The societal role oF Charcoal production in Climate-Change adaptation of the arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 46

to their observations, we found that the principal measures could substitute
for farming as a main source of household food income, and were regular and
reliable over extended periods. Complementary measures, by contrast, were less
regular and could not be sustained over extended periods.
Many of the observed coping strategies such as sale of livestock or taking
children out of school to provide labour were complementary, and engaging
in them could contribute to further impoverishment by decreasing livelihood
assets or personal wellbeing. Charcoal production seemed to fall in the principal
category, by helping to accumulate assets to the household, albeit somewhat
marginally. From this perspective, our findings indicate that charcoal production
is a coping strategy that supports communities in adaptation, rather than eroding
their ability to do so. Charcoal production as a coping measure can support
and sometimes substitute for vital livelihood measures and thus enable those
engaged in it to generate additional income.
DA-promoted measures
A high presence of DAs was observed in the district, as well as many organized
community groups which formed an entry point for development programmes.
The agencies had varied goals, many of which were presented as drought
preparedness and resilience rather than climate-change adaptation. There were,
however, common characteristics to their activities with regard to the theme
of this study: 1) none of them explored the role of charcoal production as a
possible adaptive measure or an important livelihood measure; 2) there was
heavy promotion of environmental conservation measures, such as protection
of catchment areas; and 3) most activities could be characterized as technical
'hard' measures, generally targeting agriculture (see Table 3.1 ) .
Most of the projects did not support existing community-level coping
strategies explicitly, but rather focused on agricultural development that targeted
only a segment of the community in trying to see them through seasonal
variation. Thus, there appears to be a disconnect between how DAs address
coping measures and adaptation and what communities in fact do themselves to
respond to droughts.
Various perspectives emerged from the study findings. Firstly, comparison of
the results in Table 3.1 with the findings presented in Figure 3.1 shows a clear
difference between the DA approach and that of the communities. DA measures
appear to focus more on environmental conservation and development, some of
which may enhance adaptive capacity, whereas local strategies are more geared
towards diversified livelihoods that can manage drought and climatic variations.
Most DA measures did not directly support those livelihood and coping strategies
that are most critical for local communities in managing climatic variation and
change. To use the terminology of the academic literature, the community's
approach would be seen more as coping, leading to a perceived need to provide
them with a new set of measures for adapting. By contrast, the same literature