Kenya's Pastoralists Want Land Security, But Climate Fears Don't Drive the Deal
A new study reveals a fundamental disconnect in Kenya's pastoral regions: herders strongly desire formal land ownership to reduce uncertainty, yet worry about climate change fails to motivate them to purchase insurance or accept tenure changes. The finding suggests that traditional development interventions may miss what actually drives pastoral decision-making.
Originaltitel: Unravelling the pastoralist paradox – preferences for land tenure security and flexibility in Kenya
<p>In this paper, we use a discrete choice experiment conducted among pastoralists in four different semi-arid counties in Kenya characterized by different land tenure regimes to analyze how pastoralists make tradeoffs between tenure security and grazing flexibility – the so-called pastoralist paradox. Results show that there is one group of respondents who are desperate for change and seem to prefer either group or private title deeds to their current situation. A second, smaller group has strong preferences for the status quo, which could be driven by their relatively short migration distances. Concerning index-based livestock insurance, the basis risk suffered by insured pastoralists due to underprediction is high, but willingness to pay (WTP) for livestock insurance should still be high enough to ensure maximum uptake, leaving current low uptakes hard to explain. The worry about climate change is high but does not translate into increased WTP for more secure tenure or formal livestock insurance.</p>