A potential impact of loosing livelihood option is internal displacement or cross border forced migration.
The prevailing livelihood option is pastoralism where cattle, sheep, goats and camels are kept in communal grazing lands.
Livestock production remains the main livelihood option in the three land-use sites as shown by the largest average herd size among the other land-use options.
This indicates that the return to investment in soil and water conservation measures; small-scale irrigation; agronomic practices; and diversifying livelihood options each does generate reliable results, especially in areas where climate change and variability adversely affects agriculture which is considered as the main livelihood option of the households.
However, climatic variability will intensify the vulnerability of traditional livestock production systems, potentially lessening the effectiveness of livestock as a sustainable livelihood option (Nyariki et al. 2012; Sejian et al. 2015).
Further, these woody forage species can withstand seasonal and climatic variations rampant in the sub-region, thereby securing camel forage availability all year around, thus making camel production a viable livelihood option in the sub-region.
However, promotion of agro-pastoralism as a livelihood option for pastoral communities is constrained, as it may only support about 20% and 55 % of households in Turkana and Mandera, respectively, and this will have an insignificant impact as a poverty reduction strategy.
Dairy production is a promising livelihood option for poor households.
Based on the demonstration project, we generalized the process of establishing OMS culture as a livelihood option in the Spermondes and the Coral Triangle into three consecutive stages: (1) culture development and early adoption, (2) scale-up to franchise, and (3) large-scale adoption including risk management of the supply chain integrity and product quality.
In such overlapping situations there is an urgent need to develop coordinated and integrated land use planning strategies to manage livestock production, a key livelihood option in these semi-arid areas, whilst simultaneously protecting the environment (Karesh et al. 2002; Kivaria 2003; Rweyemamu et al. 2012; Murwira et al. 2012).
