Chapter 10: Africa
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10.2 Key Regional Concerns
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10.2.6 Desertification
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10.2.6.6 Vulnerability and Adaptation
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The tragic death of as many as 250,000 people in the Sahel drought of 1968–1973 (UNCOD, 1977) demonstrates the vulnerability of humans to desertification. As desertification proceeds, agricultural and livestock yields decline, reducing people’s options for survival. Furthermore, not only do local people lose the vital ecosystem services that dead trees and shrubs had provided; the loss of firewood, traditional medicine species, and emergency food species render them more vulnerable to future environmental change.
Adaptations by farmers and herders in Africa to climate change and desertification have involved diversification and intensification of resource use (Davies, 1996; Downing et al., 1997). Resourceful diversification responses by women in Bambara and Fulbehouseholds in Mali (Adams et al., 1998) reflect the importance of women in guiding adaptation strategies across Africa. In southern Kenya, Maasai herders have adopted farming as a supplement to or replacement for livestock herding (Campbell, 1999). In Kano, Nigeria, peri-urban vegetable gardening has expanded (Adams and Mortimore, 1997), revealing a common diversification trend in small cities across west Africa. In northern Cameroon, Fulbe herders have increased the number of herd displacements between pasture areas and even resorted to long-distance migration, sometimes introducing significant changes to their way of life (Pamo, 1998).
In the future, seasonal climate forecasting (NOAA, 1999; Stern and Easterling, 1999) may assist farmers and herders to know times of higher probability of success of resource diversification or intensification. Seasonal forecasts for Africa currently exhibit moderate skill levels (Thiaw et al., 1999) but skill levels and user communications are not yet high enough to permit users to confidently implement field applications (UNSO, 1999; Broad and Agrawala, 2000). Neither trade nor technology will likely avert the widespread nutritional and economic effects of desertification through the 2020s (Scherr, 1999).
Other adaptations to desertification involve more efficient management of resources. In Niger, farmers with access to credit will adopt low-cost, appropriate technologies for wind erosion control, including windbreaks, mulching, ridging, and rock bunds (Baidu-Forson and Napier, 1998). Across Africa, farmers traditionally have adapted to harsh environmental conditions by promoting natural regeneration of local trees and shrubs. Natural regeneration is a practice whereby farmers and herders seek to reconstitute vegetative cover by setting aside parcels of land or by selecting valued trees in their fields, pruning them, straightening them, and raising them to maturity. The Sereer in Senegal (Lericollais, 1973) and the Mossi in Burkina Faso (Kessler, 1992) have achieved doubling of tree densities in certain semi-arid areas with Acacia albida and Butyrospermum parkii, respectively.
