Findings and Analysis

The level of knowledge, attitude and practice with regard to climate change is a fundamental criterion in assessing the adaptative capacity of a community and determining its future. Almost all (95 per cent) of the respondents in Loima are aware of both the changing and variable climate and its impacts, and there is no significant gender or age difference in the level of awareness. They have noticed changes in rainfall patterns and the intensity of the droughts. ‘There are changes because there are times when it rains and there are times when it doesn’t rain. In the past whenever we would see clouds it would rain. These days we can even go for three years without rain’ (Female FGD participant, aged 37 years). The rains have become more erratic and variable, and it does not rain as expected, which has had an impact on their livelihoods. They have noticed the increased intensity and severity of droughts, and the participants indicated how each successive drought is seen as the most severe they have witnessed, until the next one occurs – so the severity continues to increase, with rising temperatures that are often unbearable, as narrated by a 45-year-old male FGD participant.

The increased frequency of droughts does not give the community time to recover and so they are trapped in a vicious cycle of food and water insecurity (Figures 8.2. and 8.3), which then erodes their livelihoods, leaving them more vulnerable. They said that even though in the past they had experienced severe droughts, which would kill all their livestock, they were able to bounce back by restocking. This is because after the drought there would be enough rains for pasture and water for the livestock to reproduce and replace what had been lost.

However, in the last three decades there have been persistent successive droughts, and then when it rains it results in massive floods that cause a lot of damage. As illustrated by a 67-year-old female FGD participant: ‘There was a very severe drought recently when we lost several people and livestock; thereafter it rained so heavily causing floods that drowned people and livestock. Since then we have not received any rain’.

The members of the community in Loima employ various strategies to enable them to cope with the impacts of climate change. These include migration in search of pastureland and water for livestock (Figures 8.2 and 8.3) or relocating to urban areas in search of employment; engaging in petty business such as weaving, charcoal burning and broom making; and relying on relief food. The strategies employed are not only gender-specific but are at times determined by age and marital status. The young unmarried men often migrate into urban areas to be employed as casual labourers or drive bicycle or motorcycle taxis known as boda bodas. Weaving, which is predominantly done by the married women, is the activity that most people are practicing (34 per cent) livelihood in Loima. The main source of raw material for weaving is the leaves of the Doum palm tree, which grows well in hot dry climates and is found along the Kalawase, Kerio, and Turkwell Rivers and around Lake Turkana. The Doum fruit is an important source of food when there are droughts since it is a perennial crop. The dominance of weaving (34 per cent) as a major source of livelihood1 Prior to the 1980s, weaving baskets, mats, and roofing material in Turkana was mainly for subsistence purposes. However, since the 1980s, weaving has become commercialized and is organized by women’s groups; some woven products have markets not only outside the county but also in Europe and North America, generating a steady income for the women. for women is not in tandem with their traditional productive roles in small-livestock keeping. With increasing frequency and severity of climate extreme events resulting in the death of cattle, men are gradually taking over the production of small livestock from their female counterparts. Although pastoralism is no longer dominant, it is still the second most frequent (25 per cent) livelihood practised by married men that are 40 years of age and above. Pastoralism as a major source of livelihood is under threat because the pastoralists are no longer able to migrate as much as they used to from place to place in search of pasture and water for their livestock because of the privatization of communal land, as narrated by a 63-year-old female FGD participant:

Both men and women (16 per cent of those between 18 and 60+ years of age) burn charcoal for a living. According to a 36-year-old male FGD participant: ‘We go into the forest, and we cut down the trees that are dry and we burn charcoal from them’. Others go down to the riverbeds to plant vegetables which they sell to restaurants in the more urbanized parts of the county. The shift from a pastoral economy to alternative livelihoods can be seen as a response strategy to minimize the risks of extreme climate events. On the other hand, the cutting down of trees and overgrazing lead to a decline in biodiversity, which is crucial for rural ecosystem future resilience. Overdrawing from water sources to meet immediate needs can deplete aquifers and surface water, reducing water availability in the long term.

There is also a relatively small proportion (8 per cent) of people who do not practise any form of livelihood – 60 per cent of whom are elderly widows and 30 per cent elderly widowers. They indicated that they have been unable to recover from the impact of successive climate extreme events that have eroded their pastoral livelihoods. The hopelessness of the elderly, who have no source of income, is aptly stated by an elderly male FGD participant: ‘We look up to the government for aid because it is the only institution that can be our source of help because we cannot depend on the rain’. The challenges faced by this group reflect the interplay of gender, age, marital status, and type of livelihood in exacerbating vulnerability. The proportion of those who do not have any form of livelihood is bound to increase, affecting the elderly widows and widowers. The reality of vulnerability of the elderly is reflected in the naming of some of the extreme climate events. In the FGDs, the participants narrated how the flooding event in 2007 got its local name: ‘Lomaale is the name of an elderly man who was carried away by the floods … the floods were named after him, because he was killed by these floods and all his property was also carried away’. As Dankelman (2002) points out, droughts have devastated the already limited resources to which men and women have access, thereby aggravating gender inequality and poverty.

The importance of early-warning systems in increasing the resilience of communities to the current and projected impacts of climate change cannot be over-emphasized. The main sources of climate information in Loima include the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD),2 Since 2013, all counties in Kenya have county meteorological offices which are responsible for the dissemination of county-specific weather forecasts. National Drought Monitoring Authority (NDMA), nongovernmental organizations, and Emurons (traditional forecasters). The Emurons use goat entrails to predict expected rainfall, droughts, conflicts with other communities, and livestock and human disease epidemics. The KMD disseminates weather forecasts through the local radio stations but also separately shares this information with NDMA and NGOs, who repackage it and share it with communities via bulletins, barazas (community meetings), participatory scenario planning (PSP) workshops,3 PSP workshops are part of an ongoing effort to integrate scientific seasonal forecasts from KMD with indigenous knowledge. and mobile-phone messages. The findings indicate that 61 per cent, 25 per cent, and 14 per cent of the respondents rely on the radio, Emurons, and NDMA/NGOs for climate early-warning information, respectively. Regardless of their gender, the youthful and literate population and those who are not dependent on climate-sensitive livelihoods like pastoralism prefer the KMD forecasts, bulletins and phone messages. The youth also use their own knowledge of the environment to predict the weather. This is common among the youth (18–40 years) and does not appear to have a specific gender bias, as illustrated by female and male FGD participants.

Both the middle-aged and elderly men and women, and particularly those that rely on climate-sensitive livelihoods such as pastoralism, weaving, and charcoal burning, prefer to get their early-warning information from the Emurons and elders. The pastoralists especially are more dependent on the Emurons because traditional forecasts not only predict the weather but also give warnings about impending disease epidemics, potential livestock raiders, and conflicts, which together constitute more holistic and important information for the survival of pastoralism. ‘There are seers who can make prophesies of what will happen. They can say when there will be a disease epidemic, livestock raiders, rain and drought’ (Participant 7, Female FGD, 55 years).