of strategic decision making: From the global scale of ever extending impacts by the climate change imperative, to the national scale of government policies in terms of decentralization, challenging people to govern and define their communal efforts in terms of climate change adaptation, and down to the regional scale, which in the presented case is dominated by a large-scale investment, the Kuraz Sugar Development Project, which again confronts local actors with adverse forces toward villagization and eviction from pasture grounds. Right at the end of this hierarchy and in accordance with discourses on “climate services,” the end-users and local actors, the pastoralists, are confronted with and offered a product that they can input into their decision making: cattle feed from the residues of the irrigated sugar cane. The question remains whether substantive aspects of processes turning into true environmental and social justice in terms of recognition, procedures, and distribution will be paid attention to.