Knowledge and perception of users on ecosystem services in Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania and Taita hills, Kenya

Abstract

The capacity of ecosystems of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Taita Hills in Kenya to continue providing vital ecosystem services is dwindling over time, mainly due to over-exploitative uses of ecosystem services and climate change. Many of the efforts to identify effective approaches for sustainable management of the ecosystem in these areas have not explicitly embraced stakeholders’ perceptions. This paper offers a comprehensive review of users’ knowledge and perception of climate change and Ecosystem services in Mount Kilimanjaro and Taita Hills. The intent is to profile users’ knowledge and perception to pin-point leverage points for future awareness creation and community mobilization strategies to hedge against negative impacts of climate change. Data were collected through interviews from 352 respondents who were randomly selected from three distinct altitude zones (low, middle and high) of Mount Kilimanjaro and Taita Hills. Descriptive statistics for socio-economic and demographic variables as well as measures of users’ perception of the ecosystems and climate related challenges were computed. None parametric statistics (Kruskal-Wallis H statistic, Mann-Whitney U test and Kendall-tau test) were performed to test whether some of the variables were correlated. Results show that users of ecosystems of Mount Kilimanjaro and Taita Hills are aware the ecosystems values to humans and the need to conserve these ecosystems in order to sustain the benefits and flow of ecosystem goods and services. However, there are marked spatial and demographic differences in their perception of ecosystems, which can potentially alter the value they attached to different ecosystem services and the spatial significance of climate change. In view of these differences there is a need to devise an effective communication strategy, which can address the users’ knowledge gap with respect to indicators in relation to the severity of climate change, and inform policy about the extent to which users of ecosystems at different altitudinal gradients can collaborate to overcome climate related challenges.