Opportunities and constraints in women's resource security amid climate change: A case study of arid-living Namibian agro-pastoralists

The dietary impacts of drought in a traditional pastoralist economy

OBJECTIVES

Arid pastoralism is often understood as an adaptive strategy to marginal environments. As pastoralists become increasingly market integrated, novel dietary preferences and access to low quality market foods can erode traditional diets. These market-based dietary shifts are particularly problematic during sustained drought, where reductions in traditional foods make pastoralists increasingly reliant on a cash economy. Among the Himba of the Kunene region in Namibia, colonial policies prohibiting access to livestock markets inhibit access to a cash-based economy, leaving them vulnerable to food insecurity when nontraditional foods are needed to supplement traditional lifeways during drought. To understand the impacts of long-term drought on diet and food insecurity, we collected longitudinal survey data on diet breadth and food insecurity across 4 years during a multi-year drought.

METHODS

Participants completed a five-item food insecurity survey and recalled diet breadth survey over the course of 4 years (N = 191-234). Additionally, women completed a short survey of recent stressors, including health and resource stressors (N = 127). We used a set of multilevel models to estimate changes in food insecurity items and diet breadth changes over the course of the study period.

RESULTS

Multilevel models predicted score outcomes, as well as individual item responses, by year of data collection. Results indicate a 43% increase in average food insecurity and a 15% decline in average diet breadth over the study period. Dietary recall indicates that drought caused a reduction in sour milk intake, and an increase in nontraditional foods, but no change in meat or maize consumption.

CONCLUSIONS

Sustained drought in the Kunene region is having long-term impacts on food insecurity, which could result in dietary shifts that outlast the current period of drought. We consider the implications of this change, especially as it relates to increasing market integration and reliance on a cash-based over a subsistence-based economy.

How can evolutionary and biological anthropologists engage broader audiences?

OBJECTIVES

With our diverse training, theoretical and empirical toolkits, and rich data, evolutionary and biological anthropologists (EBAs) have much to contribute to research and policy decisions about climate change and other pressing social issues. However, we remain largely absent from these critical, ongoing efforts. Here, we draw on the literature and our own experiences to make recommendations for how EBAs can engage broader audiences, including the communities with whom we collaborate, a more diverse population of students, researchers in other disciplines and the development sector, policymakers, and the general public. These recommendations include: (1) playing to our strength in longitudinal, place-based research, (2) collaborating more broadly, (3) engaging in greater public communication of science, (4) aligning our work with open-science practices to the extent possible, and (5) increasing diversity of our field and teams through intentional action, outreach, training, and mentorship.

CONCLUSIONS

We EBAs need to put ourselves out there: research and engagement are complementary, not opposed to each other. With the resources and workable examples we provide here, we hope to spur more EBAs to action.

Human adaptation to climate change: An introduction to the special issue

OBJECTIVES

Despite our focus on adaptation and human responses to climate, evolutionary and biological anthropologists (EBAs) are largely absent from conversations about contemporary "climate-change adaptation," a term popular in other disciplines, the development world, and related policy decisions. EBAs are missing a big opportunity to contribute to impactful, time-sensitive applied work: we have extensive theoretical and empirical knowledge pertinent to conversations about climate-change adaptation and to helping support communities as they cope. This special issue takes a tour of EBA contributions to our understanding of climate-change adaptation, from data on past and contemporary human communities to theoretically informed predictions about how individuals and communities will respond to climate change now and in the future. First, however, we must establish what we mean by "climate change" and "adaptation," along with other terms commonly used by EBAs; review what EBAs know about adaptation and about human responses to climate change; and identify just a few topics EBAs study that are pertinent to ongoing conversations about climate-change adaptation. In this article, we do just that.

CONCLUSION

From our work on energy use to our work on demography, subsistence, social networks, and the salience of climate change to local communities, EBAs have an abundance of data and theoretical insights to help inform responses to contemporary climate change. We need to better reach the climate community and general public with our contributions.