Haule, Sylvester Charles2025-02-182025-02-182011https://www.suaire.sua.ac.tz/handle/123456789/6561DissertationThis study was conducted to investigate the emerging adaptive livelihood strategies in response to climate variability and land degradation in South Uluguru Mountains’ communities. Specifically, the study sought to gauge perception of farmers on climate variability and land degradation, identify farmers’ adaptive livelihood strategies and assess the environmental sustainability of the identified adaptive livelihood strategies. Study villages were stratified into highland, midland and lowland zones with respect to their elevations before randomly selecting three sample villages, one from each zone. Quantitative data were collected from 90 smallholder farmers, 30 from each of the three villages. Qualitative data were collected from three Focus Group Discussions, one from each sample village. Field observation and key informant interviews supplemented survey and data from the Focus Group Discussions. The study found that farmers of the South Uluguru Mountains area are aware of the climate and land degradation issues and attribute to over 50% of the problems hindering agricultural production in the area. The communities are impacted more seriously with frequent occurring droughts, landslides, strong winds, soil erosion, decreased soil fertility, wildfires and to a lesser extent, floods on the lowland fields due to riverbank erosion. The communities have been found to own and/or have access to various resources, more important the natural resources such as springs and rivers/streams that flow all the year round. These resources are important in implementing necessary adaptive strategies. While highland and midland farmers grow and store cassava in the field to use at prolonged droughts, lowland communities grow millet which resists droughts. Maintaining farms in both midland and lowland areas have been found to be an important strategy for ensuring food security. It has been recommended in this study that traditional values of natural resource protection be backed by community empowerment to improve sustainability of livelihoods in terms of natural resource use. The study also recommends improving the traditional water conveying technology and its use on small scale irrigation to reduce communities’ dependency on the disrupted short rains.enClimate variabilityLand degradationClimate changeUluguru mountainsThesis