Relationships between the local environment, household resource use and human well-being in the...
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Transcript of Relationships between the local environment, household resource use and human well-being in the...
Relationships between the local environment, household resource use and human well-being in the
Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance site, South Africa
Dr Wayne TwineSchool of Animal, Plant & Environmental Sciences
University of the Witwatersrand
South Africa
Context
• Former Apartheid “homeland”• Resettlement villages• Communal land tenure on state land• 170-300 people/km2• Traditional authorities & local govt • Poor infrastructure• High levels of unemployment & poverty• High levels of migrant labour• High reliance on local natural resources
Wits Rural Facility
• Multi-disciplinary rural campus of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits)
• Used by a range of university departments and units as a base for research, student training & civic engagement in nearby rural areas
• Facilities: staff accommodation, visitor accommodation, offices, lecture rooms, wireless internet etc.
• 350 ha savanna estate.
Research based at WRF
• Agincourt Health and Population Unit (School of Public Health): – Health, population and socio-economic trends and
transitions in a rural population
– Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System (AHDSS)
– Annual census in 24 villages (84 000 people in 14 000 households) since 1992
– Census modules (e.g. assets; food security)
– Once-off samples
– Intervention studies (e.g. HIV; stroke; nutrition)
– Member of INDEPTH network
• Sustaining Natural Resources in African Ecosystems - SUNRAE (School of Animal, Plant & Environmental Sciences):
– Natural resource use and rural livelihoods
– Community based natural resource management
– Resource ecology of heavily impacted savannas
– Post-graduate students
Some insights from collaboration between AHDSS and SUNRAE
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Wild vegetables Wild fruit Insects Fuelwood
% o
f h
ou
se
ho
lds
HIV mortality
Non-HIV mortality
No mortality
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
b
bb
b
Use of natural resources specifically to save money
Resource use Worried about
food Ran out of food
Worried, ran out AND went hungry
Mortality impacted on amount of food
Use insects - 0.35 0.42 -
Use fuelwood 2.53 2.58 4.03 -
Use resources to save money
2.47 - - 3.39
Rely more on wild veg. after mortality
- - 5.45 -
Bivariate associations household experience of hunger and use of natural resources. Values are odds ratios (p<0.05).
SUCSES projectSustainability in Communal Socio-
Ecological Systems (SUCSES)
• Longitudinal study of household livelihoods & the environment nested in the AHDSS
• AIM: to investigate dynamic relationships between household livelihoods, environment and human-wellbeing in a rural socio-ecological system undergoing rapid change
• Panel study: 600 households randomly sampled from across 9 villages in the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System (AHDSS) site
• Detailed household livelihoods questionnaire (annual, starting in 2010)
• 56 Permanent vegetation monitoring plots (annual, starting 2011) and climatic data (rainfall, temperature) (continuous, starting 2010)
Data• 2010 baseline household livelihoods data
• Natural resource use: use (including livestock), frequency of use, buying & selling
• Household characteristics: size, sex ratio, dependency ratio, income, assets, shocks
• Village resource availability: area of commons, mean NDVI in 1 km buffer, overlap with other villages in 1 km buffer
• Human well-being: Food security
Frequency distribution of number of local natural resources used by households (excl. livestock forage)
Household drivers of resource useHousehold uses the resource (coefficient = log-odds, (^<0.10, *<0.05, **<0.01, ***<0.001)
Independent variable Own cattle Own goats Firewood Wild fruit Wild veges Edible insects Med plant
Permanent residents 0.028 0.106*** 0.235** 0.058* 0.278** -0.004** 0.074**
Total asstes 0.384*** 0.106 -0.312** -0.093* -0.140 -0.017 0.074
Total shocks -0.062 -0.086 -0.164 -0.027 -0.414 0.310^ 0.172
Model p value <0.001 <0.01 <0.001 <0.05 <0.01 <0.01 <0.01
Food security and resource use
• Households experiencing crop failure in last 12 months: 31.2%
• Households experiencing food shortage in the last 12 months: 48.6%
• Number of coping strategies in last 7 days (% of households):
0 - 66.38%
1 - 10.92%
2 - 9.36%
3 - 7.11%
4 - 6.24 %
Conclusion• Dependence on local natural resources
continues to be pervasive in rural communities despite severe degradation in some areas
• Driven by poverty and lack of other resources to cope with shocks and stresses
• Food insecurity is widespread
• Importance of resources for cost-savings & household resilience
• Use of local natural resources = important buffer against hardship BUT not generally a pathway out of poverty and food insecurity
The way forward
• Linking resource use with health and child nutrition
• Temporal trends (household experience of shocks, changing rainfall, environmental degradation, changing food prices etc)
• Profiles of vulnerable households