Land-use history, not readily available
for most places, remains the weakest link in nearly all
studies of historic vegetation change, in Africa as well
as other places in the world. Notwithstanding,
communities hold a great wealth of knowledge on the
processes and events influencing change on the land
they occupy. The Lambwe Valley, southwestern Kenya,
has a multi-ethnic population of settlers from the early
1950s. These people have seen the transformation of
an initially forested area with diverse challenges to
their survival, to present-day scramble for the remaining
high potential land. A large part of the forces driving
human settlement and consequent changes in land-use
and cover is attributed to the control of tsetse and
trypanosomosis. The application of a socio-economic
method of mapping land-use change with the
participation of the community in this study depicted
trends and the underlying causes. The control of tsetse
fly and therefore trypanosomosis infection was
significant in driving the changes in the valley.
Agricultural intensification is suggested as a means to
support the resultant higher populations of people and
livestock.