Pastoralists have historically used a set of strategies to cope with climatic change in arid and semi-arid landscapes, among which mobility has been a crucial one. Yet mobility has been compromised by landscape fragmentation in many pastoral contexts, increasing pastoralists’ vulnerability and leading to ecological changes such as soil erosion and bush encroachment. Bush encroachment is an ecological regime shift recognized as disruptive to pastoral systems across Africa. Options for adaptation include diversification of livestock portfolios and incorporation of species better adapted to changing environments. A notable case is the adoption of camels by former cattle-pastoralists in dry land areas of the Sahel and East Africa. We examine here the coping mechanisms associated with bush encroachment and reduced mobility in a Laikipia Maasai pastoralist community in north-central Kenya, and discuss the extent to which these coping mechanisms may further cause a regime shift in common pool resource use, affecting the community’s resilience to change. Through semi-structured interviews with camel adopters, we ask if camel adoption is a means to maintain a pastoral SES, or if it may precipitate a shift toward full livelihood privatization and market integration.
Results/Conclusions
Throughout the last 25 years, driven by vegetation change and by a decline of their cattle economy, more and more households adopted camels to procure fresh milk and to earn an income through the sale of milk and bulls. Camel husbandry seems to be an adaptive response to bush encroachment, since camels feed on trees and shrubs, and camel herding allows for a settled life with provision of milk and income. However, camel adoption is not easy or straightforward and is hampered by lack of knowledge and capital to purchase camels. The households least affected by environmental change are those with large herds or economic resources who are able to invest in camels. Moreover, camels are regarded as fully private wealth, in contrast with cattle, which are subjected to Maasai norms of redistribution. Thus camel adoption may further increase the community’s vulnerability through a breakdown of traditional institutions and of cooperation. In this context, an adaptive coping response to an ecological regime shift may contribute to a social shift in the Maasai SES, toward market integration and livelihood privatization. Findings point to the importance of social norms, cooperation, and reciprocal insurance arrangements in regime shifts in social-ecological systems.