美国国家公共电台 NPR As The Climate Changes, Kenyan Herders Find Centuries-Old Way Of Life In Danger

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Kenya's Rift 1 Valley has played a fundamental role in the evolution of humanity. For centuries, nomadic 2 herders have relied on the vast expanses of grass in order to survive. But recently, all that grass has died. As part of our look at how climate change is impacting people around the world, NPR's Eyder Peralta reports now on a changing way of life.

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE 3: Out here, the landscape looks like Mars - red clay, rocks and, in the distance, a mountain so bare it looks like a giant boulder 4. Still, nomadic herders walk an hour or two to bring their animals to this dam, where the water mixes with mud and turns into a dark brown color.

Stephen Long'uriareng is 80. She used to have eight cows, but six of them died because they didn't have enough to eat.

STEPHEN LONG'URIARENG: (Speaking Pokot).

UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: OK. She's saying that when she was married at 20s, the whole place used to be green with a lot of pasture. There was nothing being experienced like drought.

PERALTA: James Tukay, who is standing 5 just a few feet from her, is only 45. But he has seen drought after drought.

JAMES TUKAY: (Speaking Swahili).

UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: He's saying that he cannot even explain what is going on. He cannot even understand why the climate is changing.

PERALTA: He points to the mountaintops in the distance. He points to the dark clouds slung 6 on top of them. He can see the rain. And he can feel it, he says. But it never falls here.

That - I have to say, that has to be heartbreaking.

TUKAY: (Speaking Swahili).

UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: It's so heartbreaking, but they have no option. They have nothing to do. But they just survive.

PERALTA: Pastoralists have been roaming these parts of Kenya for centuries. And all these years, not much has changed. All the progress of the cities in Kenya has mostly skipped people here. Only about 3 percent have electricity, and more than half of the population is not formally educated. That means that for a lot of people here, herding 7 is the only way they know how to survive.

Caroline Mwongera is a scientist at the Center for Tropical Agriculture in Nairobi. She has found that in this region, temperatures have risen, rainfall has decreased and there is now a drought once every three years. Mwongera says this is analysis that covers decades of data.

CAROLINE MWONGERA: So we see that this is a trend that's not a one single event. It's just not about the weather. It's really a climate change event.

PERALTA: Mwongera says one of the reasons that the effects of climate change are so visible around here is because this was a tough environment to begin with.

MWONGERA: So if you compound the effect of climate change on that, then you have high impact, and people can feel that more strongly than in other regions.

PERALTA: Not only that, says William Okira, the county's minister for agriculture and livestock 8, but people have made climate change worse. He says there has been a lot of overgrazing. And as animals started to die, herders cut down trees to make and sell charcoal 9. That meant erosion, and it allowed for the growth of thorny 10 bushes. It meant the place went from a typical African savannah to an arid 11 brush land.

WILLIAM OKIRA: So we are now trying to see, how do we change this environment to be able to sustain this livestock?

PERALTA: The bottom line, he says, is that traditional nomadic grazing, what people here have been doing for centuries, will not work anymore. So herders have to adapt.

OKIRA: We are not telling them to go into camel-keeping. And instead of now waiting for the natural grass to grow, we do some clearing of the bush and do tilling and then plant pasture.

PERALTA: Back in the field, the herding continues. Rael Korkapel has had to walk her animals to a well so they can drink. But as this drought has extended into yet another rainy season, she says even her goats are going hungry.

RAEL KORKAPEL: (Speaking Pokot).

PERALTA: "This is a harsh life." But at 65, she says she has never seen anything like this. She always thought her children and her grandchildren would grow up herding. But she's now ready to give up. If she has to fence in her cows, she'll do it. If she has to turn to farming, she'll do it. To her, it's a matter of survival.

Across the way, my interpreter and I meet Jane Lotulia.

JANE LOTULIA: (Speaking Swahili).

UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: She's saying that they're not the meteorological department or God, but they're really sure this place will completely be dry simply because the times have changed.

PERALTA: Lotulia's cows have died, too. And now she's just herding goats. Most of the people here are surviving off of government food aid. Her friend Pauline Korkapel, however, says she can't imagine any kind of exotic grass will take here. And she can't really imagine selling produce at a market.

PAULINE KORKAPEL: (Speaking Swahili).

UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: Many of us, we don't focus so much in business. We are only cattle keepers. And we were born to be cattle keepers, so we cannot change.

PERALTA: As we talk, I hear a bit of commotion 12 behind us.

(CROSSTALK)

PERALTA: Everyone starts walking up a hill, so I follow.

So right now we're walking on a dusty path. They've told us that there's some cows just along the way that have died because of hunger.

(SOUNDBITE OF FLIES BUZZING)

PERALTA: When we get there, we find one carcass inside a half-destroyed hut.

LOTULIA: (Speaking Swahili).

PERALTA: Jane says the cow was so hungry, it ate the roof of the hut. This happens a lot. The cows destroy huts in the middle of the night, and the dry grass makes them sick.

LOTULIA: (Speaking Swahili).

PERALTA: "This is a tragedy in a place like this," she says, "because that cow is food. It means survival."

Her friend Pauline stares at the dead cow. She says, if they keep doing what they are doing, they might end up just like her. Eyder Peralta, NPR News, West Pokot County, Kenya.