Abstract: Shinyanga region has over 2.25 million people, an average growth rate of 2.8% p.a. (1990s), and covers 50,000 sq.km with a population density of 42 people per km2. The high population density, combined with the people's agro-pastoral land use system which depends on livestock, and subsistence and cash cropping, exacerbate already serious problems of land clearing both prior to, and after 1986.
This case study attempts to retrofit a resilience framwork to the Shinyanga restoration from the causes of resilience loss, recognition of the problems, to addressing them and creating resilience. It shows the importance of:
a) The adaptive capacities of the Sukuma people and their institutions
b) The importance of restoring diverse ecosystems and their services
In the 1980s and 1990s resilience as a concept might have been used in research, but little of this found its way to the development discourse. Resilience has come to the fore in the climate change debate. This study is based on the premise that it is possible to retrofit and learn from a resilience framework and analysis on such a long term restoration effort.
Author: Edmund Barrow
