Amphlett, Claudia; (2017) The impacts of extreme climatic events on pastoralists and predators in East African rangelands. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Climate change is likely to bring changes in climate variability, precipitation and increase the frequency, intensity, spatial extent and duration of extreme climatic events (XCEs). XCEs are influenced by a wide range of factors, including anthropogenic climate change, natural climate variability, and socioeconomic development. This is particularly relevant to African arid and semi-arid rangelands because of the spectacular levels of biodiversity they sustain against a backdrop of endemic poverty and vulnerability for the people whose home they are. Climate change does not work alone but in synergy with other well-known stressors, in particular habitat loss and fragmentation. These stressors as well as other factors such as changes in land use and land cover, increase in population and spread of settlements confine biodiversity to small fragmented areas and restrict people’s use and mobility. In addition, climate change will likely exacerbate already social, political and economic impacts of many rural poor, undermining human security and affecting all levels of biodiversity. As XCEs are projected to increase in this region, this thesis places itself within the growing body of literature that evaluates the effects of impacts of XCEs. This thesis used a mixed method approach to understand and evaluate the impacts of recent XCEs on pastoralists and large carnivores in Kenya. This thesis finds that pastoralists suffer enormous livestock losses during XCEs when compared to non-XCEs. In response to the increase in frequency and severity of impacts, pastoralists are responding in new ways to try to minimise the effects. Large carnivores were more likely to choose land uses that pastoralists also used more often during the XCEs. Habitat fragmentation, restriction in mobility and increases in XCEs frequency, will likely create a situation that could potentially increase interactions between pastoralists and predators, intensifying human-wildlife conflict in this region.

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