Perceptions of smallholder farmers on nature-based income generating activities as potential livelihood and biodiversity conservation strategies in Uluguru Mountains, Tanzania
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Date
2021
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Academic Journals
Abstract
Nature-based Income Generating Activities (NIGAs) can enhance livelihoods of smallholder farmers
and biodiversity conservation in highly degrading ecosystems. These practices are promoted by
various development and conservation partners worldwide to combat land degradation and
biodiversity loss. However, their adoption remains low for reasons not well understood by their
promoters. This can largely be attributed to the failure of the promoters to recognise and
acknowledge the perceptions and priorities of target communities. We use the case of Uluguru
Mountains to investigate the perceptions of farmers regarding the NIGAs that have potential to enhance
both livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. Specifically, we use the Kendall’s Coefficient of
Concordance (W)/Kendall’s tau, the Spearman correlation/Spearman’s (rho), and the Likert scale
methods to identify the highly ranked NIGAs and test the hypotheses that: (a) the smallholder farmers
in the study area did not agree among themselves about the ranking of potential livelihood and
biodiversity-enhancing NIGAs, (b) the promotion of agroforestry has reduced the communities’ reliance
on firewood, building poles and wood from the Uluguru Forest Reserve (UFR). We used the latter as an
indicator of improved biodiversity conservation. We found that agroforestry and beekeeping were the
highly ranked NIGAs and the communities in the study area had moderately reduced their reliance on
timber products from UFR. We conclude that NIGAs can significantly enhance livelihoods and conserve
biodiversity in mountain areas. However, future efforts to promote them should be guided by a
thorough understanding and recognition of the real needs and priorities of target beneficiaries. This is
imperative for winning their support and for designing the right outreach package.
Description
Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics Vol. 13(2), pp. 174-191
Keywords
Uluguru Mountains, Uluguru Forestry Reserve, Kendall‘s coefficient of concordance, Likert scale analysis, Nature-based income generating activities