Exploring the Nexus between Pastoral Food Security and Carbon Sequestration in Kenyan Rangelands.

Abstract:

Eastern African nations are predicted to continue experiencing large impacts from climate change. Climate change medaited increases in the frequency and duration of droughts are driving high incidences of food insecurity and privation among pastoral communities in the region. Nations in this region are signatories to the Paris Climate Accord and have also adopted the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The SDG’s include 17 cross-sector goals such as reducing hunger (SDG 2) and improving biodiversity conservation (SDG 15). Within developing nations, climate change mitigation and adaptation goals exhibit strong synergies with multiple SDGs. Consequently, devising pathways towards achieving SDG’s requires a careful consideration of synergies and tradeoffs with goals specific to climate action as well. For example, among pastoral communities in Kenya, adoption of agropastoralism and increased sedentarization is catalyzing the transition of cattle dominated livestock herds, to those dominated by sheep, goats and camels. Herbivory is a strong modulator of carbon sequestration within rangelands, and livestock constitute a large fraction of herbivores in Kenya. It is unclear what these large-scale transitions in livestock composition will mean for carbon sequestration capacities of rangelands, a significant carbon sink, in Kenya. We have developed a coupled socio-ecological systems model to explore some of these synergies. The model is composed of SPIRALL, a region-scale agent-based model that simulates pastoral household decisions, and L-Range, a region-scale model that simulates ecosystem functioning within rangelands. On a monthly time-step the coupled model produces estimates of pastoral food insecurity and the dynamics of primary production within rangelands. We will deploy our model to explore scenarios of land use change within rangelands in Kenya and study the consequent impacts on pastoral food security and carbon sequestration. We will place our findings in the context of policy decisions that the Kenyan government is contending with as they work towards achieving their Sustainable Development Goals.