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 51

to reduce deforestation rates. Exploring the potential of the charcoal sector can
provide an opportunity for reducing not only vulnerability to climate change,
but also ecosystem vulnerability, as the practice would become regulated with
proper controls of production measures. For this to occur, coping measures
would need to be viewed as part of adaptation, rather than a separate process.
Part of the adaptation process would therefore be to look for ways of making
charcoal production both environmentally and socially sustainable and
inclusive. However, making charcoal production available to a larger section of
the community can at best form one part of a broader, more socially sustainable
approach to adaptation - it must be complemented with strengthening other
local strategies too. Moreover, the arguments advanced in this chapter should
not be interpreted as holding that all the measures that communities utilize
in disaster situations should necessarily be built upon, but that they should be
taken into account in trying to support diverse livelihoods.
acknowledgements
The case study fieldwork was funded by ProVention research and Action Grants
for disaster risk reduction. We thank several people who made significant
contributions to the initial fieldwork: the Makueni households and development
agencies who took part in the study, fieldwork assistant Martin Kamwanza, and
Kenyatta University supervisors Drs Isaac Mwanzo and Andre Yitambe. Further
analysis and reproduction of the earlier work that forms the content of this chapter
were funded by Europe Aid through a grant to the Stockholm Environment
Institute. The views expressed in this chapter are solely those of the authors and
do not represent the views of the funding or supporting institutions.
note
1 Tschakert (2007) describes these as technical types of adaptive responses that have
been proposed in many countries' reports on climate change vulnerability, and
the National Adaptation Programmes for Action (NAPAs). She cites examples
such as drought-resistant crop varieties, micro-irrigation, construction of dykes,
reforestation and seasonal climate forecasts.
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