Factors Influencing Indigenous Knowledge of Rangeland Management Practices in Borana Pastoral Areas, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

In most pastoral areas of Ethiopia, rangelands have traditionally been managed by customary institutions, especially in Borana but with the start of various pressures, this management system is increasingly undermined and the interventions ended up with little success story but more of in favor of environmental degradations. Looking into indigenous rangeland management practices of pastoral community is a useful way to develop sustainable rangeland productivity. Rangeland plays an essential role in the livelihood activities of Ethiopian pastoralists as well as Ethiopian economy. Numerous researches have been done on rangeland management practices, but little study has been done with respect to the determinants of indigenous rangeland management in specific social, economic and ecological context. In this case, the aim of the study was to assess the determinants of the indigenous rangeland management practices of pastoral communities and assess perception of pastoral households towards the attributing causes of rangeland degradation in Borana. The study employed descriptive and inferential statistical methods to analyze the data. The findings indicate that the indigenous practice accurately reflects the productivity of the rangeland since the Borana area is unpredictable environment and victim for severe drought every year. The results of binary logit regression showed that a unit increase in age of the household head, the odds ratio in favor of practicing in traditional rangelands management increase by 1.096. Holding other variables constant, a unit increase in cultivated farm size would decrease the odds ratio in favor of practicing traditional management by a factor of 0.618. In Borana area, grazing land and water resources are jointly handled. Hence, privately owned grazing land and water points disturb patterns of mobility in a way grazing land use becomes inefficient as grazing concentrates close to the water points, leading to degradation of the rangelands. Access to communal water point was also found to be significant influence on respondents’ traditional rangeland management practice at 10% significance level (p < 0.1). On the other hand, the result of odd-ratio indicates that, access to communal water point will increase the probability of rangeland management practice by 0.22 percent. The study recommends bases for ecologically sound and culturally appropriate indigenous rangeland management practices.