Population growth has shot up exponentially with improved health facilities and support- meaning higher child motility and longer life expectancies. This has created pressure on the cultivable land to meet food for the growing populations, while similar growth in need for housing as well as grazing land for livestock has checked the projected expansion. Cities have gradually expanded into the peri-urban zones taking up land initially used for cultivation to meet more housing, leisure and social amenities, access roads and industrial estates that have cropped up to provide employment and storage for foodstuffs. Resources like domestic water and energy (oil, gas, electricity, firewood) also demand land for development, processing and storage.
It is unfortunate that the built environment always wins over non-built and conserved land, as development has been the focal point for civilisation. Although the benefits from land conservation are immense, housing has taken precedence. Slums are often stopgap remedies before proper planning and development is commissioned. And there is money to be made instantly in the building sector that offers employment, contractors, goods and services, government revenue, and a decent standard of living.
Some land too, has gone towards containing the increasing amounts of human effluents. Sewerage treatment plants and landfills for the refuse waste have increased in holding capacities with time taking more space. Added to the fact that other service sectors like morgues and cemeteries also have become necessary further places pressure on land.
Case study Kenya: Land use systems and threat on the ecosystems
Land tenure has changed with more and more people owing parcels of land. The balance between livestock raring and agrarian practices has been a delicate one, gradually leading to sedentary cultivations and stall-feeding of a few livestock. Forced into intensive farming year after year, the result has been degraded land that cannot produce enough to feed the growing family as well as reserve some to meet the families' alternative source of income. Against such a backdrop, even those with adequate land cannot make ends meet even before the credit crunch is blamed.
Intensive farming cannot allow for ample time for regeneration, and has caused gradual decline in soil fertility and productivity. Unfortunately, recourse to mineral fertilisers has rapidly increased soil flocculation and reduced the soil organic matter. This is the initial step towards higher carbon footprint- reduced soil carbon sequestration. Low organic matter leads to low soil-water holding capacity and thus nutrient retention/sorption, and crops cannot benefit from applied nutrients.
Floodplains have turned out the most attractive investments, unfortunately threatening habitats with great biodiversity and also the barriers against silting. Many internal watershed bodies have suffered eutrophication from highly enriched rainwater from agricultural lands, causing algal blooms, death of fish and clogging the waterways when used for transportation. The alternative has been the conversion of the marshes into paddies.
The denuded sub-humid and semi-arid ecologically fragile lands have thus become the new frontiers as migration has forced man and beast to seek new homes. As it were, these marginal lands are the barriers against desertification, and their resilience is critical for the stability of the productive land.
The Transition Zones in Kenya
Much of the central parts of Kenya's Northern Frontier covering nearly half of the country (approximately 300K square kilometres) are mainly semi-arid to sub-humid, the ideal zone for checking against desertification when under sustainable management. Large tracts have been left as trust land, being home for wildlife. Private developers with means of supporting wildlife to promote tourism alongside the government's efforts in conservation have also been allocated tracts of the scrubland.
Pastoralism is a way of life for some marginal ethnic communities who keep large herds of hardy animals (camels, donkeys, zebu, goats) as a means of safety in numbers and determinant of wealth and status. Owing to little awareness of the land's carrying capacity, the eventual loss is high when disasters (drought, diseases, banditry) strike. The transhumance lifestyle has also been checked as private developers have fenced off land allocated for conservation and tourism.
Migration to trading centres in search of basic necessities has gradually led to settlements, attracting more businesses. Trading centres have become towns that have exerted pressure on these fragile ecosystems and more encroachment into land not already allocated. Conflicts flare up, first between game and man, and then between man and man. And the cycle is repeated as individuals claim parcels of land that they develop. Over time, marginal lands have become wasteland.
Desertification, although a localised biophysical process, has global severe dimensions and contributes significantly to the global climate change. Recent estimates by the Food and Agricultural Organisation put desertification advancing southwards at an average of three kilometres annually. This not only affects food security but also water availability and use.
Understanding the carbon footprint at crop level might be as important as tackling fuel and energy crises. Therefore, policy shifts are urgently needed to address the issues affecting land stewardship.
