Fundraiser Update

Education is the word.  We are proud to finally report on what we did with the money raised this fall at the Emerson fundraiser in Bozeman, Montana.  A second effort was made in St. Louis, Missouri, by the 1^st grade class of Christ Prince of Peace elementary school. Together the combined contributions totaled ~ $5,000. 

We spent $1,800  (141,000 KSh) to support the relief efforts started by the African Conservation Fund and SORALO late last year.  Contributions through ACF, SORALO, and our efforts supported nursery schools throughout the south Rift, which are financed by local communities rather than the government.  Salaries were paid to teachers and food was provided to help sustain nursery schools for at least 3 months during the severe drought.

The Olkirimatian Reto Women’s Group has launched their bursary program for girls to attend school.  This has been something the women have wanted to do since the creation of the South Rift Resource Centre, and they are now in a position to get off the ground running.  We are matching the women’s initial investment of $1,334 into this program (100,000 KSh).  One girl from each of the four sub locations of Olkirimatian has been chosen to receive this scholarship. In the weeks to come, we will visit the homes of each of these girls to get their stories and share them with you here.  There has already been tremendous gratitude expressed by the leaders of the community.  They praised the women for truly picking the most needy girls.  The aim of the program is to send the girls to school throughout their primary and secondary education.  The community will continue to monitor this program and welcomes any suggestions you might have.    

Furthering our efforts to promote education we’ve started a textbook program and spent $1,774 (133,000 KSh) on Kenya’s curriculum textbooks to supplement the needs of two schools in the area – the contributions bought 422 books for Entasopia and Pakase Primary Schools.  Upon our visit to Entasopia Primary School we realized the school’s basic needs were not being met due to over enrollment.  The school has 510 pupils, but the government only recognizes its capacity at 350.  There are so many students enrolled in class 1 that the school has had to split them into two groups.  They set up a second classroom outside because there was no space left within.  Education has become a high priority to local families and more and more parents are starting to send their children to school.  While this is a great thing it has led to the increasing demand for basic educational needs.  With guidance from the community leaders, we hope to continue the textbook program.

We would like to thank all those who helped to raise this money and spread the word on the importance of education.  We could not have supported these programs without your help.  Thanks to the 1^st grade class of Christ Prince of Peace elementary school who simply collected coins from their classmates and made a substantial contribution to this cause.  What you may have around your house can help to change the lives of so many children around your world.      

Carnivore Project Update

New Year:

The rains arrived over Christmas and New Years.  The region received only about a week of rains, but they were enough to settle the soft, ashy soils, and bring an end to the long, devastating drought.  Christine and I arrived back in camp just after New Years, and the camp was the greenest it's been since May 2008.  Up north in Olkiramatian, rains were light, but enough for Tribulus (a small herb with nasty thorns) to pop up and set seed.  To the south, rains were heavier and the former dust bowl now had grasses as tall as the Landcruiser in some areas.  Given the reports we'd read and heard while we were back in the U.S., we expected to see carcasses riddling the landscape.  Instead, during our first animal counts of the year, we observed hundreds of wildebeest, and even more zebra, that have been devastated by the drought in other parts of Kenya.  Unfortunately, the drought did take its toll on the wildebeest, with hardly any wildebeest calves from March surviving in to 2010.  We can only hope 2010 remains a wet year, and the long rains of March and April will sustain the plant and animal communities for many months.

 

Lion Update:

We have 4 lions radio-collared total, a male and female in each of two prides.  There is a third pride of lions that we hope to collar in the next month. During the drought, the prides sustained small, tight home ranges, based in the thicker bush and woodlands near water sources.  Here, the lions seemed to find an adequate prey base of zebra, lesser kudu, and buffalo during the long drought.  Now, the lions have dispersed out, making it much more difficult to find on a nightly basis.  Ren, one of our male lions typically found around the region where the Ewaso Nyiro river and the Sampu stream meet (an area locally known to the Maasai as Lengong) has moved out from his drought range.  Much to our surprise, Ren was found way up by Sampu camp with another male from Lengong, about 12 km away from their typical territory.  This is also the same area where the Sampu pride had been resident for all of last year, and contains Mwanzo (collared female) and Mkubwa (collared male).  We haven't seen Ren interact with either Mwanzo or Mkubwa, but we have yet to locate Mkubwa this year.  We're not sure if he has been displaced by Ren or not.  We hope to figure this out in the coming weeks…

 

Conservation and Development Strategies:

About 2 years ago, I attended a workshop in Nairobi sponsored by KWS, IUCN (World Conservation Union), local NGO's, and researchers to develop 5 year management and conservation plans for lions and spotted hyenas in Kenya.  A similar workshop was held for cheetah and wild dog several months prior.  This past week, all stakeholders were invited to KWS headquarters for the official launch of conservation and management strategies for lion, spotted hyena, cheetah, and wild dog.  It was an exciting event attended by ~200 individuals, with speeches by the director of KWS and the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife.  These strategies are the first of their kind in Kenya, and will hopefully set a new precedent for large carnivore conservation and management strategies throughout Africa (http://www.newstimeafrica.com/archives/10910).  Among the highlights are an increased emphasis on protecting large carnivore populations not just inside parks, but outside on community and private lands.  Community and private lands comprise ~90% of Kenyan lands and contain ~60% of all Kenyan wildlife.  We are quite pleased these new strategies emphasize integration of local communities, like the pastoralist Maasai, in conservation planning.  Many of these ideas are already in progress in the South Rift, where SORALO, ACC, and the Olkiramatian and Shompole communities have developed programs that integrate conservation and development.  All partners recognize wildlife conservation, inclusive of large carnivores, will not succeed in the long-term unless basic socio-economic needs of local communities are met.  Simultaneously, rural development plans that ignore short and long-term impacts on the environment will inevitably damage ecosystems and adversely impact rural livelihoods. In the South Rift, we are all excited for the recent progress of several integrated conservation and development strategies: Loisiijo eco-tourism project (http://www.loisiijolodgeshompole.org/) in Shompole has officially opened in the last three weeks and has already had 4 groups of visitors, the Olkiramatian Women's Group is currently developing a new girls scholarship program and pursuing small business plans, and everyone at the Resource Centre continues to promote education through purchases of textbooks for local schools, and encouraging regional health facilities across the South Rift.  We hold a strong belief that each of these socio-economic factors, coupled with long-term ecological research, must be considered for any future conservation, management, and development plan to succeed. 

Comparing the drought situation across ecosystems

Report on the Impact of the 2009 Drought on
the South Rift Valley Ecosystem
and Comparison to the Amboseli Ecosystem



December 23, 2009

by Samantha Russell
African Conservation Centre
South Rift Association of Land Owners



DROUGHT PROFILE

The savannas, swamps, and forests of Kenya’s South Rift Valley are home to traditional pastoral people and their livestock as well as an abundance of wildlife. Recently however, it has experienced the same severe drought as other regions across Kenya, with largely failed rainy seasons over the past two years.

The drought began to impact wildlife at the beginning of this year (2009). By May many of the juvenile plains game, particularly the wildebeest, were dying. Buffalo, zebra, and adult wildebeest then were reported to be dying in small numbers across the region. As the months progressed, the wildlife began to increasingly reside in and next to the main Shompole swamp, and down toward Lake Natron, where there is still forage available. This applied to most species with the exception of giraffe and Grants gazelle, which have remained spread out across the ecosystem. However, although the drought was apparent in its effect on wildlife populations, it was far more apparent in its devastation of livestock, in particular cattle.

Traditionally the Maasai of both Shompole and Olkiramatian group ranches move seasonally with their livestock, following available forage. During the rainy seasons, they move to temporary settlements to the east of the group ranches, away from the main Ewaso Ngiro River and the community conservation areas. Here they access good grazing and temporary water sources such as pans and dams. As the area dries out, on the go-ahead from the Group Ranch committees, they start to move back to settle along the river and graze westward, up toward the Nguruman escarpment and by late dry season and during droughts, they have access to the conservation areas, which act as “grassbanks” or forage in reserve.

However, 2009 has been the year where all traditional systems and coping mechanisms have broken down, to an extent not seen before by the people living there. People have not left the river settlements en mass as usual, but can be seen making individual decisions about where to move. Movements have been erratic and desperate, some choosing to take their herds far into Tanzania, while others try their luck north of the group ranches, moving to the Maasai Mara, or simply keeping smaller herds on their small-holder farms. Cattle from as far away as Kajiado moved in to Shompole to add to the pressure on resources. Despite extreme levels of effort and investment (manpower, drugs, and extra food for the livestock), most people have lost over 90% of the cattle to date. These losses span across the community, whether wealthy or poor, whether they chose to move far or not. For quick cash, many families are now selling their sheep and goats, which for the most part survived the drought, but now are unsure if they will have any livestock left at all. Some families are so desperate that elders are committing suicide by drinking poison. For pastoralists, this is indeed a transformational drought. The culminating effects of large numbers of stock on the land, high dependence on these stock ,and cumulative droughts have spelled disaster for so many, and left them wondering what the future of their proud culture will really be.


FOR FULL REPORT INCLUDING PHOTOGRAPHS AND DATA PLEASE VISIT

http://www.amboseliconservation.org/amboseli-drought-2009.



COMPARISONS WITH AMBOSELI

As illustrated in David Western’s recent article on the impact of this drought on the Amboseli ecosystem (http://www.amboseliconservation.org/amboseli-drought-2009), wildlife populations, particularly the wildebeest and zebra, in the Amboseli ecosystem have collapsed over the past few months, on an unprecedented scale.

‘Nearly 15,000 animals have died of starvation since early this year. Wildebeest numbers fell from over 6,000 to fewer than 150, zebra from some 7.000 to 1,500 and buffalo from 600 to 185. Large numbers of elephant and many hippos have also died. Most of those losses occurred the three months between September and November. The proportional losses are among the biggest recorded anywhere in recent times… The Maasai, realizing the severity of drought, moved their cattle herds as far as Nairobi, Naivasha and the coast in Kenya, and into neighboring Tanzania. Despite the huge exodus in search of pasture, questionnaire surveys conducted by the African Conservation Center and ACP put the cattle losses among pastoralists in the region at 75% or more.’ (D. Western, December 4, 2009).

David Western illustrates that the causes of the mass mortality in Amboseli stem from a long-term decline in habitat diversity (with the woodlands and swamps declining in abundance and forage in particular), a build-up in grazing animals, the steady depletion of swamp grazing, a severe shortage of rain in 2008, and the failure of the long rains in 2009.

By the same token, it is the high habitat diversity, in particular the large swamp and abundance of woodland and bushland, that has saved the South Rift wildlife populations (and the sheep and goat populations) from suffering the same fate as those of Amboseli.

In both areas, cattle make up the largest proportion of biomass on the land, or did. In both regions, despite the mass movements between and across the Southern Rift area and beyond, reports of cattle mortality are severe. A more accurate comparison will be possible when the remaining herds return to both regions. It is clear though that livestock did not escape the fate of the drought in either area.

It appears that the South Rift population of the sub-species of wildebeest (Eastern white-bearded) found in both ecosystems may well now be the largest in the entire region. As those involved in the rehabilitation and future of Amboseli decide on what to do, they may well look to the South Rift for possible solutions.

REPERCUSSIONS

Ecological:

Recruitment for wildlife populations will take some time, given the loss of all the juveniles, but given the relatively low losses in general, the population of wildlife should recover fairly soon. Given that there is now fewer livestock in the area, this may mean an expansion in overall wildlife numbers in the coming decade, as the cattle herds take time to rebuild.

Social:

The social repercussions of this drought are already being felt. With the high levels of stress within the community, bitterness and anger as well as increasing poverty has led to such extremes as suicide. In other cases, it has led to family arguments, unfair accusations towards herders (either family or employees), and overall concern about the future of pastoral livelihoods and culture.

Education has suffered; the future of the young pastoralists will become more difficult and uncertain.

Decisions will need to be made from the household level to the group ranch level as to how to move on from such loss and devastation. This may lead to a change in land-use within the area, with more people turning to agriculture to support themselves. This will create more pressure on key resources such as land and water. Increased reliance on alternative sources of income such as wildlife may occur.

LESSONS LEARNED

• Habitat heterogeneity is vital. Maintaining key drought refuges such as swamps and woodlands should be a key conservation priority. Maintaining a balance between key species, such as elephants and people, assists with maintaining this heterogeneity.

• Monitoring of ecosystems is essential to understanding the processes which contribute to their success and/or failure.

• Pastoralism is at a transformational crossroads.







THE FUTURE

Looking forward at a time like this only leads to more questions. As a starting point for discussion the following questions need to be addressed:

• What will the lack of cattle biomass in the ecosystem mean?

• What will be the resulting changes in wildlife numbers, vegetation composition and structure, human social networks and patterns, land use choices and human/wildlife conflict?

• What do we need to make a priority in the South Rift in terms of conservation of resources?