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Integrating Climate Change Risk into Community-Level Livestock and Water Management in the Northwestern Lowlands
Summary:
Evidence of climate change, including drought variability is well documented in the country’s National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA, 2007) and Initial National Communication (INC, 2001). Occurrence of dry spells and seasonal and multi-year droughts are more frequent, and increasingly severe. Eritrea’s INC highlights projections of up to a 4.1 o C temperature rise by approximately 2050. Rainfall projections indicate reductions in lowland regions and a decrease in basin runoff by, on average, 29.5% in an adjacent basin area. Resultant impacts on water resources and agriculture will adversely affect food security.
Eritrea’s NAPA identified that the livestock production system and related livelihood opportunities of pastoralists are highly vulnerable to long-term climate change, including variability, especially in north-western Eritrea. Recent records showed that frequent droughts and strong inter-annual precipitation variability between 1992 and 2004 have contributed towards the annual deaths of thousands of livestock, especially cattle and camels in Kerkebet. Aside from overall grazing shortages during such droughts, thermal stress through higher temperatures has been observed in livestock, increasingly exceeding thresholds that animals can tolerate. This has led to a change of grazing patterns, including the shortening of grazing hours, resulting in decreased feed intake. This interferes with animal productive and reproductive functions, and will be worsened under anticipated climate change scenarios for the region. With crop cultivation and animal husbandry accounting for 60 percent of rural incomes, and people in Eritrea’s north-western lowland areas depending almost exclusively on livestock production, the expected climatic changes will have serious repercussions on rural poverty and well-being.
Adaptation Experience:
The adaptive capacity of local pastoralists and community members will be enhanced by piloting irrigation technologies and management practices that support climate change resilient dry-season crop production, and integrating climate risks into rangeland management systems in Kerkebet. Further an overall enabling policy and planning framework for up-scaling of CCA will be set at the Anseba Zoba-level, and effective CCA-related knowledge management to support and inform policy and rangeland related decision-making processes will be set up. Partners involved in the implementation of this project include the Anseba Zoba Administration (in lead), along with local communities in Kerkebet Kebabi, and Zoba and central government. The Keren-based Agricultural College will provide technical support.
The expected local adaptation benefits include that the population of eight villages representing more than 1,800 households living in the arid western lowlands of Eritrea will have secure livelihoods to resist the impacts of climate change, whilst also expanding their livelihood options and skills into less climate sensitive sectors. Measurable adaptation benefits will primarily be in terms of the number of pastoralists practicing climate resilient livestock and water management practices. This will contribute towards the reduction of the proportion of populations classified as vulnerable to climate change impacts on food production. Sustainable and climate sensitive range and natural resources models are tested and can be replicated. Other villages will have been exposed to the demonstration project, and overall discussions on climate change risk and adaptation options will have been induced throughout Kerkebet sub-Zoba and Anseba Zoba, benefiting some 50,000 pastoralists living in the north-western low lands of Eritrea.
Results and Learning:
The project will also be useful in contribution to adaptation learning and potentially promoting replicability not only in Eritrea (e.g. an additional 50,000 people live in the eastern lowlands), but the entire dry land of East Africa where extensive pastoralist livestock production is practiced. The project will contribute to the GEF portfolio on adaptation through UNDP-GEF’s Adaptation Learning Mechanism (ALM).
Sustainability:
The expected local adaptation benefits include that the population of eight villages representing more than 1,800 households living in the arid western lowlands of Eritrea will have secure livelihoods to resist the impacts of climate change, whilst also expanding their livelihood options and skills into less climate sensitive sectors.
Replication:
Great attention has been paid in the project design to ensure that the intervention generates experiential learning to contribute to national dialogue on the replicability of this intervention as an adaptation measure. Information on the cost-effectiveness of the intervention over time will be generated, together with an analysis of supporting government policy needed.
