Browsing by Author "Kavana, Pius Yoram"

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Influence of agro-pastoralism on herbaceous plants diversity and livelihood of communities in Western Serengeti
(Sokoine University of Agriculture, 2021) Kavana, Pius Yoram
First of all I would like to thank the Almighty God for granting me life and strength that enabled me to execute this study. I wish to acknowledge the financial support from my employer (Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute) through AfricanBioServices project No. GA 641918 of which this work would never have been completed without the grant provided to me. I would like to acknowledge my sincere gratitude to my supervisors, Professors Ephraim Mtengeti, Christopher Mahonge and Anthony Sangeda who have supervised this PhD thesis with invaluable enthusiasm. Their valuable advice and insightful criticism over the whole thesis have been of the utmost significance in an entire period of my study. Special thanks to Dr. Robert Fyumagwa for logistics and proper arrangement of field trips without his administration skills I would never have completed data collection in the wild of western Serengeti. I would like to extend my deepest sense of both personal and professional gratitude to Dr. Bukombe John Kija for inspiration and professional guidance both while in the field and during data analysis. Special thanks to Dr. Renalda Munubi for tireless encouragement and support that pushed me to apply R statistical software in data analysis. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Dr. Stephen Nindi for not hesitating to mention my name during nomination of candidates to pursue PhD studies. I believe I have not let him down as I have managed to push this work to its demise! I am grateful to all TAWIRI colleagues and fellow PhD students who assisted me in one way or another till I managed to reach the demise of this challenging course of action. I will never forget you my friends!x My heartfelt gratitude goes to my wonderful wife Rose, who accepted and encouraged me to begin field work in the wild of Serengeti ecosystem by purchasing two pairs of tough boots that enabled me to avoid prickles of acacia thorns for the entire field work. Thank you so much! I am deeply grateful to my precious daughters Josephine and Mwasi for their calmness as they missed my love and care during my absence. Lastly but not least, I am indebted to my father the late Rev. Yoram Jonathan Kavana and my mother Josephine Nehemia Baruti who laid a foundation for me to adore education. May God bless abundantly all people who helped me in my endeavour to climb an academic ladder!
Panorama of agro-pastoralism in western Serengeti: a review and synthesis
(2017) Kavana, Pius Yoram; Mahonge, Christopher P; Sangeda, Anthony Z; Mtengeti, Ephraim J; Fyumagwa, Robert; Nindi, Stephen; Graae, Bente J; Nielsen, Martin R; John, Bukombe; Keyyu, Julius; Speed, James; Smith, Stuart; Shombe, Shombe; Ntalwila, Janemary; Ilomo, Ophery
Agro-pastoral production system in western Serengeti is subsistence oriented livelihoods directed towards attaining self-sufficiency in food and livestock production and supporting growing human population. Production strategies involves the extensive use of land cultivating for food and cash crops production, and fallowing land. Households form the basic units of production, which utilize land, family labour, livestock keeping and any capital at their disposal to meet their production goals. Livestock, especially cattle have great symbolic value regarded as a bank on hoves, and a basis for various traditional transactions that makes households strive to increase livestock capital. Analysis of crops production and livestock population trends reveal that agro-pastoral system expand due to increase in prices of livestock products. Paucity of land to absorb the growing human and livestock population caused the political and administrative machinery to develop and implement village land use plans to ensure proper land utilization. However, introduction of land use plans alone is not a panacea to land use problems in villages. It was envisaged that land use plan should be accompanied by introduction of sustainable crops and livestock production systems by improving productivity of land in terms of pasture and crops to support the current human and livestock population in the Western Serengeti. The future direction of agro-pastoralism in Western Serengeti under these circumstances is not well understood. This entails a need for a multidisciplinary study of impact of agro-pastoralism on livelihood of people in Western Serengeti.