Research Update By Jeremy Lind (Institute of Development Studies, Sussex) and John Letai (Oxfam GB Regional Office, Nairobi)
FAC Pastoralist Theme, November 2010
- Pastoralism researchers analyse coping innovations during the 2009 drought that pushed Maasai herders to Mount Kenya.
- Despite previous brittle social relations, agreements between ranchers and farmers permitted limited grazing of cattle and sheep inside commercial ranches on a controlled basis
- Herders also cooperated with small-holder farmers living adjacent to the Mt. Kenya forest, whereby Maasai kept the animals on farms during the night and grazed inside the forest at night.
- Research also noted preference for smaller and improved breeding stock and livelihood diversification.
- Social contracts and other drought coping strategies will be presented in detail in early 2011 as input into Kenya’s Arid Lands Resource Management Project and its Natural Resource Management component.