Volume 38, May 2014, Pages 48–69
Institutional factors affecting wild edible plant (WEP) harvest and consumption in semi-arid Kenya
- Under a Creative Commons license
Open Access
Highlights
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- Wild edible plants (WEPs) are harvested in Tharaka, Kenya on public and private land.
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- Despite subsistence value, WEPs are regulated as commodities in Kenyan Forests Act.
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- Confusion, inconsistent implementation of laws makes public area harvest difficult.
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- Lack of commons, community mistrust and boundary issues reduce private farm access.
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- Revision of regulatory policy is recommended, focus extension towards household use.
Abstract
Pervasive
food insecurity and poverty in much of the world drives vulnerable
populations to harvest natural resources as a means of generating income
and meeting other household needs. Wild edible plants (WEPs) are a
particularly common and effective coping strategy used to increase
socio-ecological resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa where agricultural
systems are often sensitive to environmental perturbations and
instability. WEPs are collected across the landscape, from agricultural
areas to government-managed hilltops with varying degrees of success and
legality. This multiple case study research, conducted in Eastern
Province, Kenya, investigates the formal forest regulations and land
tenure rights, as well as local enforcement and understanding of those
rules, in order to understand their impact on the ability of vulnerable
populations to use WEPs as a coping strategy. The results suggest that
widespread confusion, trust issues and a strong focus on the
commercialization of wild foods are limiting the possible contribution
of WEPs to food security and increased socio-ecological resilience. We
identify a number of policy changes and extension programs that could
better support local communities relying on WEPs for subsistence
purposes to improve their adaptive capacity.
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Keywords
- East Africa;
- Tharaka;
- Land tenure;
- Community forest management (CFM);
- Non-timber forest product (NTFP) commercialization;
- Sustainable development
Introduction
Ensuring
adequate human nutrition is a significant challenge facing governments
internationally, despite global efforts to increase agriculture
production, improve food distribution and identify appropriate policy
interventions (FAO, 2012).
This challenge is highly complex, requiring consideration of “food
availability, food accessibility and food choice, which in turn may be
influenced by geography, demography, disposable income, socioeconomic
status, urbanization, globalization, marketing, religion, culture and
consumer attitudes” (Kearney, 2010:2802).
While in the past, increased global food demand could be addressed by
agricultural extensification, this has become less of an option over the
past 50 years—a result of population growth, urban sprawl and demand
for the production of other natural resources (Smith et al., 2010).
Also of concern are the environmental consequences of intensifying and
increasing the land occupied by traditional agricultural production such
as loss of habitat for biodiversity conservation, nutrient runoff,
sedimentation of waterways, pesticide poisoning of humans and non-target
species (Zhang et al., 2007) and increased carbon emissions (Godfray et al., 2010). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (UN, 2005)
found similar trends, concluding that gains in provisioning services,
such as food and timber production, are generally associated with
environmental degradation and loss of other ecosystem services, such as
erosion and water quality controls.
These
and other studies have encouraged scientists to call for resilient food
production systems that can produce a variety of ecosystem services (Bennett and Balvanera, 2007 and Franks, 1999),
combining reduced vulnerability to perturbations, both environmental
and otherwise, and the capacity to respond to broader changes with
renewal and reorganization (Folke et al., 2002). Foley et al. (2005)
suggest a compromise between natural areas and intensive agricultural
regimes could improve social–ecological resilience, while farmers have
been identified as the group with the responsibility (and the
opportunity) to successfully implement resilient systems (Tilman et al., 2002).
These ‘middle-ground’ biomes, often called agro-ecological systems,
must also consider community development objectives by including locals
in decision-making processes, sharing knowledge and building
relationships (King, 2008).
While
non-timber forest products (NTFPs) have been promoted as one way to
balance production and provisioning ecosystem services (Neumann, 2000), recent meta-analysis suggests that this may be more complicated than originally expected. Kusters et al. (2006)
compiled 55 cases and found that positive livelihood changes, such as
increased income and household nutritional status, were associated with
lower environmental outcomes such as lower species diversity and
abundance or increased soil erosion. This finding has been repeated in
other studies, (e.g., Ros-Tonen and Wiersum, 2005),
but should be interpreted with caution. While commercial applications
and export-level extraction of NTFPs may not be a viable method of
integrating conservation and development objectives, the possibility of
balancing ecosystem services while supporting food production and
community needs remains an important area for development interventions.
Less-intensive combined systems have been shown to have a positive
impact on the socio-economic conditions of local populations, while
avoiding serious negative impacts on biodiversity conservation
objectives (Belcher et al., 2005).
Subsistence-level NTFP harvest is the predominate condition worldwide,
yet has often been excluded from ecosystem service assessments and
economic valuation of forests (Delang, 2006a and Delang, 2006b). Of the NTFPs used at the household level, wild edible plants (WEPs)1 are some of the most frequently gathered (Tewari, 2000),
representing a major provisioning service of the local agro-ecological
system that does not critically undermine other supporting and
regulating services since collection is often low volume and intended
for use directly by the household (Van Jaarsveld et al., 2005).
