Future climate changes will affect smallholder farmers in the developing world, posing threats to household food security. Nevertheless, there remains limited comparable evidence across multiple ...countries and regions regarding the global extent of climate shocks affecting smallholder food security. We examine data from 5,299 household surveys across 15 countries in Latin America, Africa and South Asia to assess the extent of climate shocks and their association with food insecurity, as well as what strategies may help buffer against climate shocks. We find that 71% of households reported experiencing a climate shock in the previous five years. Fifty-four percent reported experiencing food insecurity during one or more months annually. A multilevel statistical model estimated factors correlated with food insecurity as well as factors correlated with food insecurity among households that had experienced a climate shock. Households that reported experiencing a climate shock were 1.73 times more likely to be food insecure. As well, larger and poorer households were associated with higher odds of food insecurity while using pesticides, keeping large livestock, and being more educated are associated with lower odds of food insecurity. Among households that had experienced a climate shock, additional factors are correlated with lower odds of food insecurity when compared to otherwise similar households: use of fertilizers, pesticides, veterinary medicines, large livestock, and household assets. Together, these results demonstrate the extent of existing climate shocks affecting smallholder farmers and how interventions may potentially support adaptation and reduce food insecurity.
Mobile phone use is increasing in Sub-Saharan Africa, spurring a growing focus on mobile phones as tools to increase agricultural yields and incomes on smallholder farms. However, the research to ...date on this topic is mixed, with studies finding both positive and neutral associations between phones and yields. In this paper we examine perceptions about the impacts of mobile phones on agricultural productivity, and the relationships between mobile phone use and agricultural yield. We do so by fitting multilevel statistical models to data from farmer-phone owners (n = 179) in 4 rural communities in Tanzania, controlling for site and demographic factors. Results show a positive association between mobile phone use for agricultural activities and reported maize yields. Further, many farmers report that mobile phone use increases agricultural profits (67% of respondents) and decreases the costs (50%) and time investments (47%) of farming. Our findings suggest that there are opportunities to target policy interventions at increasing phone use for agricultural activities in ways that facilitate access to timely, actionable information to support farmer decision making.
Across the tropics, rural farmers and livestock keepers use mobility as an adaptive livelihood strategy. Continued migration to and within frontier areas is widely viewed as a driver of environmental ...decline and biodiversity loss. Recent scholarship advances our understanding of migration decision-making in the context of changing climate and environments, and in doing so it highlights the variation in migration responses to primarily economic and environmental factors. Building on these insights, this letter investigates past and future migration decisions in a frontier landscape of Tanzania, East Africa. Combining field observations and household data within a multilevel modeling framework, the letter analyzes the explicit importance of social factors relative to economic and environmental factors in driving decisions to migrate or remain. Results indeed suggest that local community ties and non-local social networks drive both immobility and anticipated migration, respectively. In addition, positive interactions with local protected natural resource areas promote longer-term residence. Findings shed new light on how frontier areas transition to human dominated landscapes. This highlights critical links between migration behavior and the conservation of biodiversity and management of natural resources, as well as how migrants evolve to become integrated into communities.
Invasive species are a major threat to freshwater conservation. The coexistence of species in invaded habitats depends on the relative strength of intra‐ versus inter‐specific competition, where ...inter‐specific competition from invasive to native species is often stronger than intra‐specific competition, jeopardising their coexistence.
In this study, we conducted a laboratory experiment to test for the relative strength of interference competition between native plains topminnow (Fundulus sciadicus) and invasive western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis) at three experimental temperatures. Intra‐ and inter‐specific competition was quantified using an isodar approach, which assumes that animals are ideally distributed to maximise their fitness. Thus, their distributions measure the quality and quantity of habitat patches. This was supplemented by behavioural observations of intra‐ and inter‐specific competition.
Contrary to our predictions, we did not find evidence that competition was asymmetrical from the invasive mosquitofish to the native plains topminnow. Instead, more individuals occupied their shared preferred habitat (a slow‐moving pool) in sympatry compared to allopatry, and the isodar analysis demonstrated that intra‐specific interference competition was significantly stronger than inter‐specific competition at all temperature levels. Behavioural observations corroborated this analysis of habitat selection that aggression was most frequent among plains topminnow in sympatry.
This study shows that the widely perceived aggression of adults might not be the only key mechanism of global invasion success by mosquitofish. Other ecological traits, such as rapid reproduction, environmental tolerance, and interactions with early life stages of native species, might also be responsible for their invasion success. Additional investigations are warranted to determine whether their invasions directly affect native species or they invade degraded ecosystems opportunistically.
Largely absent from the current scientific dialog is recognition of which voices should contribute to decisions on the future of Africa's elephants, particularly those living in the Kavango‐Zambezi ...Transfrontier Conservation Area. We argue that elephant conservation policy must take into account the voices of the people bearing the cost of living with wildlife, as well as the nations with the responsibility of hosting elephant populations. Southern African elephant conservation is a 'wicked problem', which is best addressed through small wins approaches. Specifically, research on changes in local political and governance dynamics resulting from community conservation programs is needed, to identify new modalities for community level engagement. Additionally, research into policy implications, as well as seasonal resource needs of humans and wildlife, from zoning and corridor development to facilitate landscape level movement is needed. A modular approach to research for ensuring functional social–ecological landscapes within the KAZA context could help sustain both wildlife and communities in the region.
Local residents' changing perceptions of benefits and problems from living next to a protected area in western Uganda are assessed by comparing household survey data from 2006, 2009, and 2012. ...Findings are contextualized and supported by long-term data sources for tourism, protected area-based employment, tourism revenue sharing, resource access agreements, and problem animal abundance. We found decreasing perceived benefit and increasing perceived problems associated with the protected area over time, with both trends dominated by increased human-wildlife conflict due to recovering elephant numbers. Proportions of households claiming benefit from specific conservation strategies were increasing, but not enough to offset crop raiding. Ecosystem services mitigated perceptions of problems. As human and animal populations rise, wildlife authorities in Sub-Saharan Africa will be challenged to balance perceptions and adapt policies to ensure the continued existence of protected areas. Understanding the dynamic nature of local people's perceptions provides a tool to adapt protected area management plans, prioritize conservation resources, and engage local communities to support protected areas.
•Percentage of households claiming benefit decreased over time.•Percentage claiming problems increased over time with elephant abundance.•Benefit influenced by employment, tourism, revenue sharing and resource access.•Improving benefits overshadowed by crop raiding problems.•Wildlife conflict dominated but problem mitigated by ecosystem service benefit.
Background
Renewable energy development is a necessary step toward climate change mitigation, so these topics have often been linked. In US public discourse, however, they have somewhat different ...profiles—climate change views are tied closely to partisan identity, whereas renewable energy exhibits more cross-cutting appeal, and sometimes more cross-cutting opposition as well. To what extent are such differences reflected in survey data tracking rates of change, respondent characteristics, and local or regional variations in public opinion on renewable energy and climate?
Methods
We explore similarities and differences in views of renewable energy and climate change using a unique collection of 18 US national or regional surveys totaling more than 14,000 interviews, conducted between 2011 and 2017. Individual surveys varied in context, content, and goals, but all asked two common energy and climate questions, which yield comparable and strikingly consistent results.
Results
Public support for renewable energy appears broader than acceptance of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), especially in a more conservative region. Despite local controversies, support for renewable energy in recent years rose faster than ACC acceptance on two regional surveys. Political divisions remain wide on both topics, but wider regarding climate change—particularly among college-educated respondents. Renewable energy views in counties with proposed or operating wind farms are not systematically different from those in other counties.
Conclusions
Overall, these results provide encouragement for promoting renewable energy in terms of its economic benefits, working around some of the political identity-based resistance to climate change mitigation. That approach could be most important in politically conservative regions where such resistance is strong.
Smallholder farmers and livestock keepers in sub-Saharan Africa are on the frontlines of climate variability and change. Yet, in many regions, a paucity of weather and climate data has prevented ...rigorous assessment of recent climate trends and their causes, thereby limiting the effectiveness of forecasts and other services for climate adaptation. In rainfed systems, farmer perceptions of changing rainfall and weather patterns are important precursors for annual cropping decisions. Here, we propose that combining such farmer perceptions of trends in seasonal rainfall with satellite-based rainfall estimates and climate station data can reduce uncertainties regarding regional climatic trends. In western Uganda, a rural and climatically complex transition zone between eastern and central equatorial Africa, data from 980 smallholder households suggest distinct changes in seasonal bimodal rainfall over recent decades, specifically wetter rainy seasons and drier dry seasons. Data from three satellite-based rainfall products beginning in 1983 largely corroborate respondent perceptions over the last 10–20 years, particularly in the southernmost sites near Queen Elizabeth National Park. In addition, combining all three information sources suggests an increasing trend in annual rainfall, most prominently in the north near Murchison Falls National Park over the past two decades; this runs counter to recent research asserting the presence of a drying trend in the region. Our study is unique in evaluating and cross-validating these multiple data sources to identify climatic change affecting people in a poorly understood region, while providing insights into regional-scale climate controls.
The potential for prescribed fire to address fuel management and forest restoration goals has received considerable attention. However, many wildfire risk mitigation practitioners and researchers ...consider prescribed fire to be an underutilized tool for forest and fire management. Prescribed fire can affect a broad range of values (e.g., air quality, wildlife habitat, timber, protection of homes) and these effects, which we term valued outcomes, may result from complex dynamics operating within fire-prone social-ecological systems. Increasing the effective use of prescribed fire requires a better understanding of how these dynamics are perceived by stakeholders, whose support is crucial for forest and fire management initiatives that affect diverse groups of people. We evaluated perceptions of the effects of prescribed fire on valued outcomes using data from 111 cognitive maps elicited from stakeholders in the wildfire-prone Eastern Cascades Ecoregion of central Oregon. As representations of relationships among biological, physical, social, political, and other factors that structure individuals' understanding of a system, cognitive maps are ideal for analyzing perceptions of dynamics in complex social-ecological systems. We found that prescribed fire was perceived to positively affect valued outcomes in individuals' cognitive maps. However, when we aggregated individuals' cognitive maps to evaluate perceptions of prescribed fire at varying stakeholder group sizes, we found that perception of desirable effects declined with group size. Additionally, representatives of fire response and non-governmental organizations tended to perceive prescribed fire more favorably, while private citizens and representatives of private businesses emphasized adverse effects. Finally, we measured how the perceptions of the effects of prescribed fire varied across 15 distinct valued outcomes and found that air quality, aesthetic values, and wildlife habitat were perceived to be most negatively affected by prescribed fire, while cultural and historical values, protection of flora, water quality, and firefighter safety were perceived to be most positively affected. Taken together, our results help to explain the challenge of scaling up the use of prescribed fire and highlight the need for policy processes that account for stakeholders' views of the multiple—and potentially opposing—effects of prescribed fire on different valued outcomes.
Substantial research on the teleconnections between rainfall and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) has been conducted across equatorial Africa as a whole, but currently no focused examination exists ...for western Uganda, a rainfall transition zone between eastern equatorial Africa (EEA) and central equatorial Africa (CEA). This study examines correlations between satellite-based rainfall totals in western Uganda and SSTs—and associated indices—across the tropics over 1983–2019. It is found that rainfall throughout western Uganda is teleconnected to SSTs in all tropical oceans but is connected much more strongly to SSTs in the Indian and Pacific Oceans than in the Atlantic Ocean. Increased Indian Ocean SSTs during boreal winter, spring, and autumn and a pattern similar to a positive Indian Ocean dipole during boreal summer are associated with increased rainfall in western Uganda. The most spatially complex teleconnections in western Uganda occur during September–December, with northwestern Uganda being similar to EEA during this period and southwestern Uganda being similar to CEA. During boreal autumn and winter, northwestern Uganda has increased rainfall associated with SST patterns resembling a positive Indian Ocean dipole or El Niño. Southwestern Uganda does not have those teleconnections; in fact, increased rainfall there tends to be more associated with La Niña–like SST patterns. Tropical Atlantic Ocean SSTs also appear to influence rainfall in southwestern Uganda in boreal winter as well as in boreal summer. Overall, western Uganda is a heterogeneous region with respect to rainfall–SST teleconnections; therefore, southwestern Uganda and northwestern Uganda require separate analyses and forecasts, especially during boreal autumn and winter.
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