Kenya's Arid Turkana Region takes Brunt of Drought
Date: 14-Mar-06
Country: KENYA
Author: Tim Cocks
With 300 goats and 150 camels, he had prestige few of his tribesmen could dream of and gallons of milk to sell on the local market in Turkana, northwestern Kenya.
That was before a drought scorched northwestern Kenya's sparse vegetation and sucked its rivers dry, killing all his animals except six goats.
"I haven't seen rain since last May," he said, gesturing towards an expanse of stony sand dotted with dry bushes. "My animals died of hunger and thirst. There's no food or water."
Like much of the Horn of Africa, Kenya's already poor and neglected Turkana region is suffering a drought that has withered wild plants and wrecked crops.
Known for its dramatic scenery, Turkana has been further put in the spotlight recently as the setting for some scenes in the Oscar-winning British film "The Constant Gardener."
Nilotic cousins of the more famous Maasai, the Turkana are distinguished by their tall, slender appearance and the reams of colourful beads worn around their necks.
These semi-nomadic pastoralists have for centuries wandered the Horn of Africa, settling wherever they find grass for their vast herds of livestock to graze.
But the pasture is running out.
Turkana is one of the worst-affected regions of a drought that has killed tens of thousands of livestock and hundreds of across Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and other parts of east Africa.
"Coping mechanisms are so strained that these people have to have external assistance," Rosemary Ngaruro, head of the Kenyan government's nutrition programme, told Reuters on a recent trip to Turkana.
"ISRAEL DRIER THAN THIS"
Coping with east Africa's droughts in the short run means dishing out food aid. Longer term solutions are harder.
Scientists suspect climate change to be behind Africa's worsening drought cycles and some urge tougher action to curb global warming from greenhouse gas emissions.
But aid workers in Turkana argue that more can be done to save water locally.
"Forget climate," said Father Albert Salvans, a Catholic missionary working on water catchment projects in an area where dried-up rivers stand out like veins in the sand.
"Israel is far drier than this and they are exporting fruit all over the world."
One water catchment project involved damming up a section of the usually dried out Lokitaung river.
Last week, the dam captured the first rains to hit the area for nearly a year, creating a reservoir of 136 thousand cubic metres of freshwater that would otherwise have run into Lake Turkana, a body too alkaline to sustain plant life.
"Normally when it rains one day, you come back the next day and it's all gone," said Francis Angole, a Turkana who managed the building of the dam.
Even harder than catching water will be changing the pastoral ways of life that aid workers say have quickened desertification across the Horn of Africa.
Growing herds of cows, goats and camels have gobbled dwindling patches of vegetation.
Loyangalani, where "The Constant Gardener" scenes were shot along the shores of Lake Turkana, is as grey and stony as a moonscape photograph.
"It's a man-made desert," said Mark Luckhurst of the Constant Gardener Trust, a local charity funded by the film.
"Over-grazing and destruction of trees for firewood created this. (It is) a way of life that is increasingly unsustainable."
Persistent banditry adds to the region's woes.
Ekitala Anamat fled to Loyangalani after cattle raiders from a neighbouring tribe attacked his home village.
"I've got nowhere to go. I'm afraid to go back home, but there's nothing for us here," he said. "We're going to die here."