Farmers adapted by changing planting dates, adopting new crop varieties, increasing use of soil conservation techniques and inputs, like fertilizer and pesticides, and using more veterinary care. Some also were working to diversify their income sources.
Most adaptation was incremental – farmers made small changes to their normal processes rather than changing livelihoods – and wealthier households were better able to adapt by trying more than one strategy.
Violent conflicts hindered adaptation in some areas of Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where market access, mobility, and economic opportunities for alternative livelihoods were limited.
Access to credit, technical skills and markets would help farmers better adapt to climate change, the authors stated, as well as increased knowledge exchange among local communities and external actors. For example, some programs promote climate adaptation by distributing drought-resistant seeds but do not support farmers when they have questions, so the seeds are discarded or abandoned after planting.
“People are taking actions to adapt the best they can, but they are facing some challenges, often government policies that have negative unintended consequences for mountain people,” Klein said, adding that policies often are made by people living elsewhere who may not understand the local social or cultural context.
For example, in Rwanda, the government promotes the cultivation of maize and beans but discourages cassava and sorghum, crops perceived by local farmers as being more drought tolerant.
“In most African mountains, there are no meteorological stations or long-term records of crop yields. Just because changes have not been recorded, it doesn’t mean they did not take place,” Cuni-Sanchez said. “We approached farmers’ perceptions and their Indigenous knowledge as living records of past changes, and we show that there have been numerous climatic changes and impacts in all mountains studied. We hope that our approach inspires researchers and practitioners working in other data-deficient regions, as climate change is affecting us all.”
This approach is a core principle of Mountain Sentinels, which centers the knowledges of local and Indigenous mountain communities and helps to co-create solutions to their challenges.
“We need to think about every data point as a human being, as a family, trying to provide for themselves and for the next generation,” said Klein, founder of the Mountain Sentinels network. “It’s our responsibility to these people to act.”
Reference: Cuni-Sanchez A, Aneseyee AB, Baderha GKR, et al. Perceived climate change impacts and adaptation responses in ten African mountain regions. Nat Clim Chang. 2025. doi: 10.1038/s41558-024-02221-w
This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed here.