Climate Change....The Conflicts in Northern Kenya

                                                                  

 “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.