Analysis of Human Willd Life Conflicts on Livelihood Diversification of Communities Living Adjacent Tokamnarok National Reserve,baringo County,Kenya
Abstract
There have been increasing cases of human wildlife conflicts affecting local communities living
adjacent to wildlife conservation areas. These pose a great challenge to the communities as they
adversely affect their livelihoods. This is the case around Kamnarok National Reserve (NR) in
Baringo County. Incompatible livelihood diversification has been linked to the escalation of
human wildlife conflicts in the study area thus the objectives of the study were to;- i) examine
the types of human wildlife conflicts in the study area ii) analyze the impact of human wildlife
conflicts (HWC) on community well-being iii) analyze community motivation for livelihood
diversification and iv) assess the relationship between livelihood diversification and human
wildlife conflicts. Three (3) hypotheses were formulated and tested using the collected data.
These were (a) no significant relationship between local community livelihoods and Kamnarok
National reserves’ resources; (b) there is no significant relationship between human wildlife
conflicts and community livelihoods and (c) there is no significant relationship between
livelihood diversification and the rising cases of human wildlife conflicts within Kamnarok NR
adjacent areas. Random sampling was used to select 384 respondents from households adjacent
to Kamnarok NR. Purposive sampling was used to identify Key informants and Focus Group
Discussants. Data collected was analyzed using content analysis, chi- square goodness of fit test,
Pearson Product Moment correlation (PPMC) and multinomial regression (MR) test. The results
were presented using graphs and tables.
The results from the study revealed that crop raiding (72%) and livestock predations (46%) were
the main causes of human-wildlife conflicts. Chi-square statistics and Pearson product Moment
correlation coefficients showed that land rights contestation, competition for the NR resources,
increase in wildlife populations, inadequacy of livelihood sources and the NR management style
were other main contributors to the prevailing conflicts in the study area. Elephants were
identified as the most destructive in farm raiding incidences. Furthermore, 71% of the
households suffer human wildlife conflicts (HWCs) with human injuries (11.4%) and deaths
(2.7%) being the main direct human bodily forms of conflicts manifestation. Coefficients of the
logistic regression model indicated that the main factors influencing community livelihood
diversification in Kamnarok NR were wildlife related factors (β = 1.218; p<0.05); education
levels (β = 0.442; p<0.05) and agro-climatic factors (β= 0.861,p<0.005). However, HWCs
significantly differed by gender (X2 = 8.265, df =4, p<0.001) as more male headed household
bear the brunt of conflicts. However, other causes included imposition of policies without
effective participation (66.4%), climate change (58.4%), conflict of interest among resource
users (56.2%), and culture of cattle rustling (38.1%).
The study further established that households diversified livelihoods into various portfolios
including land sales, local transport business, and sale of merchandise in open-air markets as a
result of wildlife conflicts. Finally this study recommends that (a) Kamnarok NR management
authorities should address community land right issue by exploring more amicable solutions that
ensure community support for wildlife conservation, (b) Promote the development of more
sustainable alternative livelihoods such as tourism which reduce pressure on already strained
resources of Kamnarok NR (c) Encourage livelihoods land uses such as livestock ranching which
promote local livelihoods as it is compatible with wildlife conservation and (d) integrate
community views in the management of the reserve.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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