Drought is a recurring challenge to the livelihoods of those living in Tharaka District, Kenya, situated in the semi-arid zone to the east of Mount Kenya, from the lowest slopes of the mountain to the banks of the Tana River. This part of Kenya has been marginal to the economic and political life of Kenya from the colonial period until the present day. A study of more than 30 years of change in...

Modeling has emerged as a key technology in analysis of social–ecological systems. However, the tendency for modeling to focus on the mechanistic materiality of biophysical systems obscures the diversity of performative social behaviors and normative cultural positions of actors within the modeled system. The fact that changes in the biophysical system can be culturally constructed in different...

Despite becoming one of China’s fastest expanding and most valuable forest land uses, bamboo’s role in livelihoods and rural development is poorly understood. Detailed quantitative data from 240 households were used to study the contribution of bamboo to household income and rural livelihoods in 12 remote and mountainous villages in southern China. Bamboo was a ubiquitous and highly utilised re...

Current debate on Cannabis sativa in South Africa has centred on its positive and negative effects on health, as well as its decriminalisation. The contribution of cannabis (dagga) to the livelihoods of people who inhabit some of the poorest parts of the country has thus far been largely ignored. Using a case study of a village in Pondoland, this article argues that while cannabis makes a signi...

This paper reviews the nexus between poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa using a sustainable livelihood framework. Much of the literature on HIV and AIDS has generated an almost universal consensus that the AIDS epidemic is having an immense impact on the economies of hard-hit countries, hurting not only individuals, families and firms, but also significantly slowing economic growth and worsening po...

Fish living around the coral reefs in the Philippines provide livelihoods for more than a million local fishers and are an important source of protein for coastal communities. However, this rich resource is at risk from myriad threats, which consequently threaten human livelihoods, nutrition, and health. In this paper, we examine the degree to which marine protected areas (MPAs), which aim to c...

Introduction The more we learn about the interaction between HIV/AIDS and livelihoods, the more complex the picture seems to become. Although we must avoid paralysis in the face of such complexity, we must also be humble about our perceptions. We must look closely at the local context and the diverse external factors in addition to HIV and AIDS that constrain households and livelihoods at any g...

We present amethodological approach for constructing an agent-basedmodel (ABM) to assess community food security and variation among livelihood trajectories, using rural Malawi as a case study. The approach integrates both quantitative and qualitative data to explore how interactions between households and the environment lead to the emergence of community food availability, access, utilisation...

Conflict among herders in East Africa is a common occurrence. It affects millions of people in many ways by extinguishing their livelihoods and forcing many others to change. This paper is focused on the East Pokot pastoralists’ adjustment to conflict. The paper first presents the East Pokot as a people, their history, brief interaction with the central government, and their geographical region...

A substantial portion of the world's people have not made adequate progress toward overcoming hunger or achieving sustainable livelihoods. The classic approach to addressing chronic food insecurity has been a strategy of agricultural development, supplemented by humanitarian assistance in the event of a shock or crisis--an approach predicated on assumptions that do not fit the context of protra...