Conflict Over Land and Potential Effects on Global Climate Change

Population growth has shot up exponentially with improved health facilities and support- meaning higher child motility and longer life expectancies. This has created pressure on the cultivable land to meet food for the growing populations, while similar growth in need for housing as well as grazing land for livestock has checked the projected expansion. Cities have gradually expanded into the peri-urban zones taking up land initially used for cultivation to meet more housing, leisure and social amenities, access roads and industrial estates that have cropped up to provide employment and storage for foodstuffs. Resources like domestic water and energy (oil, gas, electricity, firewood) also demand land for development, processing and storage.

It is unfortunate that the built environment always wins over non-built and conserved land, as development has been the focal point for civilisation. Although the benefits from land conservation are immense, housing has taken precedence. Slums are often stopgap remedies before proper planning and development is commissioned. And there is money to be made instantly in the building sector that offers employment, contractors, goods and services, government revenue, and a decent standard of living.

Some land too, has gone towards containing the increasing amounts of human effluents. Sewerage treatment plants and landfills for the refuse waste have increased in holding capacities with time taking more space. Added to the fact that other service sectors like morgues and cemeteries also have become necessary further places pressure on land.

Case study Kenya: Land use systems and threat on the ecosystems

Land tenure has changed with more and more people owing parcels of land. The balance between livestock raring and agrarian practices has been a delicate one, gradually leading to sedentary cultivations and stall-feeding of a few livestock. Forced into intensive farming year after year, the result has been degraded land that cannot produce enough to feed the growing family as well as reserve some to meet the families’ alternative source of income. Against such a backdrop, even those with adequate land cannot make ends meet even before the credit crunch is blamed.

Intensive farming cannot allow for ample time for regeneration, and has caused gradual decline in soil fertility and productivity. Unfortunately, recourse to mineral fertilisers has rapidly increased soil flocculation and reduced the soil organic matter. This is the initial step towards higher carbon footprint- reduced soil carbon sequestration. Low organic matter leads to low soil-water holding capacity and thus nutrient retention/sorption, and crops cannot benefit from applied nutrients.