Parched Northern Kenya yearns rain as climate change bites

The impact of climate change is getting particularly manifested in Northern Kenya in the form of a biting water shortage. In Marsabit County from where I am writing this post for example, members of the pastoralist community are reporting that they are solely relying on water delivered to them by the County government using water bowsers. Most boreholes have dried. Rains that the weatherman had forecast will be falling in October have not come, although the signs are now thankfully in place that it could rain anytime now.

Drought has now become almost a permanent feature of the Northern Kenyan climate. The altered climatic conditions are forcing a gradual change in communities’ lifestyles that has never been seen before. For example, crop farmers who have grown maize and beans foe generations have resorted to growing Miraa (Khat) as an alternative livelihood option. Livestock keepers, whose cattle and goat herds have been decimated by drought are learning how to rear the more handy camels.

There is an emerging negative dimension on people’s and animal health that is making life even more difficult in vast region. The October 5, 2017 issue of The Star newspaper quoted North Horr sub-County Director of health Huko Halake as saying:  "424 out of 590 locals tested in Dukana area tested positive for Malaria.” This is nearly 72 per cent infection rate, way too high even for an area where the diseas is known to be common.

Conversations with pastoralists in Marsabit indicate that diseases that are usually confined to wild animals are crossing over to domestic animals as pastoralists encroach wildlife reservations in desperate search for pasture. “We have noticed that diseases that commonly affect buffaloes are now affecting cattle, while those that afflict Giraffes are crossing over to camels,” said an official involved in community forest conservation.

Along the smooth new road linking Isiolo with Marsabit, sacks of charcoal are prominently displayed to passing motorists, a sign that charcoal burning has become the new strategy that some communities are using to cope with impacts of climate change. Unfortunately, charcoal burning is contributing to the worsening of the same phenomenon whose impact they are responding to, given the need to cut down trees to sustain the trade.

The close linkage between climate change and its impact on livelihoods of communities living in drylands is creating new opportunities for communities’ sensitisation and awareness about climate change.

Measures that are emerging as being sustainable include re-forestation and encouraging farmers to provide space for woodlots on their own farms. Income generating opportunities are emerging creating money making opportunities for people who are ready to start and nurture tree nurseries. More households are beginning to use energy-saving cook stoves as firewood becomes harder to get, creating opportunities for those engaged in the sale of these alternative cookers that can be fired using slow burning but smoke free charcoal briquettes. Youth groups are initiating projects to grow fast-maturing horticultural crops, and in the process changing attitudes towards agriculture, traditionally viewed as an occupation for older “jobless” members of the community.

Whereas the negative impacts of climate change are relatively well publicised, there are indeed opportunities that result from it. These opportunities have however not found their way into the limelight where they deserve to be. If more people learn to recognise and take advantage of opportunities created by climate change, the pain of the long drought ravaging Northern Kenya will be reduced as the region’s capacity to adapt to climate change becomes strengthened if all who are concerned in bringing about a well-coordinated response play their part.