ENVIRONMENT-KENYA: Threat to Pastoralists' Way of Life

By Najum Mushtaq NAIROBI, Oct 6 (IPS) - Ole Kaparo works as a school teacher in Nairobi, though his family still herds cattle in the Masai pastures of the north Rift Valley province. Five years ago, during a prolonged spell of drought, he left this traditional life to seek work in the city. "The survival of the livestock depends on predicting the rains, something our ancestors used to do by observing the movement of the birds, the flowering time of trees and cloud patterns," says Kaparo, "Now, rains do not come when they are needed and floods hit us when they are not expected." Over the last 25 years, there has been a four-fold increase in the incidence of drought, punctuated by unseasonal and intense rains. About 13 percent of Kenya's 30 million people are pastoralists, herding their livestock in the arid and semi-arid lands... [read full story]