Combating Desertification in Kenya - Combating Desertification in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - page 141

In the dry humid and semiarid zones of Kenya, conditions equally favor pastoral
and cropping land use. Rather than competitively excluding each other, a tighter
cultural and economic integration between the two livelihoods can prevent desertifi-
cation. Mixed farming practices in these zones, whereby a single farm household
combines livestock rearing and cropping, allows a more efficient recycling of
nutrients within the agricultural system. Such interactions can lower livestock
pressure on rangelands through fodder cultivation and the provision of stubble to
supplement livestock feed during forage scarcity (and immediately after, to allow
plant regeneration) due to within- and between-years climatic variability. At the
same time, farmland benefits from manure provided by livestock kept on fields at
night during the dry season. Many Kenyan farming systems are based on this kind
of integration of pastures and farmland.
Use of locally suitable technology is a key way for inhabitants of drylands at
risk of desertification to work with ecosystem processes rather than against them.
Applying a combination of traditional technology with selective transfer of locally
acceptable technology is a major way to prevent desertification. Conversely, there
are numerous examples of practices—such as unsustainable irrigation techniques
and technologies and rangeland management, as well as growing crops unsuited
to the agroclimatic zone—that tend to accelerate, if not initiate, desertification
processes. Thus technology transfer requires in-depth evaluation of impacts and
active participation of recipient communities (see also Chap. 21 ) . Local communi-
ties can prevent desertification and provide effective dryland resource management
but are often limited by their capacity to act. Drawing on cultural history and
local knowledge and experience, and reinforced by science, dryland communities
are in the best position to devise practices to prevent desertification. However,
there are many limitations imposed on the interventions available to communities,
such as lack of institutional capacity, access to markets, and financial capital for
implementation. Enabling policies that involve local participation and community
institutions, improve access to transport and market infrastructures, inform local
land managers, and allow land users to innovate are essential to the success of these
practices. For example, a key traditional adaptation was transhumance for pastoral
communities, which in many dryland locations is no longer possible. Loss of such
livelihood options or related local knowledge limits the community's capacity to
respond to ecological changes and heightens the risk of desertification.
Desertification can be avoided by turning to alternative livelihoods that do not
depend on traditional land uses, are less demanding on local land and natural
resource use, yet provide sustainable income. Such livelihoods include dryland
aquaculture for production of fish, crustaceans and industrial compounds produced
by microalgae, greenhouse agriculture, and tourism-related activities. They generate
relatively high income per land and water unit in some places of Kenya. Dryland
aquaculture under plastic cover, for example, minimizes evaporative losses, and
provides the opportunity to use saline or brackish water productively. Alternative
livelihoods often even provide their practitioners a competitive edge over those
outside the drylands since they harness dryland features such as solar radiation,
winter relative warmth, brackish geothermal water, and sparsely populated pristine