Assessing the vulnerability of farmers, fishermen and herdsmen to climate change: a case study from Nigeria

This paper describes a study on the vulnerability of farmers and fishermen to climate change and the conflict arises between farmers and herdsmen, in Nigeria. A random sampling survey was carried out in some selected rural communities where 200 farmers and fishermen were interviewed and discussions with community focus groups to ascertain the level of their understanding of climate change issues. The study observed that the majority of the farmers had a good understanding of the changes in the climate through their personal observation, intervention of some research institutes and discussion in various cooperative society meetings. However, climate change has greatly impacted crop production with more than 50% reduction in produce, but not very much change has occurred to fish production. This study further noted that the respondents are faced with increased variations in rainfall and temperature patterns and are yet to have good adaptive measures to the current and expected changes. This paper has recommended the use of agroforestry programme, or tree cropping system, which is a potential strategy to help farmers reduce their vulnerability to climate-related hazards and sustainable fish farming to minimising the vulnerability of fishermen to climate disasters

Equity and justice in climate change adaptation : Policy and practical implication in Nigeria

Over the past decade, justice and equity have become a quasi-universal answer to problems of environmental governance. The principles of justice and equity emerged as a useful entry point in global governance to explore the responsibilities, distribution, and procedures required for just climate change adaptation. These principles are designed primarily through the establishment of funding mechanisms, top-down guides, and frameworks for adaptation, and other adaptation instruments from the UNFCCC process, to ensure effective adaptation for vulnerable countries like Nigeria that have contributed least to the issue of climate change but lack adaptive capacity. Global adaptation instruments have been acknowledged for adaptation in Nigeria. Climate change has a detrimental impact on Nigeria as a nation, with the burden falling disproportionately on the local government areas. As Nigeria develop national plans and policies to adapt to the consequences of climate change, these plans will have significant consequences for local government areas where adaptation practices occur. Although the local government’s adaptation burden raises the prospects for justice and equity, its policy and practical implication remains less explored. This chapter explores the principles of justice and equity in national adaptation policy and adaptation practices in eight local government areas in southeast Nigeria. The chapter argues that some factors make it challenging to achieve equity and justice in local adaptation practices. With the use of a qualitative approach (interview (n = 52), observation, and document analysis), this chapter identified some of the factors that constraints equity and justice in local government adaptation in southeast Nigeria.publishedVersio