Escaping the pastoralist paradox in the face of climate change: A comparative analysis of different tenure sys

General

Pastoralists across East Africa are challenged by loss of land, political conflicts, population increase, economic inequality, and climate change. A transition from pastoralism to agro-pastoralism has been observed in semi-arid areas in response to these challenges. The hypothesis for this project is that the resilience of this transition rests on the capacity to provide secure but still flexible access to land, the so called paradox of pastoralist land tenure.The purpose of this project is to conduct a comparative study of land tenure and capacity for climate adaption in four semi-arid, pastoralist regions in Kenya. The aim is to provide new insights on how pastoralist land tenure can be designed to enable effective adaptation strategies. The four Kenyan case study counties are all dominated by semi-arid land.We identify and categorize land tenure systems and associated practices within these four areas, and map the way land tenure is practiced in these counties through samples of communities in each county. This will enable an evaluation of the marginal valuation of changes in attributes central to household welfare and collective action. The project will use a combination of ecological methods to measure rangeland productivity, combined with interview data on household livestock and milk production, animal breeds and health.We will then synthesize these results to identify pathways towards resilient pastoralist land tenure systems and propose alternative tenure designs.