Livelihood Diversification and Residents' Welfare: Evidence from Maasai Mara National Reserve

Qi Sun; Chao Fu; Yunli Bai; Ayub M O Oduor; Baodong Cheng

doi:10.3390/ijerph20053859

Livelihood Diversification and Residents' Welfare: Evidence from Maasai Mara National Reserve

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Feb 21;20(5):3859. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20053859.

Authors

Qi Sun¹, Chao Fu^{2

3}, Yunli Bai^{2

3}, Ayub M O Oduor⁴, Baodong Cheng¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Economics and Management, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.
² Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
³ United Nations Environment Programme-International Ecosystem Management Partnership (UNEP-IEMP), Beijing 100101, China.
⁴ Department of Applied Biology, Technical University of Kenya, Nairobi P.O. Box 52428-00200, Kenya.

Abstract

The contradiction between environmental protection and livelihood development is becoming increasingly serious for most protected areas in developing countries. Livelihood diversification is an efficient way to increase household income to alleviate poverty related to environmental protection. However, its impacts on household welfare in protected areas have rarely been quantitatively explored. This article investigates the determinants of four livelihood strategies in the Maasai Mara National Reserve and explores the association between livelihood diversification and household income and its heterogeneities. Based on the sustainable livelihoods framework and the information collected from 409 households through face-to-face interviews, this study adopted multivariate regression models to obtain consistent results. Results show that the determinants of the four strategies differed. Natural capital, physical capital, and financial capital had significant associations with the probability of adopting the strategy of livestock breeding. Physical capital, financial capital, human capital, and social capital were associated with the probability of adopting the joint strategy of livestock breeding and crop planting and the joint strategy of livestock breeding and off-farm activities. The probability of adopting the joint strategy of livestock breeding, crop planting, and off-farm activities was associated with all five kinds of livelihood capital except for financial capital. Diversification strategies, especially those involving off-farm activities, played greater roles in raising household income. The findings indicate that the government and management authority of Maasai Mara National Reserve should provide the households around the protected area with more off-farm employment opportunities to increase the welfare of local residents as well as to utilize natural resources appropriately, especially for those located far away from the protected area.

Keywords: Maasai Mara National Reserve; income; livelihood diversification; off-farm activities; strategies.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Conservation of Natural Resources / methods
Family Characteristics*
Farms
Humans
Livestock
Poverty*

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers 41861144019) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Numbers XDA20010303).