|
|
From MISNAJan. 30, 2009
“The day-to-day impacts of climate change, such as higher temperatures and
erratic rainfall, are increasing many people’s vulnerability to hazards.
Prolonged droughts exert the greatest pressure on households to move,
particularly from rural to urban areas.
In the Horn of Africa alone, there are more than 20 million pastoralists
currently living a lifestyle that is centered on the search for increasingly
scarce pasture and water”, said Charles Ehrhart, the poverty, environment and
climate change network coordinator for CARE International.
Ehrhart intervened at a two-day meeting organized by the United Nations Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the African Union (AU)
in Nairobi (Kenya) aimed at developing a continent-wide policy framework to
secure and protect the lives, livelihoods and rights of pastoralists in Africa,
as also on the availability of water in the Horn of Africa and in eastern and
central Africa.
It is however not only the fault of climate change. Leilan ole Saruni, a Maasai,
said that when he was young he could go from Kitengela to Oseki – a distance of
around 20km – stopping to greet all the families he encountered. They were five
families. The area today is inhabited by over 300,000 people. But the water
sources are the same.
The demographic pressure can be felt also in the desert regions. It is enough to
think that, based on UN estimates, in 1950 Kenya’s population was 6,416,000,
while today the population is 34-million. While the populations of the highlands
generally have access to good water sources, inhabitants of the large northern
prairies face droughts and erratic rainfall. When the population was at a lower
density, a nomad lifestyle allowed the use of resources – water and forage –
without incising on the environment.
The main problem for pastoralists is mobility, given to the growing areas fenced
by private owners. The herds are therefore forced into limited areas for long
periods, with an excessive consumption of the natural resources. Representatives
of pastoral communities of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and Uganda present
at the meeting, called for interventions to improve territorial administration,
reduce the marginalization of their communities and step up education.
"There is a need to get a clear picture of the humanitarian need that climate
change is generating and will generate in pastoral regions of Africa”, said
Besida Tonwe, the head of OCHA’s central and eastern Africa’s regional office.
