Land use, rural livelihoods and associated environmental threats

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows the general distribution of human settlements with contrasting patterns for people living on the valley floor (red areas) versus those living on the plateau (cream colored areas) of the Luangwa Valley ecosystem. Settlements on the valley floor are mostly restricted to alluvial soils along the major tributaries of the Luangwa River. Elsewhere, soils are generally heavy clay and not easily tilled, leaving large land areas free of human occupation. In contrast, soils on the plateau are more sandy loam and thus more easily tilled. This has given rise to a quilt-like patchwork of farm plots that severely fragment the watershed landscape. Consistent with these different patterns of human activities are differences in the nature of human activities, as well.

Household income surveys conducted in 2001 for valley floor areas and 2003 for plateau catchment areas showed striking differences in the strategies households adopted for earning income. Valley floor areas supported a much more diverse set of income sources than the plateau (Figure 3). Examination of income contribution from the various sources showed that outgrower scheme crops, particularly cotton, far exceeded the relative importance of other income sources for plateau communities and that outgrower scheme crops have literally overtaken all other types of employment as the primary source of income (93.01% of all income of plateau survey respondents was generated by outgrower agriculture; data not shown). This overwhelming reliance on outgrower agriculture introduces several risks that are relatively new for the region. First, dependence on any one market leaves an area economically vulnerable as it is subject to normal market variations. Second, the reduction in planting of food crops reduces a family?s ability to address their personal food security needs through consumption of their own produce. Third, the depletion of soil by the farming of any monoculture crop in the absence of soil amendments imparts a need to farm fresh soil?leading to increases in deforestation. An analysis of canopy change from 1989 to 2002 in the plateau area shows a 21.6% loss in woodland cover whereas the valley areas showed a 9.4 % loss in woodland cover over the same period (data not shown). Finally, this deforestation not only reduces economic options based on natural resources, but it also leads to soil erosion and water runoff that can influence downstream activities in the valley.

From a random sample of 1059 households interviewed in 2001 (representing approximately 7.1% of the total number of households in the core area), 98.5% of households grew maize as the primary food crop. Random selection was based on random numbers associated with household listings provided by area headmen from the different communities sampled. Only 3.4% of these households used fertilizer, and mean maize yield for these farmers was more than three times the yield for farmers who did not use fertilizer. This finding highlighted the importance of soil quality as contributing to variations in crop yield between farmers; yet, the expense of chemical fertilizer prevents the vast majority of families from utilizing this strategy. Unfortunately, the local annual practice of burning crop residues, which exposes soils to wind and rain erosion, serves to hasten soil depletion. As human numbers increase and available farmland becomes more limited in the valley areas, household response to diminishing returns from farming land that might be over-farmed or too marginal to sustain adequate yields will likely rely increasingly on consumptive use of natural resources.

From the total sample of households surveyed, food security was calculated on the basis of family size, average consumption rates (WFP estimates), and total maize production for both 2000 and 2001. Results indicated that 77.3% and 48.9% of the sampled households for each year, respectively, were food secure up to the ninth month after harvest, when fresh harvest is normally sufficient to meet households food security needs. Various factors contributed to food shortages based on perceived reasons expressed by the respondents of this survey. 74.9% identified animals (including birds) as being a source of crop loss in 2000, while 13.2% complained about effects from flooding. For the 2001 crop, 58.5% of the households viewed flooding and the effects of too much rain as being the biggest source of crop damage.

One important way households compensated for insufficient food production was the illegal harvesting of wildlife. Poaching with wire snares was typically performed not for consumption, but rather to exchange meat for starch-based foods. In 2000, a survey of 486 households selected randomly from Game Management Areas in the valley was conducted to reveal the extent of this problem. Respondents revealed that over 40% of families used wire snaring as a mechanism to cope with food insecurity. Data describing the nature and full extent of the threat posed by this practice, as well as the threat posed by ?professional poachers? (mostly using guns), are described in more detail below, along with current data allowing one to assess the preliminary effects of COMACO.

In summary, households living on the valley floor experience frequent food security risks in a landscape that offers limited access to arable land. This has driven many households to adopt coping strategies that rely increasingly on natural resources, especially wildlife. Limited access to well-paying markets has contributed to low personal incomes, further helping fuel the need to rely on unsustainable rates of natural resource extraction to maximize available income. Households living on the plateau rely on a smaller set of income choices with greater household dependency on outgrower crops, such as cotton and tobacco. Continued monitoring with analysis of these results presented in this paper provide a measure of impact outgrower schemes have had on valley floor farming practices since 2001.

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