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Katherine Homewood

Bio: Katherine Homewood is an academic researcher from University College London. The author has contributed to research in topics: Maasai & Pastoralism. The author has an hindex of 28, co-authored 69 publications receiving 6065 citations. Previous affiliations of Katherine Homewood include International Livestock Research Institute.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors track some of the major myths on driving forces of land cover change and propose alternative pathways of change that are better supported by case study evidence, concluding that neither population nor poverty alone constitute the sole and major underlying causes of land-cover change worldwide.
Abstract: Common understanding of the causes of land-use and land-cover change is dominated by simplifications which, in turn, underlie many environment-development policies. This article tracks some of the major myths on driving forces of land-cover change and proposes alternative pathways of change that are better supported by case study evidence. Cases reviewed support the conclusion that neither population nor poverty alone constitute the sole and major underlying causes of land-cover change worldwide. Rather, peoples’ responses to economic opportunities, as mediated by institutional factors, drive land-cover changes. Opportunities and

3,330 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the relationship between poverty and the use of wild foods, namely bushmeat, fish and wild plants, within a Congolese agricultural community and found that wild foods play a small role in household consumption but a major role in households' income.

303 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Differences in private versus state/communal land tenure, agricultural policy, and market conditions suggest, and spatial correlations confirm, that the major changes in land cover and dominant grazer species numbers are driven primarily by private landowners responding to market opportunities for mechanized agriculture, less by agropastoral population growth, cattle numbers, or small-holder land use.
Abstract: Declines in habitat and wildlife in semiarid African savannas are widely reported and commonly attributed to agropastoral population growth, livestock impacts, and subsistence cultivation. However, extreme annual and shorter-term variability of rainfall, primary production, vegetation, and populations of grazers make directional trends and causal chains hard to establish in these ecosystems. Here two decades of changes in land cover and wildebeest in the Serengeti-Mara region of East Africa are analyzed in terms of potential drivers (rainfall, human and livestock population growth, socio-economic trends, land tenure, agricultural policies, and markets). The natural experiment research design controls for confounding variables, and our conceptual model and statistical approach integrate natural and social sciences data. The Kenyan part of the ecosystem shows rapid land-cover change and drastic decline for a wide range of wildlife species, but these changes are absent on the Tanzanian side. Temporal climate trends, human population density and growth rates, uptake of small-holder agriculture, and livestock population trends do not differ between the Kenyan and Tanzanian parts of the ecosystem and cannot account for observed changes. Differences in private versus state/communal land tenure, agricultural policy, and market conditions suggest, and spatial correlations confirm, that the major changes in land cover and dominant grazer species numbers are driven primarily by private landowners responding to market opportunities for mechanized agriculture, less by agropastoral population growth, cattle numbers, or small-holder land use.

272 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse the way returns from different land uses, and the social structures affecting their distribution, influence the land-use choices being made by Maasai around the Mara National Reserve in Kenya.
Abstract: Maasai pastoralists in Kenya are rapidly diversifying. Maasai may now derive their main livelihoods (and sometimes considerable income) from farming, wildlife tourism, and/or the leasing of land for large-scale cereal cultivation. The spread of large-scale commercial cultivation competes with wildlife for grazing land, and wildlife populations around protected areas are rapidly declining as a result. This paper presents new data to analyse the way returns from different land uses, and the social structures affecting their distribution, influence the land-use choices being made by Maasai around the Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Returns to different interest groups from livestock, cultivation, and wildlife enterprises, seen in the light of current social, economic, and political trajectories, can help to clarify likely future land-use trends in the Mara. In particular, community conservation initiatives that seek to make conservation worthwhile to reserve-adjacent dwellers inevitably have a strong economic dimension. However, the choices made by Maasai landowners are not a simple function of the economic returns potentially accruing from a particular enterprise. They are as much or more influenced by who is able to control the different flows of returns from these different types of enterprise. These findings are relevant not only for the wider Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem, but also for pastoral livelihoods and wildlife conservation elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.

188 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a review contrasts structured questionnaire-based surveys with qualitative approaches to collecting social data, and clarifies contexts in which particular qualitative methods might be more effective when investigating human behaviour in conservation research.
Abstract: Conservation researchers are aware of the need to work with social sciences to manage human–wildlife interactions for better conservation outcomes, but extending natural science research approaches to a social science domain can compromise data quality and validity. As part of the interdisciplinary exchange between the natural and social sciences, this review contrasts structured questionnaire-based surveys with qualitative approaches to collecting social data, and clarifies contexts in which particular qualitative methods might be more effective when investigating human behaviour in conservation research. Although well-designed questionnaire-based surveys may be useful for population-level generalizations, complementary use of qualitative approaches can significantly enhance understanding of research context, underpinning formulation of representative sampling frames and pertinent research questions, and permitting greater accuracy in interpretation and analysis of data. Good qualitative data are necessary to an accurate understanding of categories, processes, relationships and perceptions, particularly critical in a cross-cultural context, significantly strengthening the internal validity of subsequent structured work. Furthermore, stand-alone qualitative research can also constitute a valuable and valid approach to matters critical to conservation research and to designing successful conservation initiatives, which cannot be effectively researched in any other way.

173 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the social dimension that enables adaptive ecosystem-based management, focusing on experiences of adaptive governance of social-ecological systems during periods of abrupt change and investigates social sources of renewal and reorganization.
Abstract: ▪ Abstract We explore the social dimension that enables adaptive ecosystem-based management. The review concentrates on experiences of adaptive governance of social-ecological systems during periods of abrupt change (crisis) and investigates social sources of renewal and reorganization. Such governance connects individuals, organizations, agencies, and institutions at multiple organizational levels. Key persons provide leadership, trust, vision, meaning, and they help transform management organizations toward a learning environment. Adaptive governance systems often self-organize as social networks with teams and actor groups that draw on various knowledge systems and experiences for the development of a common understanding and policies. The emergence of “bridging organizations” seem to lower the costs of collaboration and conflict resolution, and enabling legislation and governmental policies can support self-organization while framing creativity for adaptive comanagement efforts. A resilient social-eco...

4,495 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The concept of resilience—the capacity to buffer change, learn and develop—is used as a framework for understanding how to sustain and enhance adaptive capacity in a complex world of rapid transformations.
Abstract: Emerging recognition of two fundamental errors under-pinning past polices for natural resource issues heralds awareness of the need for a worldwide fundamental change in thinking and in practice of environmental management. The first error has been an implicit assumption that ecosystem responses to human use are linear, predictable and controllable. The second has been an assumption that human and natural systems can be treated independently. However, evidence that has been accumulating in diverse regions all over the world suggests that natural and social systems behave in nonlinear ways, exhibit marked thresholds in their dynamics, and that social-ecological systems act as strongly coupled, complex and evolving integrated systems. This article is a summary of a report prepared on behalf of the Environmental Advisory Council to the Swedish Government, as input to the process of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa in 26 August 4 September 2002. We use the concept of resilience—the capacity to buffer change, learn and develop—as a framework for understanding how to sustain and enhance adaptive capacity in a complex world of rapid transformations. Two useful tools for resilience-building in social-ecological systems are structured scenarios and active adaptive management. These tools require and facilitate a social context with flexible and open institutions and multi-level governance systems that allow for learning and increase adaptive capacity without foreclosing future development options.

2,905 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
28 Nov 2003
TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight the complexity of land-use/cover change and propose a framework for a more general understanding of the issue, with emphasis on tropical regions, and argue that a systematic analysis of local-scale land use change studies, conducted over a range of timescales, helps to uncover general principles that provide an explanation and prediction of new land use changes.
Abstract: We highlight the complexity of land-use/cover change and propose a framework for a more general understanding of the issue, with emphasis on tropical regions. The review summarizes recent estimates on changes in cropland, agricultural intensification, tropical deforestation, pasture expansion, and urbanization and identifies the still unmeasured land-cover changes. Climate-driven land-cover modifications interact with land-use changes. Land-use change is driven by synergetic factor combinations of resource scarcity leading to an increase in the pressure of production on resources, changing opportunities created by markets, outside policy intervention, loss of adaptive capacity, and changes in social organization and attitudes. The changes in ecosystem goods and services that result from land-use change feed back on the drivers of land-use change. A restricted set of dominant pathways of land-use change is identified. Land-use change can be understood using the concepts of complex adaptive systems and transitions. Integrated, place-based research on land-use/land-cover change requires a combination of the agent-based systems and narrative perspectives of understanding. We argue in this paper that a systematic analysis of local-scale land-use change studies, conducted over a range of timescales, helps to uncover general principles that provide an explanation and prediction of new land-use changes.

2,491 citations

Book
24 Nov 2003
TL;DR: The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) as discussed by the authors is a conceptual framework for analysis and decision-making of ecosystems and human well-being that was developed through interactions among the experts involved in the MA as well as stakeholders who will use its findings.
Abstract: This first report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment describes the conceptual framework that is being used in the MA. It is not a formal assessment of the literature, but rather a scientifically informed presentation of the choices made by the assessment team in structuring the analysis and framing the issues. The conceptual framework elaborated in this report describes the approach and assumptions that will underlie the analysis conducted in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The framework was developed through interactions among the experts involved in the MA as well as stakeholders who will use its findings. It represents one means of examining the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being that is both scientifically credible and relevant to decision-makers. This framework for analysis and decision-making should be of use to a wide array of individuals and institutions in government, the private sector, and civil society that seek to incorporate considerations of ecosystem services in their assessments, plans, and actions.

2,427 citations