The Impacts of Climate Change on Livelihoods in Northern Ghana: Could Shea (<i>Vitellaria paradoxa</i>) Ecosystem Services Be a Panacea?

The reality of climate change in the northern regions of Ghana is noticeable among the inhabitants of the territory. One of the obvious impacts of climate change is the reduction in numbers and yield of the indigenous cash tree, shea tree in the region. This study explored the influence of ecosystem services of shea tree in promoting the adaptation strategies among community members of the Lawra Municipality of the Upper West Region. This study involved a stratified sample of 387 community members and four key informants. Using mixed-research methods and guided by environmentally-specific transformational leadership theory, this study revealed that the shea tree provides ecosystem services such as provisional ecosystem services, regulating ecosystem services, supporting ecosystem services and cultural ecosystem services. The specific services include food, income, cosmetic, buffer, habitat, shelter, microclimates, absorb flood, folktales, aesthetic, and traditional knowledge. The one-way Anova results showed that the provisional and regulating ecosystem services significantly differed across zones, age and educational levels of participants. Second, the study showed that ecosystem services significantly contribute to climate change adaptation among the inhabitants of Lawra municipality. The Ordinary Least Square results (B = 0.001, t = 0.03, p = 0.977*) showed that supporting ecosystem services have a significant and positive impact on climate change adaptation. This study recommends that policy makers should take active role in providing effective climate change and adaptation communication plan to enhance climate change response among communities in Ghana.