ANALYSTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ON LIVELIHOOD STRATEGIES IN BAYELSA STATE, NIGER DELTA NIGERIA

There have been growing awareness that the earth's climate is changing at an alarming rate with several source of livelihood becoming vulnerable to the impacts of the change. It is against this background that this study analysed the impact of climate change on farming and fishing livelihood in Bayelsa State with the aim of determining the perception of farmers and fishers about, climate change the level of their livelihood vulnerability to its impact. The study adopted cross sectional household survey and multi-staged sampling techniques to sampled 400 (200farmers and 200 fishers) respondents from three LG As and twelve communities. Data for the study was obtained through the use of questionnaire and structure interviews and were analysed using statistical tools of frequencies, means, percentages, and standard deviation as well as two types of livelihood vulnerability index rating. The study reveals that the sampled respondents had good perception of climate change with majority (92.75%) relating it to increasing daily temperature. Among the perceived impact of climate change on framing livelihood in the study area, decreased quantity and quality of crop yield with mean values of 3.75 was perceived to be of the highest effect of climate change by the sampled farmers while for fishing livelihood, it was increasing difficulty of access/increasing distance to fishing ground (3.72). The most favoured on-farm adaptation strategy by farmers was changing of planting time (92.5%) and livelihood diversification for off-farm livelihood diversification (95%) while fishers also preferred to diversify their livelihood sources to non-fishery activities (93.5%). Both farming and fishing livelihood were found to be moderately vulnerable to climate change impact, with overall livelihood vulnerability index (LVI) of 0.392 and 0.390 as well as -0.086 and -0.089 (for IPPCLVI approach) respectively. Despite exposure to natural disaster (flood) and climate variability, social network remained the most important causal factor that explained farming and fishing livelihood vulnerability in the region by impacting negatively on adaptive capacity due to poor interpersonal relationship among the fishers and farmers. It was recommended that; both farmers and fishers in the study area are advised to collaborate with one another, form associations or join existing relevant, one as this would help them adapt to or cope with the impact of climate change on their livelihood through giving of all forms of assistance and sharing of information which will enhance their adaptive capacity.