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Isiolo County, Kenya
2004 -
Short description
Shifts in grazing patterns and increasing climate variability have sisignificantly reduced the productivity of the rangelands of northern Kenya over the last three decades. The proliferation of invasive species such as Acacia reficiens has also taken its toll. In a region where livelihoods are inextricably linked to livestock and the land, this poses a major threat to both wildlife and people as it has also escalated cases of resource based conflicts. The NRT rangelands programme focuses on building the capability of community conservancies in grazing management through grazing committees and conservancy leadership:
• It supports conservancies to develop conservancy-level rangelands plans, by identifying their own priority areas for rangelands management, as well as looking at a landscape-level approach.
• It provides support to conservancies for community outreach activities, to increase awareness and support for rangelands management, (there is widespread community support in those conservancies that have active rangeland management programmes, in which an increasing number of women and Youth are involved).
Main purpose
Biodiversity conservation / restoration,
Land restoration for increased soil fertility / reversal of land degradation,
Erosion control / slope stabilization,
Reduced environmental degradation from sustainable resource use,
Reducing competition for natural resources,
Increasing community cohesion / community building
Other expected benefits
Land tenure equality and security,
Reducing competition for natural resources,
Reduced illegal resource exploitation / poaching
Conflict context
Due to climate change and the changes in land use structures such as unplanned grazing and settlement and increased stocks of shoats, the natural resources like grass cover was highly affected making this resource scarce. This therefore led to competition for pasture and water as these communities are purely pastoralists. With the increased tension came illegal firearms which further escalated the problem leading to insecurity in the entire region leading to losses both human and livestock lives following the raids and cattle rustling that was fuelled by this competition for resources by different ethnic communities.
Peace and security contributions
This NbS has made the communities manage the limited resources in their rangelands using them in a planned manner which makes them stay in their community conservancies longer reducing the frequency of their nomadism to areas of convergence for natural resources that had turned to battle fields.
Reported elements of good practice
The elements of good practice for the success of this NbS is first creating climate and environmental conservation literacy among the community members using animations that speak in the local dialect showing the changes in the environment over time, the role of human beings in contributing to these changes, the effects of these changes including ways to mitigate these changes to create adaptability. Creating a sense of ownership of the problem at hand, creating a need for interventions derived from the interest of the community, putting into consideration their traditional way of life and the indigenous knowledge they hold and merging it with contemporary science. This led to ownership such that the community was caring out interventions voluntarily.
Reported challenges
Challenges encountered are as follows: that due to Westernisation and most young people detaching from their cultural roots and the lack of intergenerational indigenous knowledge transfer which advocates for environmental conservation making it hard for the young people to adhere to their traditional ways of conserving nature. The communities in Northern Kenya are also patriarchal hence involvement of women, children and the youth was minimal and this therefore meant that we design different programs and trainings for them as they are totally not aware of the reasons for certain decisions regarding their land that were imposed by elders.
Practical details of implementation
Yes, an involvement of the community members in all the stages of the rangelands restoration and management interventions from the start is done through a thorough Free Prior and Informed Consent process (FPIC). Working in partnership with various stakeholders including the area chiefs, ward admins and the police has also helped in identifying areas that need more interventions. Women and youth have also been actively involved to an extent of them forming organised groups to take up various restoration roles in the community conservancies and having gone through some thorough training have also become trainers of trainees. A knowledge transfer system has also been established to ensure the younger generations understand the need for environmental conservation for sustainability purposes
Method of monitoring environmental and peace impacts
The environmental impacts were monitored and evaluated by collection of vegetation monitoring data bi-annually which checks the vegetation cover of the area using transects to collect data on species composition trees, grasses, shrubs and herbs, invasive species included, bare areas and places with gulleys due to erosion and this data is analysed to help in decision-making of where restoration interventions should be carried out.
The impacts on peace and security were monitored by the use of earthranger software that showed realtime movement of livestock and conflict in areas of convergence and over time with the rangelands management program there were few cases reported in the software. There has also been on ground indicators including the minimal movement to hotspot areas and fewer cases if cattle rustling reported.
Futher reading
Contact details
stella.napanu@nrt-kenya.org