Pelling argued that depending on vision of adaptation responses can be considered as; 1) “Resilience” when measures strive to maintain systemic function and the status quo or bring marginal change in a changing climate by which the “normal” state of the adaptation unit continues to function in the context of constraining factors, without explicitly challenging these, 2) “Transitional” when measures push against the status quo by suggesting new ways of doing things are necessary as a result of experienced or predicted change which therefore aims to bring incremental change within established regime and sys-tem of concern, and 3) “Transformational” when adaptation measures allow the scale of change required to bring major, non-marginal change disturbing the relationship between society and environment. This type of adaptation therefore envisions reconfiguring the structure of development to enable adaptation which necessitates establishing completely new ways of doing things, ebb and flow table robust institutions, practices, processes and forms of governance.
The study area, Borana pastoral and agropastoral systems, is part of the Borana administrative zone situated in Oromiya Regional State, southern Ethiopia . Geographically, the study area lies in the tropics region, and is located between 37 and 41 degrees E, and 3 and 7 degrees N. The study targeted lowland districts of the Borana Plateau which constitute the heartland of the Borana pastoral and agropastoral systems subject to recurrent climate-induced stresses. The Borana people are an ethnic group of pastoralists inhabiting the arid and semi-arid areas of southern Ethiopia and the northern part of neighbouring Kenya. Strong social networks and bonds are important features of their collective lifestyle including natural resource governance. Traditional institutions are important entities in managing access to common property re-sources necessary to support the extensive livestock production system and collectively respond to climate perturbations. Though long term local climate data are not available to accurately examine potential changes in climate, existing limited data show that the study area exhibits high level of climate variability which is typical feature of dryland cli-mates.
The seasonal rainfall demonstrated pronounced level of interseasonal and interannual variability which was locally perceived and identified to be major challenge for agricultural production in the area flood table. Variability in terms of amount with a declining trend often going into extreme lows be-low average and uneven distribution are climatic attributes felt by rural communities relying on seasonal rain for agricultural production. Particularly, the long rainy season exhibited a rapid decline since the end of 1980s until recently. Air temperature in the study area has much less inter-seasonal and inter-annual variation as compared to rainfall which is similar phenomena to most of the sub-Saharan Africa . Moreover, the air temperature deviation has not been felt by rural communities and was mentioned to be less important than fluctuations in rainfall. Higher temperatures during peak drought periods raises the demand for more livestock water to substitute for loss due to dehydration and puts increased evaporative demand on plants. Farming systems of the Boran lowlands are complex and heterogeneous pre-dominantly characterized by semi-arid pastoral and agro-pastoral systems. Small-scale extensive livestock production, particularly transhumant pastoralism is the pillar of the economy, and the main source of food and income for rural households.
The Borana zone has 1.6 million cattle, 1.2 million small ruminants, 0.1 million equines, 0.2 million camel and 0.2 million poultry with human population of 1.1 million having density of 24 persons per square kilometre . The characterization of Boran pastoralists as ‘livestock producers’ is arguable because of poor profit and market-orientation of the traditional agriculture. Rather they are classified as ‘livestock keepers’ because livestock production is seen more as a way of life than a western world style profit oriented agribusiness. In the face of climate driven pervasive socio-economic and ecological changes, expanding drought-tolerant maize cultivation, increasingly popular camel and goat husbandry, and shrinking livestock holding per household characterize the dynamics in the farming system.