Abstract:
Climate is changing and that the changes are largely due to increased levels of
carbon emissions into the atmosphere caused by changes of land uses as a result
of anthropogenic activities. Considering the impacts of climate change insisted the
need for new conservation areas to fill connectivity gap between protected areas
(PAs) or transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) through habitat corridors so as to
enable species migration with their climatic niche. The study aimed at examining the
consequences of climate change and variability in managing TFCAs using Selous
Niassa TFCA as a case study. Specifically, the study intended to; examine access to land
and land tenure, socio-economic activities resulted from climate change and variability,
and property damage and human life caused by wild animals in the study area. Data
were collected using questionnaire survey, key informants interviews, focus group
discussions, direct observation and secondary materials. Collected data were contently
and statistically analysed. Results shows that 86.7% of respondents claimed that land
allocated for settlement, agriculture and livestock keeping is not enough as result of
human-wildlife conflict. However, shifting cultivation; encroachment for fuelwood,
logging, and mining; settlements in migratory routes; and wildfires are some of socio
economic activities resulted from climate change and variability. The encroaching
activities are accelerated by socio-economic factors which are positively statistically
significant includes sex (b=0.153, p<0.05), years spent in a village (b=0.161, p<0.05),
and size of land owned (b=0.484, p<0.05). Furthermore, compensations from property
damage and human life caused by wild animals are realistically immensurable. The
study concludes that, the management of the study area is unsustainable and the need
for inclusion of the area into connected PAs ecosystem of the Selous-Niassa TFCA or
formulation of sustainable participatory management strategies of the area.
