Lewa shares its boundaries with three Community Conservancies: Ngare Ndare, Il Negwesi and Laparua. The Masaai are comfortably in control of Ngare Ndare and Il Negwesi. Laparua is another matter. It is a multi-cultural Conservancy that includes nearly equal numbers of Masaai, Samburu, Turkana, Borana and Somali. Most of the time, community elders are proud of their multi-ethnic success and committed to smoothing over long-standing cultural flash points; but not always.
For over three years there have been good rains in northern Kenya. Herd sizes are way up. The jutting hips and scrawny ribs typical of pastoralist cattle are softened by layers of fat. Semi-nomadic families have rooted, confident that their livestock can find fodder nearby. No one is starving.
This is about to change.
Cattle are plentiful and looking good.
The spring rains came on schedule in early March. The grass sprang to life and the dams and rivers swelled. But it was over way too soon; the rains stopped a full six weeks early. The grass is brittle and turning gray, its nutrients being leached away by the equatorial sun. Some watering holes are already empty. A modest rock visible during the rainy season in the middle of Lewa’s largest dam is now an island big enough for two hippos and a flock of birds. It will not rain again until late October. A drought has come.
During the 2009 – 2011 drought, between 70% and 90% of the pastoralist livestock died. Some starved, others perished when the rains returned and hypothermia sapped the life from their depleted and weakened bodies. This year herders know their livestock have less than two more months of food. After that, two to three months of starvation. Community elders are scouring the landscape for grass, fanning out for hundreds of kilometers to find fodder. Roaming bands of Moran (warriors), armed with semi-automatic rifles, are herding their cattle, sheep and goats onto restricted land, exclusion zones and national parks, willing to risk warfare to keep their animals alive.
Community elders go out to inspect the grass.
In this environment, Lewa’s dense grass draws herders and cattle to its six foot high electric fences like moths to a flame. Three years ago Mike Watson, Lewa’s CEO, terminated Lewa’s practice of allowing community cattle onto the Reserve during the dry season because elders and herders refused to adhere to modern bunch grazing practices. They allowed their cattle to meander through the grass, nibbling here and there, taking the good stuff but not staying in any one place long enough to reduce the biomass and refresh the land. Today Mike is under intense political pressure to open the gates. Recently he decided that Lewa would accept 1,200 cows if the herders agreed to graze their cattle according rules established by Lewa’s Chief Conservation Officer: the cattle would be consigned to strips of land set off by low electric fences and then bunch grazed until the section was thoroughly “mowed” and trampled. Once that happened, the fences would be moved and the process repeated.
About a week ago, leaders from the three Conservancies – who, strangely, all happened to be Masaai — assembled at Lewa to determine if they were willing to accept Mike’s conditions. They wanted to view the bunch grazing and negotiate how many cattle would come from each conservancy.
Inspecting the electric fence.
We all loaded into trucks and headed out to where my (NRT Trading’s) 300 cattle have been bunching grazing for a couple of weeks. Were they healthy? What did the grass look like? How did the electric wires work? The elders wandered through the grass, examining the vegetation, poking the dung and stooping to determine its contents to judge the animal’s health. They gathered by the electric wire and inspected the fence’s solar panel and batteries and, when NRT Trading’s cattle returned from the watering hole, they walked into the herd, slapping rumps, assessing gaits. Then it was time for a meeting. The elders walked off 50 yards and convened in a circle. Hands started waving. After about 20 minutes, those of us standing in the sun suggested that it was time for the meeting to end. Pastoralist meetings can go on forever because there is no official facilitator, everyone takes part, and most topics are rehashed at least four or five times.
The elders confer.
The elders returned. The gist of their message was “We’re satisfied with the grazing practice and will agree to Lewa’s rules. However, we think you should allow only Masaai cattle onto Lewa. We do not want our livestock bunch grazing with Samburu cattle or Turkana cattle or Somali cattle. We do not trust them. We do not want them by our cows.” Forty-five minutes of wrangling didn’t change their minds; in times of impending drought, clan allegiance still trumps Conservancy agreements.
Fortunately for the future of the NRT Conservancies, neither Mike Watson nor Mike Harrison (NRT’s CEO) conceded to these demands. If you want your cattle on Lewa, they said, each community must receive its fair share of the 1,200 cattle. More meetings ensued and for days elders came and went from the NRT board room, negotiating who got what. An agreement was finally reached, Kenyan style, and 1,200 multi-ethnic cows – mostly breeding females and young weaners – will ride out the drought bunch grazing between electric wires on Lewa.
A Masaai who plans ahead. His family set aside and protected grass for the dry season. See the difference.
Hi Anne and John, Thanks once again for the informative and hopeful post. The night the cows were slaughtered by the lions gave me nightmares, and I thought of how easily a lion might have attacked a human instead of a cow. Glad you are intact and happy. Much love, Beryl
Thanks for another good post. Hopefully the long rains come early.
Maybe you could send this article to Congress and they could be introduced to the concept of compromise as a process to finding a solution. Currently they seem to behave like a couple tribal clans fending only for themselves. Sorry to talk politics but the post said grass politics and it doesn’t seem that different to me.