“At the heart of any revolution bent on
changing human behavior lies an anthropology- an understanding of who we human
beings are and where we fit into the scheme of things.” Sallie McFague
Climate Change is without doubt the greatest threat of
this generation. It has great impacts which are direct and indirect. Kenya
being one of the countries in the global North has not been spared even for a
moment either with Northern region being under more heat right now compared to
other parts….Who/What will save us from this great threat??
The story basically indicates the Africa’s climate
conflicts which have gone to the extremes between the Ethiopians and the
Kenyans specifically the Mursi, Dassanech and the Nyangatom tribe living along
the Omo river in Ethiopia and the Turkana tribe of Kenya (these four tribes are
among many that depend on the Omo river and Lake Turkana) It is of importance
to note that these tribes are a pastoralist community and they move from place
to place to look for their satisfaction in life, that is water and pasture.
These communities also want to have their homes, families
and they want to eat everyday just as other humans in other parts of the world
do but this is not always the case. They look for resources wherever they can
find them and whenever there is a scarcity they always want to defend what they
have and this has made the pastoralist communities to be always in conflict
with one another.
In terms of vulnerability to climate change, Africa is
the most vulnerable and mostly the horn of Africa and this is where these
communities are found. In the last years there has been a recurrent drought and
this is predicted to worsen and the soils in these areas are always like a pavement.
During these times of the drought the communities always move where the
resources are and this triggers conflicts with other communities found in the
place they move to.
For instance the Mursi
tribe of Ethiopia regard Omo river as theirs as they feel they have been the
natives of that land since the time of their ancestors, they perform rituals
and they use it to communicate to their ancestors so they regard anybody
crossing the waters as enemies. There have been major and minor droughts over
the years and the populations have never had time to recover due to the
increasing variability of rainfall which is even well documented and seen from
season to season. You can have a very heavy downpour in an area and few
kilometers away no rainfall at all and this is not a theory or a conjecture
it’s something that is a reality.
The local people have found it very difficult to adapt as
they are using their indigenous knowledge to adapt depending so much on the
natural cycle which has since changed and become unreliable. As the drought
continues it means they have to move to look for pasture for their animals
since they are a pastoral community and this creates conflicts and increased
land degradation. The communities fight over unlimited grazing land and water
resource leading to more deaths in the region. There is no peace as they are
always on the watch because an enemy may just ambush them, in addition to this
more deaths are witnessed because of increased hunger as they cannot also grow
anything on the very dry soils and harsh climatic conditions.
Lake Turkana receives 90 percent of its water from the
Omo River but rising temperature and less rainfall has made the lake to retreat
into Kenya. The Ethiopians have and are still following the water into Kenya
resulting to increased inter-tribal conflicts. Everyone who owns cattle always
has his gun ready and they know that they might be killed or kill in the war…It
is a very dark situation and these are climate change conflicts which are
happening almost every day and more of these is going to be witnessed getting
worse and worse.
In terms of humanitarian response to drought we are not
still getting it right. Whenever such problems occur the first reaction is
always to send food for instance maize which cannot be eaten raw,it has to be
cooked and cooked with water but there is no water. What we do always is what
Jan Egeland terms as “Saving
peoples’ lives today so that they can die tomorrow” There
should be a long term development approach to handling such kinds of disasters
because this is a global problem and the climate knows no boundary and why the
debate goes on the people continue to suffer and you have to see it to
understand the vast disparity between those contributing to climate change and
those who have to deal with the impacts.
We all have a
responsibility towards each other and we are all residents of this planet Earth.
