A second paper about socio-economic impacts of Prosopis on livelihoods is out! The paper resulted from Ketema Bekele and Hailu Shiferaw’s PhD work in the Woody Weeds project and has been published online in the journal Pastoralism.
The study applied the generalized propensity score method to evaluate the impact of Prosopis invasion on Afar pastoralist and agro-pastoralist households’ annual per capita consumption expenditure. Initially, the plants’ impact was positive, but turned negative after an optimum invasion level. The optimal invasion level of Prosopis was found to be 22.23%. The corresponding optimum level of annual household per capita consumption expenditure was found to be 4,500.50 Ethiopian Birr. The results suggest that to maximize the benefits of Prosopis and minimize its adverse effects on the livelihoods of the pastoral and agro-pastoral communities, diverse management strategies should be implemented, that take not only the intensity of invasion, but also patterns of dryland economy into account.