Such studies have tended to demonstrate the resilience of physical conditions and associated pastoral and farming systems in the face of substantial climatic variability. As well, from this point of view, desertification and environmental degradation are seen both as causes and consequences of unequal development and poverty arising out of the integration of smaller social systems into a worldwide economic system controlled by the developed nations. These coping mechanisms can include swamp reclamation, and cutting trees either to make charcoal or produce firewood for sale. To the local people, these actions are not seen as degrading the environment or causing desertification. Instead, the sources of degradation are desertification and poverty.
Several reasons can be advanced to explain the local perception.
According to the local knowledge of the Teso, unpredictable rains and long periods without rains may result in increased cultivation of swamp land. For example, the Teso are increasingly shifting the location of the fields where they plant crops like sweet potatoes, following swamp areas that remain relatively wet. A lack of, or inadequate, crops to sell for cash has resulted in the introduction and increased cultivation of paddy rice within swamps. These activities appear, to the scientist, to contribute to swamp land degradation. In addition, lower household cash incomes, earned mainly from some food items, have led to other means of obtaining cash income, including charcoal production and firewood for sale, and increased sale of other assets, like land.