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Enhancing adaptation of the pastoralists to climate change through drought contingency measures in arid Northern Kenya

Year: 2009
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Pastoralism, which is a major livestock production system in the arid and semi arid lands (ASALs) of Sub-Saharan Africa, entails extensive grazing in rangelands. Mobility of the livestock is an adaptive mechanism of the pastoralists to the temporal and spatial variability of livestock's feed. Although pastoralists have extensive local knowledge in drought management, the long drought periods-which usually exceed one year period-impacts on their livestock by causing high mortality. This remains a concern to the livestock keepers in the arid Northern Kenya as exemplified in a comment by a livestock keeper during the post drought period of 2006:"Long droughts are nowadays more common than before. They are hitting us more badly, making us to live in a cyclic life of trying to increase our herd sizes but only to be reduced again by the next drought." During this drought of 2006, the Government of Kenya (GoK) and the donor community initiated some drought contingency measures, which were instrumental in reducing vulnerability of pastoralists to climate change. First, livestock in the 'drought refuge pasture areas', which are grazing sites having perennial grasses but lacking nearby water sources, were supplied with water using lorries. Secondly, the pastoralists were supported with supplementary feed (hay and feed concentrates) to 'sustain a core-breeding herd'. Thirdly, pastoralists were facilitated to carry out livestock off-take to reduce herd sizes. In addition this provided cash resource transfer to pastoralists before their animals died. The potentials and challenges of factoring these initiatives into a drought management plan of the arid Northern Kenya are discussed.
DOI: 10.1088/1755-1307/6/1/412024
Language: English
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4254849264
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