Natural Resource Conflicts And Its Impacts On Household Socio- Economic Activities Of The Arror Community In Baringo North Sub-County, Baringo County, Kenya.

Abstract

Natural resource conflicts are common in both developing and developed countries as societies try to extract the limited and often declining natural resources to support their livelihoods. In Arror a sub-group of the Tugen community, the impact is severe on household socio economic activities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of natural resource conflicts and its impacts on household socio-economic activities of the Arror community in Baringo North sub-county. To achieve this, the following objectives were used: To establish whether natural resource conflicts affects agricultural activities; to determine whether natural resource conflicts affects communities permanent settlement; to establish whether natural resource conflicts affects education; to assess the impact of conflict on biodiversity. Gasana points out the manifestations of natural resource conflicts vary from wars and genocide to disagreements at the local level. Descriptive survey research design was employed in this study. The target population was 14 Area chiefs, 4 education officers and 19,734 household heads. Probability sampling, and in particular, stratified random sampling was used in this research to obtain stratus. The researcher used purposive sampling and simple random sampling techniques to select the required sample size. Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data from household heads while interview schedule was administered to education officers, area chiefs and NEMA official. Qualitative data was analyzed by using content analysis on emerging themes. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean, percentages, mode and standard deviation and the data collected were presented using frequency tables, percentages, pie charts and graphs with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Findings showed that natural resource conflicts have affected the communities’ permanent settlement, agricultural activities, children’s education and biodiversity. The conflicts have made it difficult for the respondents to build a permanent house for the fear of it being destroyed. The conflicts have brought about insecurity, inadequate income to pay for school fees and displacement of children from one school to another. Specifically, conflict on natural resources has led to the destruction of plants and animals, habitat degradation and reduced access to water points. There is therefore need for food policies aimed at improving people’s resilience, preparing to take advantage of lulls in conflict and helping to prevent further natural resource conflicts. There is therefore need for protection of property rights as well as conflict resolution mechanisms within the host communities. It is important to improve security around the schools. Improving the security around schools would safeguard learning infrastructure in the schools and reduce interruptions to the learning processes.