Adapting to Climate Change in a Dryland Mountain Environment in Kenya

Global warming is likely to lead to a variety of changes in local climatic conditions, including potential increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events such as drought, floods, and storms. Present capacity to respond to and manage climatic variability, including extreme events, is an important component of adjustments to climatic changes. In particular, identifying and addressing constraints on local adaptation mechanisms-whether political, economic or social in nature-is critical to developing effective adaptation policies. The drylands of Kenya present great survival challenges to the people living in these areas. The hilltops in the drylands provide favorable climate and resources for adapting to climate change. The present paper examines the role that one particular hilltop, Endau in Kitui District, eastern Kenya, plays in processes of local adaptation to climatic variability and drought. The project presented here investigated how conflict and exclusion from key hilltop resources constrain adaptation among the population groups living around the hilltop, and how these constraints are negotiated, addressed, or even exacerbated through institutional arrangements and development activities.