Climate Variability and Rural Livelihoods: How Households Perceive and Adapt to Climatic Shocks in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

Abstract

Climate variability and change have adverse effects on agricultural production and other livelihood strategies of the rural households. The paper hypothesizes that rural households naturally devise means of overcoming the challenges currently posed by climate variability. The research article addresses the question of how rural households apply local knowledge of weather forecasting in adapting to climate variability in the Okavango Delta. It specifically probes, among others, the extent to which climate variability has affected agricultural production over the last 10 years in the area. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select a total of 592 households from eight rural communities. Key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and a stakeholder workshop were used to obtain demographic, socioeconomic, psychosocial, and climatic information. Households used both natural animate and inanimate indicators to predict the weather. To enhance household adaptation to climatic events, indigenous knowledge weather forecasters (ethnometeorologists) engaged in discussions with community members on their observation and interpretation of local weather conditions. Households devised adaptation strategies including the selection and preservation of drought-resistant, early maturing seeds, and shift in farming calendars to overcome the vagaries of weather patterns. Local and farming communities had a favorable perception about the accuracy of indigenous knowledge in weather forecasting (ethnometeorology) and therefore continue to utilize this knowledge system in weather forecasting. Most households perceived that change in weather patterns had a direct relationship with the decline in agricultural outputs over the last 10 years. Households’ experiential knowledge and ability to quantify their losses in farm yields as a result of climate-related problems provide an important insight for policy makers on how to address the impact of climate variability in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, and in similar social ecological contexts.

Indigenous Knowledge and Farmer Perceptions of Climate and Ecological Changes in the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon: Insights from the Bui Plateau

“…This is aggravated by limited integration techniques which are exacerbated by the lack of proper background in local knowledge, lack of realization that indigenous traditional knowledge has values attached to local content touching the life of the local people and could contribute to the development of sustainable climate change, mitigation, and adaptation strategies and lack of proper understanding on how local knowledge could be used in dealing with environmental issues hence solutions to developmental problems [37,38]. Despite the positive features of indigenous traditional knowledge, there are doubts that question the legitimacy of the knowledge in managing agriculture, while many farmers still suffer from food shortages and increased environmental degradation [13]. There are other factors that are embedded in food production that farmers encounter such as imported food, abrupt and prolonged occurrence of natural hazards such as floods, drought, and windstorms that most rural farmers are not able to cope with [20,39], as well as the misguided notion that all indigenous practices are unproblematic and would be a panacea to all small-scale farming and nature related environmental problems because they are local in origin [40].…”

“…Indigenous knowledge is a cumulative and complex body of knowledge, practices, and representations that are maintained and developed by peoples with extended histories of interactions with the natural environment [11][12][13][14]. These systems are part of a complex that includes language, attachment to place, spirituality, and perception of worldview [15].…”

Agro-pastoralists’ determinants of adaptation to climate change

“…This could be explained by the fact that agricultural production systems in Botswana and southern Africa are largely dependent on rainfall (Makhado et al, 2014) and thus vulnerable to rainfall variability, as suggested in other studies (Kolawole et al, 2016). Similarly, it has been demonstrated that rainfall variability drives both crop yields (Kolawole et al, 2016) and livestock productivity (Kgosikoma and Batisane, 2014) elsewhere in Botswana. The livelihood of smallholder livestock farmers in communal lands of Botswana is therefore more vulnerable to climate change, partly because of compounding effect of land degradation and partly because of insecure land tenure (Dougill et al, 2010).…”

“…As suggested by farmers in Kweneng, drought and low rainfall are the primary climaterelated stressors to agricultural sector. Similarly, it was reported that drought and low rainfall have high negative impact on crop failure, especially maize and sorghum in the Okavango region of Botswana (Kolawole et al, 2016). Frequent drought also causes decline in livestock body condition and eventually increased mortality, as observed in other drylands Notes: ***; ** and * indicate significance at 1%, 5% and 10% probability levels, respectively Climate change (Opiyo et al, 2015. In addition, high temperatures are also associated with low output from agriculture sector because of high water demand and heat stress.…”

Resilience to Climate-Induced Disasters and Its Overall Relationship to Well-Being in Southern Africa: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review

“…Eight studies [ 18 , 28 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 57 , 58 , 62 ] identified indigenous and local knowledge as a determinant of resilience. They emphasised that communities with rich indigenous and local ecological knowledge and practices had good resilience outcomes than those without them for example, a study in Mogalakwena community in Limpopo, South Africa, noted that indigenous knowledge of seasons and early warnings, as well as traditional practices such as mixed cropping, the use of livestock manure, and the use of early maturing seeds, enabled the community to adapt to droughts [ 51 ].…”