Mobile Phone Technology and Natural Resource Access in the Drought Prone Samburu

County, Kenya

A thesis presented to

the faculty of

the Voinovich School of Leadership & Public Affairs

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Master of Science

Jeremiah O. Asaka

May 2014

© 2014 Jeremiah O. Asaka. All Rights Reserved. 2

This thesis titled

Mobile Phone Technology and Natural Resource Access in the Drought Prone Samburu

County, Kenya

by

JEREMIAH O. ASAKA

has been approved for

the Program of Environmental Studies

and the Voinovich School of Leadership & Public Affairs by

Thomas A. Smucker

Assistant Professor of Geography

Mark Weinberg

Director, Voinovich School of Leadership & Public Affairs 3

Abstract

ASAKA, JEREMIAH O., M.S., May 2014, Environmental Studies

Mobile Phone Technology and Natural Resource Access in the Drought Prone Samburu

County, Kenya

Director of thesis: Thomas A. Smucker

Drought is a major problem for pastoralists living in the arid and semi-arid lands of northern Kenya (Schilling & Remling, 2011). Livestock mobility is a key drought coping strategy that Samburu pastoralists employ in a bid to manage their ever-changing environment (Handley, 2012; Galvin, 2009; Easterling et al, 2007). Since beginning of the 21st Century, mobile phone technology has spread quickly across Kenya including the arid and semi arid lands of the northern part of the country. Like most Kenyans, pastoralists have adopted mobile phone technology for a variety usage and purposes

(Butt, 2014 in press; FAO, 2013). This thesis focuses on 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods with an aim of finding out how use of mobile phones by Samburu pastoralists has influenced livestock mobility as a drought coping strategy. The study documents changes in the geography of drought refuge areas between 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods.

It establishes that Samburu pastoralists are indeed using mobile phone technology as part of their livestock mobility strategy, but that the impact of the technology on how they cope with drought is dependent on their existing social networks. Further, relative to use of mobile phone technology, the study finds that over-arching drivers of change including violent conflict, reduction in herd size, and livelihood diversification were the primary 4 drivers of the observed changes in geography of drought refuge areas between 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods.

5

Dedication

To the Samburu people who grapple with impacts of recurrent drought and decades of

marginalization.

6

Acknowledgements

In writing this thesis so many people and institutions have been of great help but it would be impossible to acknowledge each one of them individually in this short section. However, I am forever indebted to all those who through their varied assistance made it possible for me to successfully complete this work.

First, I wish to thank Ohio University for granting me a graduate research assistantship appointment and travel grant, which was instrumental in making this a success. In particular, I wish to thank Professor Geoff Dabelko, Director of

Environmental Studies program at Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at

Ohio University, for his mentorship and interest in my work. I am forever indebted. I also thank all the staff of the Environmental Studies program, especially Lorraine McCosker,

Cheryl Hanzel and Dr. Natalie Kruse for their assistance and words of encouragement.

Thanks as well to Scott Miller and Steve Porter of the Voinovich School for their invaluable assistance.

Second, I wish to specially thank Dr. Thomas Smucker, Assistant Professor at the

Department of Geography at Ohio University for accepting to chair my thesis committee and for being my advisor. His assistance and advice, especially the ideas reflected at the various stages of the study are invaluable. I also wish to thank the other members of my thesis committee, Prof. Dabelko – already mentioned above – and Dr. Edna Wangui,

Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography at Ohio University. Without them, there would be no thesis worth writing home about. 7

Third, I wish to unreservedly thank all my informants in the field for sharing their ideas free of charge and in a friendly manner. In the same breath, I want to thank my field assistant, Mr. Bosco Lekaaso and his two companions Mr. Francis Kamwana and Mr.

James Scoo. They received me so well in Maralal and made sure I got a good place to stay. In connection with this, I wish to also specially thank Miriam Winkel, Director of

Samburu Empowerment through Education and Development. Her help in giving me background information about Samburu County and seconding one of her staff to serve as a field assistant will forever remain in my heart.

Fourth, I wish to thank the Government of Kenya and in particular the National

Council for Science and Technology for issuing me with a research permit. In connection with this, I wish to thank Kenyatta University and in particular the geography department for granting me a visiting graduate fellow status, which was also central in my research being cleared. I am particularly grateful to Prof. Chris Shisanya, Dean of the College of

Humanities, Prof. Leonard Kisovi, Chairman of the Geography department and Prof. Joy

Obando, Professor at the Geography Department in that order.

Fifth, I want to sincerely thank my mum, dad and siblings for their love, prayers and words of encouragement throughout the period of this work. In the same breath, I wish to thank my friend, Maurice Kodo, who offered to host me in his house for all the days I stayed in Nairobi.

Finally, I unreservedly and sincerely thank my wife, Jennifer, for her invaluable support throughout the period of this work.

8

Table of Contents

Page

Abstract ...... 3 Dedication ...... 5 Acknowledgements ...... 6 List of Acronyms ...... 11 List of Tables ...... 12 List of Figures ...... 13 Chapter 1: Introduction To The Theoretical Background And Contextual Issues Of The Research ...... 14 1.0 Introduction ...... 14 1.1 Rationale ...... 14 1.2 Purpose Of The Study ...... 15 1.3 Research Questions ...... 16 1.4 Significance Of The Study ...... 16 1.5 Theoretical Framework ...... 17 1.6 Literature Review ...... 19 1.6.1 Defining Pastoralism ...... 19 1.6.2 Evolving Land Tenure System In Samburu County ...... 25 1.6.3 Drought ...... 31 1.6.4 Impacts Of Drought ...... 33 1.6.5 Coping With Drought: How Pastoralists Cope With Drought ...... 36 1.6.6 Movement Of People And Livestock In North Kenya ...... 40 1.6.7 Major Drought Policies And Programs In Kenya ...... 42 1.6.8 Mobile Phone Technology ...... 44 1.7 Overview Of The Study ...... 49 Chapter 2: Study Area ...... 51 2.1 Samburu Central District ...... 51 2.2 Physiographic And Natural Conditions ...... 53 2.2.1 Topographic Features ...... 53 2.2.2 Soil ...... 53 9

2.2.3 Climate ...... 54 2.3 Population Profile ...... 56 2.4 Human Migration ...... 58 2.5 Physical Infrastructure ...... 58 2.5.1 Roads ...... 58 2.5.2 Housing ...... 59 2.5.3 Electricity ...... 59 Chapter 3: Methodology ...... 60 3.1: Introduction ...... 60 3.2 Research Paradigm ...... 60 3.3 Research Design ...... 61 3.4 Sampling ...... 64 3.4.1 Sampling Methods ...... 64 3.4.2 Selection Of Research Participants ...... 65 3.5 Data Collection Methods ...... 67 3.5.1 Key Informant Interviews ...... 67 3.5.2 Focus Group Discussion ...... 67 3.5.3 Mapping With GPS ...... 69 3.5.4 Photography ...... 70 3.5.5 Secondary Data ...... 70 3.6 Data Analysis ...... 70 3.7 Ethical Issues ...... 71 3.7.1 Institutional Review Board Approval ...... 71 3.7.2 Research Clearance Permit ...... 72 Chapter 4: Geography Of Drought Refuge Areas ...... 73 4.1 Introduction ...... 73 4.2 Seasonal Grazing Patterns Of The Samburu Of Tamiyoi ...... 73 4.2.1 Wet Season Grazing ...... 75 4.2.2 Dry Season Grazing ...... 77 4.2.3 Drought Period Grazing ...... 78 4.3 Distribution Of Drought Refuge Areas ...... 78 10

4.4 Mapping The Drought Refuge Areas ...... 79 4.4.1 Criterion For Mapping Major And Minor Drought Refuge Areas ...... 80 4.4.2 Mapping 1999 Drought Refuge Areas ...... 81 4.4.3 Mapping The 2009 Drought Refuge Areas ...... 87 4.5 Summary Of The Findings ...... 93 Chapter 5: Mobile Phone Technology And Livestock Mobility ...... 95 5.1 Introduction ...... 95 5.2 Livestock Mobility ...... 96 5.2.1 Movement Of Livestock From Manyatta To A Drought Refuge Area ...... 97 5.2.2 Movement Of Livestock From One Drought Refuge Area To Another ...... 100 5.2.3 Role Of Mobile Phone Technology On Changing Livestock Mobility ...... 103 5.3 Other Over-Arching Drivers Of Change ...... 107 5.3.1 Duration Of Drought ...... 108 5.3.2 Violent Conflict ...... 109 5.3.3 Livelihood Diversification ...... 112 5.3.4 Reduction In Herd Size ...... 113 5.4 Summary Of Findings ...... 115 Chapter 6: Conclusion ...... 117 6.1 Introduction ...... 117 6.2 Summary Of Findings ...... 117 6.3 Study Limitations ...... 118 6.4 Broader Significance Of The Study ...... 119 6.5 Opportunities For Further Research ...... 120 References ...... 122 Appendix 1: Practicality Of Mobile Phone Use In Samburu County ...... 136 Appendix 2: Samburu Settlement ...... 140 Appendix 3: Kenya Counties Map ...... 142 Appendix 4: Map Of Samburu County Forests ...... 143

11

List of Acronyms

ASALs Arid and Semi-Arid Lands

CCK The Communication Commission of Kenya

FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GFDRR Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery

GOK Government of Kenya

IGAD Intergovernmental Authority on Development

ILRI International Livestock Research Institute

IRIN The Integrated Regional Information Networks

KFS Kenya Forest Service

Km Kilometer

KNBS Kenya National Bureau of Statistics

KRCS Kenya Red Cross Society

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

NFD Northern Frontier District

NCST National Council for Science and Technology

NDMA National Drought Management Authority

SMS Short Messaging Service

TRMM The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission

UNDP United Nations Development Program

UNEP United Nations Environment Programme 12

List of Tables

Page

Table 1: Average monthly total rainfall for Samburu County (location: 1.375, 37) for long and short rainfall periods………………………………………………………...55

Table 2: Rural population distribution by sex, number of households, area and density………………………………………………………………………………….57

Table 3: Urban population distribution by sex, number of households, area and density…………………………………………………………………………………. 57

Table 4: Major drought refuge areas used during the 1999 drought period…………….82

Table 5: Minor drought refuge areas used during the 1999 drought period…………….82

Table 6: Distribution of 1999 drought refuge areas across different land cover types …85

Table 7: Major drought refuge areas for 2009…………………………………………...87

Table 8: Minor drought refuge areas for 2009…………………………………………...87

Table 9: Distribution of 2009 drought refuge areas across different land cover types ….91

Table 10: Number of drought refuge areas per land cover type…………………………93

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List of Figures Page

Figure 1: A map of ASALs in Kenya………………………………………………….23

Figure 2: A map of the livelihood zones of Samburu County…………………………30

Figure 3: A satellite image of dry Ewaso Nyiro River during the 2009 drought………34

Figure 4: A picture showing a mixed crop garden of cowpeas and maize in Tamiyoi...39

Figure 5: An administrative map of Samburu County showing the location of Samburu

Central District………………………………………………………………………….52

Figure 6: Historical (1998-2012) monthly total rainfall for Samburu County………….55

Figure 7: An illustration of the research design showing the dominant qualitative method and less-dominant quantitative method as used in this study……………………………63

Figure 8: Donkeys grazing alongside goats in Tamiyoi village…………………………76

Figure 9: An elder in Tamiyoi community moving livestock to a dry season grazing zone………………………………………………………………………………………77

Figure 10: A map of drought refuge areas used by Tamiyoi community members during the 1999 drought period………………………………………………………………….84

Figure 11: A map of drought refuge areas used by Tamiyoi community members during the 2009 drought…………………………………………………………………………89

Figure 12: A photo of two Samburu bomas……………….……………………………140

Figure 13: A Samburu manyatta………………………………..………………………141 14

Chapter 1: Introduction To The Theoretical Background And Contextual Issues Of The

Research

1.0 Introduction

This chapter introduces the thesis through a discussion of the rationale of the study, research, theoretical framework and review of relevant literature among other things. The chapter is divided into eight sections. Section one provides the rationale of the study.

Section two, three and four provide the purpose of the study, research questions and significance of the study respectively. Section five and six details the theoretical framework and a review of relevant literature respectively. The chapter closes with section seven that gives an overview of how the whole thesis is organised.

1.1 Rationale

Recurrent drought presents a major challenge to the livelihoods of the pastoralist communities of Kenya. One of the biggest challenges is natural resource access – especially access to pasture and water resources – during periods of drought, which in most cases forces them to move across the country in search of these resources for their livestock. Numerous studies have looked at the impacts of drought on communities living in the dry lands of Kenya and the coping mechanisms used by these communities (e.g.

Boruru et al, 2011; Blackwell, 2010; Homewood et al, 2009; Smucker & Wisner, 2008;

Fratkin, 2004; Little et al, 2001; Roth, 1996; Salih, 1995 and Bake, 1989). However, due to the ever-changing nature of their environment, pastoral communities in Kenya always find themselves taking on new or improving on already existing coping strategies.

Moreover, despite livelihood diversification herd mobility is still central to pastoralists’ 15 livelihoods. This study therefore is concerned with finding out how pastoralists in Kenya and in particular the Samburu have used mobile phones to enhance herd mobility as a key drought coping strategy.

Until the end of the 20th Century, the Samburu had depended purely on word of mouth as the primary means of communication during drought situations. It involved travelling – sometimes covering long distances – by foot to convey information. Such form of communication is characterized by time wastage and risk of attack by wild animals, as messengers would walk through wilderness. However, things are now a lot different because Samburu pastoralists like the rest of Kenyans have access to mobile phone technology and use mobile phones for a variety of ways including communication, money transfer and storage.

1.2 Purpose Of The Study

The foremost purpose of this study is to highlight and provide a deeper understanding of the influence of mobile phone technology on drought coping among the

Samburu pastoralists, particularly how the Samburu use mobile phones to enhance their ability to access pasture and water resources during drought periods through the livestock mobility strategy of coping with drought.

The second purpose of the study is to document changes in the geography of drought refuge areas used by the Samburu pastoralists. By looking at the drought refuge areas used by the Samburu pastoralists during the 1999-2000 and 2009 droughts, this study provides an in-depth analysis and discussion of the reasons behind the changes in the geography of drought refuge areas. 16

Ultimately, the study provides field based evidence on how pastoralists use of mobile phone technology is influencing their drought coping strategies and in particular herd mobility, which is important to policy makers concerned with formulating development policies aimed at climate change proofing the pastoralist communities of

Kenya’s ASALs.

1.3 Research Questions

This thesis seeks to answer the following questions:

i. How and why did the geography of drought refuge areas change within the past

ten years?

ii. What role has the use of mobile phone technology played in the changing patterns

of access to drought refuge areas?

1.4 Significance Of The Study

This study provides field based evidence of the change in the geography of drought refuge areas used by Samburu pastoralists during drought periods. It goes further to provide reasons for such changes and particularly provides a detailed analysis and discussion of field based evidence on the role played by mobile phone use in enhancing the pastoralist community’s resilience to climate variability and environmental change.

According to the literature leading up to this thesis, there is hardly any academic field based research work on this area of study and as such the study contributes immensely to the growth of knowledge in the area. Particularly, findings of the study offer insight to development practitioners and anthropologists on how the impact of mobile phone 17 technology on drought coping among the Samburu pastoralists is influenced by existing social networks based on trust and kinship.

Moreover, pursuant to the terms of the research permit that was issued for this study by the Kenyan government, a copy of the thesis will be submitted to Kenya

National Council for Science and Technology (KNCST) on the successful completion of this thesis. The study findings and recommendations will inform future national and county government policies focused on tackling the impacts of climate variability and particularly drought management in the ASALs of Kenya.

Considering that this thesis is part of a requirement for a Master of Science degree in Environmental Studies at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and

Public Affairs, the new knowledge on how use of mobile phone technology by pastoral communities enhances their resilience to climate variability and environmental change is a significant contribution to the field of Environmental Studies.

1.5 Theoretical Framework

Mobile phone technology has been characterised as revolutionary by development practitioners and academics alike (FAO, 2013; Mbiti & Aker, 2010; Stammler, 2009). In the eyes of these development actors and scholars, mobile phone technology is seen as a developmental panacea that has the ability to facilitate transformation and/or help leapfrog rural communities onto a path to better living conditions. While it is true that the adoption and use of mobile phone technology by various groups across the world is impacting how those groups interact within themselves and between each other and further how those groups interact with their environments in certain cases like rural 18 pastoral communities relying on mobile phones to search for pasture and water resources

(Butt 2014 in press), the development literature that predominantly characterise mobile phone technology as revolutionary relies heavily on technological determinism arguments (Butt 2014 in press; Goguen, 2004). Using a technological determinism theoretical framework to establish how mobile phone technology impacts, for example, pastoral societies is not wrong per se. However, the problem with relying on such a framework is that it tends to ignore the underlying social factors that make such impacts possible in the first place. By underplaying and in some extreme cases completely ignoring the underlying social factors (e.g. trust issues in the case of mobile phone technology’s impact on information sharing) such approaches risk misrepresenting the true reality of how mobile phone adoption and use plays out in pastoral societies.

It is against such a backdrop that this thesis has adopted a social determinism theoretical framework (MacKenzie & Wajcman, 2012; Law, 2007; Alder, 2006; Latour,

2005; Goguen, 2004; Kline & Pinch, 1996; Pinch & Bijker 1984) to establish how mobile phone technology impacts natural resource management and in particular livestock mobility strategy among the pastoralists of Samburu Central District. Specifically, the thesis employs the social construction of technology (SCOT) approach (Kline & Pinch,

1996) to establish that existing relations based on kinship and trust determine how mobile phone technology impacts Samburu pastoralists resource management strategies and by extension their ability to cope with drought conditions. As Adler (2006) points out, any given technological impact is dependent to some extent on the social context within which it exists and/or it is being used. “The social context will encourage or discourage 19 the technology’s adoption, and, if the technology is adopted, the social context will have important effects on how the technology is used and thus on its ultimate impact” (Adler,

2006). Moreover, Butt (2014 in press) provides that “technology and media scholars have also suggested that new technologies don’t transform existing social relations but rather new social relations transform existing social relations, and that new technologies simply become the vehicles for these transformations” (Burrell 2010, Burrell and Anderson 2008 as cited in Butt, 2014 in press).

Additionally, considering the interdisciplinary nature of this study and its human- environment relationship focus, it reflects some of the broad concerns of a political ecology approach in its focus on the resource access dynamics at play in Samburu

County. According to Little (2002), political ecology as a framework through which to study resource access issues is helpful in weaving together different disciplines and has contributed considerably toward understanding the social and political processes underlying resource access in savanna areas. Specifically, the broad concerns of political ecology are evident in the analysis of dynamics of Samburu pastoralists’ resource access and how new technologies and in particular mobile phone technology fits in as a catalytic element.

1.6 Literature Review

1.6.1 Defining Pastoralism

Pastoralism has been defined as a form of agricultural production system focused on livestock production and where at least 50% of gross income comes from the sale of animals or trade in animal products; or where at least 15% of households’ food 20 consumption involves milk or dairy products produced within the system (IUCN, 2006;

Swift, 1988). Presently, pastoralism has evolved to incorporate crop farming and other economic activities like wage employment (Fratkin, 2001). In most parts of the world, pastoralism represents a particular activity within regions where more diverse economic activities are pursued (Galaty & Johnson, 1990). The pastoral option may guarantee the autonomy of a domestic group, or may be pursued as a regional specialization, as a conscious strategy of providing animal products to others within a system of reciprocal dependence (Ibid). Pastoralism is distinguished from livestock ranching by the fact that herds are taken to pasture and water, rather than having grass brought to them, and by the fact that human herders rely more on their animals primarily for milk rather than for beef or sale (Fratkin, 1991; Fratkin, 2004). As a food production system for the subsistence of the household group (rather than mainly commercial production for market), the goal of pastoralism is to produce adequate milk, meat and blood for their households’ diet, build up numbers of breeding females to insure against loss, and produce enough animals for trade as well as social obligations such as bride wealth, ritual consumption and stock alliances (Fratkin, 1991). Actually, few pastoral communities live exclusively on livestock products, and they supplement their milk and meat diet with grains, tea and sugar (purchased by the sale or trade of animals, skins, milk, meat or cheese), particularly when milk supplies are low (Ibid). As Boruru et al (2011) point out, some pastoralists who live in regions with favourable weather and soil conditions do practice crop farming albeit for subsistence. 21

Kenya is home to an estimated four million pastoralists constituting more than 10 per cent of the population (Oxfam, 2008); they are a relatively disempowered population in a country predominately made up of settled agriculturalists and urban dwellers

(Fratkin, 1991). The major pastoral groups include the Maasai, Samburu, Turkana, Pokot,

Rendille, Orma, Somali, Borana and Gabbra (GOK, 2004). Some agro-pastoral communities include the Nilotic Kipsigis, Nandi and Tugen, and the Bantu speaking

Kamba, Embu, Meru and Taita (Musimba & Nyariki, 2003). The majority of pastoral communities in Kenya inhabit the northern rangeland districts of Turkana, Samburu (now

Samburu County), Isiolo, Wajir and Mandera, while the southern rangelands of Kajiado and parts of Narok are also typical pastoral districts (Ibid). The semi-arid districts of

Machakos, Kitui, Tharaka-Nithi and Mbere in the Eastern lowlands represent areas characterized as agro-pastoral districts, while the Tana River and Taita Districts of the coastal hinterlands are characteristic agro-pastoral areas (Musimba & Nyariki, 2003).

In early 2013, the Kenyan government through the Ministry of State for

Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands launched the Sessional Paper No.

8 of 2012, which is a national policy aimed at closing the development gap between

Northern Kenya and the rest of the country, protecting and promoting the mobility and institutional arrangements that are essential for productive pastoralism and ensuring food and nutrition security in these regions where unpredictability of weather conditions is expected to increase as an impact of climate change (GOK, 2012a). The arid and semi arid lands (ASALs) account for 89% of Kenya’s land (See figure 1.0), are home to 22 approximately 14 million people and approximately 70% of the national livestock herd

(Ibid).

For over four decades, Kenya’s national development agenda was guided by

Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965, which stated that “one of our problems is to decide how much priority we should give in investing in less developed provinces. To make the economy as a whole grow as fast as possible, development money should be invested where it will yield the largest increase in net output. This approach will clearly favour the development of areas having abundant natural resources, good land and rainfall, transport and power facilities, and people receptive to and active in development” (GOK, 2012a).

This resulted in systematic marginalization of the ASAL regions because they did not meet the above set criteria and therefore were considered less productive in an economic sense. The change in the government position came out of the realization that although the ASALs are not highly productive in agricultural terms, they are really not wastelands.

They have huge tourism and mineral potential not to mention the million-dollar livestock industry they already support. According to IGAD (2013) and KNBS (2012), livestock contributes 45% of Kenya’s agricultural GDP, which in turn accounts for 24% of the country’s GDP. The recent discovery of oil and water in Turkana County in the

Northwestern region of the country only serves to corroborate the fact that Kenya’s

ASALs are not wastelands (BBC, 2013; IRIN, 2012). 23

(Source: GOK, 2004)

Figure 1: A map of ASALs in Kenya

24

Apart from the endemic marginalization and subsequent underdevelopment,

Kenya’s ASAL regions are characterized by recurrent drought episodes that usually result in devastating impacts on the pastoralist communities inhabiting these regions. As

Downing (1989) contends, “drought is a characteristic element of the environment of

Kenya and has affected agriculture, the economy, social organization and ultimately and sometime tragically, people in Kenya many times.” The United Nations Environment

Programme adds that major droughts in Kenya occur every ten years and minor ones every three to four years, triggered by a shortfall in precipitation (UNEP & GOK, 2000).

Some of the major droughts of the 20th and 21st Century in Kenya include 1960-61, 1968-

69, 1973-74, 76, 1979-1981, 1984-85, 1987, 1992-1994, 1996, 1999-2000, 2006, 2009,

2011 (FAO, 2000; Fratkin et al, 2011; GFDRR, 2014).

As inhabitants of the ASAL regions of Kenya, pastoral communities have developed coping strategies that enable them to manage the extreme climatic variability prevailing in these regions. Such strategies include livestock mobility, livelihood diversification, herd diversification, sale of livestock and reciprocity (McCabe, 1990;

Little, 2001; Boruru et al, 2011; Fratkin et al, 2011).

Some scholars and practitioners argue that technology has the potential of enhancing pastoralists’ coping mechanisms and making them even more resilient (Butt,

2014 in press; FAO, 2013; IRIN, 2013; Stammler, 2009). According to a recent report by

IRIN, “…climate change-related challenges can be managed through the adoption of technology and by keeping communities abreast of weather patterns. But relaying weather forecasts through print and electronic media and television has meant that this 25 information does not reach people like pastoralists. And the information available is often imprecise” (IRIN, 2013). A recent United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation

(FAO) report stressed the potential of mobile phone technology to encourage innovation in the livestock industry, while reporting that pastoralists and veterinarians in Kenya have taken to the use of mobile phone technology to issue quick alerts of possible disease outbreak and track vaccination campaigns (FAO, 2013).

1.6.2 Evolving Land Tenure System In Samburu County

The land laws of Kenya give provision for three types of land ownership namely private, public and community (GOK, 2012b). All public land is under the management of the National Land Commission, which manages such land on behalf of the County and

National Governments (Ibid). Private land is managed privately while community land is managed communally usually by a management committee (as is the case with group ranches) and in accordance with all applicable laws. All these forms of land ownership can be found in Samburu County. But there is more public and community land than there is private land in the County. This can be attributed to both colonial and post- colonial legacy.

During the colonial period (1895-1963), Samburu County (formerly Samburu

District) was part of the larger Northern Frontier District (NFD), an area that was essentially closed off from the rest of the country in order to serve as a buffer zone between Kenya and Ethiopia to the north (Lesorogol, 2008). In this arrangement, the security agenda took center stage at the expense of the progress and well being of the local inhabitants of the NFD region. 26

1.6.2.1 Grazing Schemes

According Lesorogol (2008), all land in the Samburu area was declared Crown land in 1915, meaning that it became the property of the British Empire. However, the

Samburu people were not evicted and they continued to stay on the land as nomadic pastoralists without much interference until in the 1930s when schemes for controlling grazing were introduced in some parts of the district (Lesorogol, 2008). The agenda behind the grazing schemes was to curtail environmental degradation supposedly coming from overgrazing of the land by the large herds of livestock belonging to the Samburu people. With the coming of the grazing schemes, access to land became controlled by a foreign government for the first time in the history of the Samburu people (Lesorogol,

2008).

While grazing schemes were in effect in Samburu County (formerly Samburu

District) during 1950s, moves toward private ownership of land were proceeding apace in other parts of the country (Lesorogol, 2008 pg. 43). These culminated in the Swynnerton

Plan of 1954 that established individual freehold title to land as the norm in Kenya

(Lesorogol, 2008 pg. 43-44). It was acknowledged by government (colonial and post- colonial) that individual land ownership did not make sense in the arid rangelands

(Lesorogol, 2008 pg. 44). Instead, the Swynnerton Plan recommended expansion and intensification of the grazing schemes together with improved marketing channels to increase the off-take of stock and keep numbers below what was considered the carrying capacity of the land (Ibid). These recommendations were further developed after independence in 1963, where rather than continue with government control-controlled 27 grazing schemes, the post-independence period saw the birth of the concept of group ownership of the rangelands commonly referred to as group ranches (Lesorogol, 2008).

1.6.2.2 Group Ranch System

Group ranches transferred rights in land from the government to the residents of pastoral areas through a process of registration of ranch members (Lesorogol, 2008 pg.

45). With assistance from the World Bank and a consortium of donors, group ranches were established in the arid and semi-arid rangelands, starting in the 1960s with the

Maasai districts (Ibid). The group ranch system was formulated with following objectives: to increase the productivity of pastoral lands through increased off take; improve the earning capacity of pastoralists; avoid possible landlessness among pastoralists in case large tracts of land were allocated to individual ranchers; avoid environmental degradation due to overstocking on communal lands; and establish a livestock production system that would allow modernization or modification of livestock husbandry and still preserve many of the traditional ways of life without causing social friction or an abrupt break with traditional ways of life (Ng’ethe, 1992).

The process was extended to Samburu District and several other districts in the country in the 1970s and was guided by the Land Adjudication Act (Chapter 284)

(Ng’ethe, 1992; Lesorogol, 2008). As Lesorogol’s study of land adjudication in Samburu

District revealed, the law gave leeway through which individuals could own private land even in the rangelands (Lesorogol, 2008). So there are few instances in Samburu County where individuals own private land but majority of the land is owned by the Central and

County governments and the Samburu pastoralist community under the group ranch 28 system, which would pass for a hybridization of individual and communal freehold land ownership under the Kenya Land Act of 2012.

Land tenure is a determining factor in the success or failure of pastoralism as a land use system. Pastoralism requires a land tenure system that guarantees the free movement of livestock from places with low pasture availability to those with relative abundance.

Water availability is also a determining factor for livestock mobility in pastoralism.

Group ranches are probably best suited to serve pure pastoralism as a land use system than most other non-communal land ownership arrangements would. However, the changing nature of pastoralism in Kenya is presenting new realities that may alter the norm as far as the significance of group ranch system to the pastoralist communities is concerned. More people from the pastoralist communities are settling and adopting such practices as crop farming and taking up salaried employment (Fratkin, 1991; Salih, 1995;

Little, 2001; Boruru et al, 2011; Fratkin et al, 2011). The foregoing means that an increasingly large proportion of members of the pastoralist community are ditching the communal way of life and adopting a more individually focused one. This is especially common in areas where crop farming is taking root and major urban centers like Maralal and its environs where this study was conducted.

The impact of group ranching on the livelihood security of an ever-changing pastoralist lifestyle is a subject worthy of further research. The dominant government policy seems to favour the promotion of crop farming among the pastoralist communities living in the relatively wet regions of Kenya’s ASALs, which includes high altitude regions of Samburu. Whereas such a policy may be well intentioned, its success may as 29 well be tied to how well crop farming blends in with livestock farming in a group ranch land ownership arrangement. As Thornton et. al, (2006) point out, over the last thirty years livestock-to-human ratios have generally declined to levels that will no longer support pure pastoralism.

The foregoing means that many pastoralists are diversifying into crop farming, wage labour and business. Crop farming in these areas is generally a private affair and private ownership of land would be a motivation for an individual to be innovative with the kind of crop farming method he/she adopts and even how large they farm. Group ranch subdivision can be one way of guaranteeing this. However, as evidenced by group ranch subdivisions that have taken place in certain parts of Kenya, there is a great deal of consequence that comes with subdivision (Ng’ethe, 1992; Thornton et al, 2006). A key one being the loss of pure pastoralism and the culture that goes with it. But as Thornton et. al (2006) point out in their study of the impact of group ranch subdivision on livelihood security among the Maasai community living in Kajiado District, the impact of subdivision on livelihood is not uniform but varies from place to place. The study further reveals that areas with relatively good weather conditions are more resilient to the effects of group ranch subdivision than are areas with poor weather conditions (Thornton et al,

2006).

This complexity in land ownership has direct effect on pasture and water resource access right for the inhabitants of these regions. Considering that most government land is either under protected forests or game parks, and that most private land is on the relatively wet and fertile areas of the ASALs, pastoral community’s land is mostly found 30 within the drier and usually low lying regions. As a result pastoralists have over the years taken to unauthorized grazing in these protected areas especially whenever drought occurs (Butt, 2011).

(Source: NDMA Maralal Office, June 2013)

Figure 2: A map of the livelihood zones of Samburu County1

1 Samburu District became Samburu County following Kenya’s adoption of a new constitution in 2010, which changed the country’s governance structure. 31

The foregoing means that in case of unfavourable climatic variability, the pastoralist communities are more likely to be hard hit than private landowners or the government and be forced to move their livestock in search of pasture and water.

According to a study on climate variability and flexibility in resource access in Northern

Kenya, long distance mobility is higher in drought years only in those communities with greater spatial and seasonal variability of vegetation (McCarthy & Gregorio, 2003).

1.6.3 Drought

In this section, I discuss drought in the context of pastoralists’ livelihood and wellbeing. The section discusses frequency of drought, impacts of drought, and management of drought both at the community and national level. To this end the section outlines various community coping strategies and goes ahead to outline major government policy and programs focused on addressing drought menace. This is necessary because it helps with contextualizing and understanding drought impacts and coping strategies of the pastoral communities living in the ASALs of northern Kenya and in particular it brings out the centrality of livestock mobility as a drought coping strategy among pastoral communities.

According to Smucker (2012), there is no single universally accepted definition of drought as various disciplinary perspectives on drought exist and people’s vulnerability to drought varies considerably across the geographical spectrum. For example, how meteorologists define drought defers considerably with how hydrologists define drought.

While meteorologists view drought as an extended period of below normal long-term average precipitation, hydrologists see drought in terms of deficiency in surface and 32 subsurface water supplies relative to the normal conditions (Smucker, 2012). Moreover,

Smucker (2012) further adds that agricultural drought is primarily defined based on the impact of meteorological drought on crops and forage production while in development studies drought is defined in terms of its socio-economic impacts on affected communities. For purposes of this study, drought is looked at through a combined meteorological and agricultural lens and thus defined as a protracted period of severely deficient precipitation resulting in acute shortage of pasture and water resources, total crop failure and loss of livestock and the resultant socio-economic impacts.

In the first decade of the 21st Century, Kenya experienced very intense bouts of drought that ravaged most of the country’s ASALs prompting a government declaration of drought as a national disaster (Smucker & Wisner, 2008). According to the United

Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, drought is a reality in the mostly arid and semi-arid Horn of Africa and has been recorded from as far back as 253 B.C (FAO,

2000). In the last 30 years there has been at least one major drought episode in each decade, a fact that is consistent with the local Samburu way of predicting drought (FAO,

2000, italics mine). According to the narratives given to me by Samburu elders during the fieldwork, they believe a serious drought strikes their community after every ten years.

Drought is a characteristic element of the environment of Kenya and has affected agriculture, the economy, social organization and ultimately and sometime tragically, people in Kenya many times (Downing et al, 1989). As Smucker (2012) provides, dry climates do experience a greater degree of temporal and spatial variability of rainfall and are therefore termed drought prone. Kenya is prone to cyclic droughts with 33 major ones occurring every ten years and minor ones every three to four years, triggered by a shortfall in precipitation (UNEP & GOK, 2000). Major droughts of the 20th and 21st

Century in Kenya include 1960-61, 1968-69, 1973/74, 76, 1979-1981, 1984-85, 1987,

1992-1994, 1996, 1999-2000, 2006, 2009, 2011 (FAO, 2000; Fratkin et al, 2011;

GFDRR, 2014).

1.6.4 Impacts Of Drought

1.6.4.1 Impact On Water And Pasture Resources

In the ASALs, water is primarily derived from surface and sub-surface sources.

During wet seasons, livestock and people get water from open surface water in natural watercourses and ponds; during the dry seasons, they rely on hand-dug wells that reach as deep as 20 meters (Bake, 1989).

The impact of drought on water resources can be viewed in terms of water volume; time spent searching for water; competition over water resources; and water quality.

Drought has the impact of reducing water volume in the surface and sub-surface water sources that agro-pastoralists depend on. For example, in 2000 Samburu District had a water deficit of 12, 710 m3/d because of the severe drought experienced in that period

(UNEP & GOK, 2000). And in 2009, the Ewaso Nyiro River (see figure 3) flowing down from Mount Kenya to water the dry plains that stretch east from the Great Rift Valley in

Kenya wasted and then went dry as the region sank into severe drought (Handley, 2012;

NOAA, 2009). 34

(Source: www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/)

Figure 3: A satellite image of dry Ewaso Nyiro River2 during the 2009 drought.

Time spent looking for water increases tremendously during drought periods as water volume reduces and supplies gets scarce. In the 2000 drought for instance, the pastoralists in Baringo had to drive their animals as far as 30 km every few days since pasture and water were rarely to be found in the same place (UNEP & GOK, 2000 pg.

2 “The dry river bed is exposed in this true-color image, captured by the Advanced Land Imager on NASA’s EO-1 satellite on September 27, 2009. The arid landscape is tan and orange with darker shades of brown where rock is exposed. The tiny dark green and black dots scattered across the region are trees. The densest clusters of trees are, unsurprisingly, near the rivers, particularly the Ewaso Nyiro. The river itself is a pale tan ribbon of sand. On the right side of the image, a tiny dark line of water trickles through the river. The water appears to be flowing into the Ewaso Nyiro from the Keromet River” (NOAA, 2009).

35

27). Additionally, the women in Baragoi area of Samburu County, left home as early as

3a.m. to fetch water from the river and it took them 18 to 24 hours to get the water home

(UNEP & GOK, 2000 pg. 28).

Water scarcity resulting from drought situation usually leads to increase in competition over water resources. According to UNEP & GOK (2000), the 2000 drought caused serious competition over water resources, which often led to conflicts. In arid and semi-arid areas, the shortage of water coupled with the shortage of pasture, fuelled conflict between rival groups (UNEP & GOK, 2000; Mwaura & Schmeidl, 2002). Most of the rivers in the arid and semi-arid land areas, like Ewaso Ng’iro and Turkwell, arise from high potential areas where there is high water usage in particular, irrigation (UNEP

& GOK, 2000). During drought periods, farmers who inhabit the upstream areas of the river(s) use most of the water leaving almost nothing for the pastoral communities downstream.

In terms of water quality, drought leads pastoral people to share the scarce water sources with their animals and in case of pools of water, this usually result in water contamination. Focusing on the 2000 drought, UNEP & GOK (2000) asserts that ‘the drought contributed to the deterioration of water quality in both surface and groundwater.’ This means the increased vulnerability of affected communities to outbreaks of hygiene related diseases like cholera and diarrhea.

1.6.4.2 Socio-Economic Impacts Of Drought

Drought often exacerbates social and economic problems. In most dry lands that also form the base of pastoralism in Kenya, drought leads to loss of livestock, loss of 36 crops (in the case of agro-pastoralists) disruption of normal life and as is most cases it leads to famine and starvation that leaves children malnourished, other times even resulting in loss of life. In the past, drought has had an almost crippling effect on Kenya’s economy. For instance, during the 1999-2000-drought period, the GDP growth rate decreased from 1.4 per cent in 1999 to 0.7 percent for the same period in 2000 (UNEP &

GOK, 2000). The following elaborates further the socio-economic impacts of drought in

Kenya:

In arid and semi-arid lands areas, where the main economic activity is

pastoralism, the 1999-2000 drought caused a large number of livestock deaths. As

the drought continued, more and more people dropped out of pastoralism and

either depended on food aid or settled in peri-urban areas in search of

employment. In the high potential areas, crop failures reduced income levels. As a

result, there was an increase in high school dropouts as parents failed to pay

school fees and children went to work on coffee farms to subsidise the family’s

income. Several schools in the drought stricken areas closed as few or no pupils

showed up due to hunger as a result of lack of food at the household level. Some

schools only stayed open because of the school-feeding programme. – (UNEP &

GOK, 2000 pg. 21 italics mine).

1.6.5 Coping With Drought: How Pastoralists Cope With Drought

The pastoral communities of northern Kenya live in harsh and very demanding environment and often live on the brink of survival (Huho et al, 2011). In spite of the harsh conditions, pastoral communities have managed to cope with climate variability by 37 employing an array of short and long-term strategies that help them cope with recurrent bouts of drought (Ouma et al, 2012). As Downing (1989) points out, a key component of the pastoralists’ drought coping strategy is the ability to move herds to make the best possible use of vegetation reserves, water resources and sporadic rainfall. Some other strategies that pastoralists rely on include but are not limited to herd diversification, digging of shallow wells along dry river beds, sale of livestock during drought and restock in wet season and livelihood diversification.

1.6.5.1 Herd Mobility

Herd mobility refers to the movement of herds from a place of water and pasture scarcity to one of relative abundance. It can involve the movement of livestock alone while the rest of the community stays behind or it may involve the movement of the entire community together with livestock as is common among nomadic pastoralists.

Whichever form the mobility takes, it usually involves covering relatively long distances depending on the severity of the drought and proximity of the next available drought refuge area. In most cases, the drought refuge areas are in government-protected zones such as national parks and forests (Butt, 2011). In most cases the access to these areas is illegal, but in some cases they get government’s permission to access these areas (Mkutu,

2006 as cited in Huho et al, 2011).

1.6.5.2 Herd Diversification

Herd diversification entails the keeping of more than one variety of livestock

(Boruru et al, 2011). As Swallow (1993) points out, “by keeping more than one species of livestock pastoralists are able to generate a wider variety of livestock products, harvest 38 more of the available forage, use different environmental niches, and generate livestock output in different seasons.” Cattle and sheep are usually less drought resistant as compared to goats, camels and donkey. A related study conducted in Turkana in 2012, found that “sheep and cattle are more sensitive to droughts than other livestock species.

By comparison, goats, donkeys and camels are more resistant to drought-induced stresses. While camels are more resistant to drought, the gestation period of goats and sheep is short thus they breed rapidly and as a result recover very fast” (Ouma et al,

2012). According to Boruru et. al (2011), Samburu people learnt the practice of rearing camels from their Somali neighbours and now use camel in a multifunctional manner including milk and meat production, transportation, provision of blood, and as a source of hides and skins.

1.6.5.3 Livelihood Diversification.

Pastoral livelihood diversification is defined as the pursuit of any non-pastoral income-earning activity in both urban and rural environments (Little et al, 2001; ILRI,

2000 as cited in Ouma et al, 2012). This definition includes any form of trading occupation (for example, selling milk, firewood, animals, eggs or other products); wage employment (both local and outside the area including working as herder, farm worker and migrant labourer); retail shop activities; rental property ownership and sales; gathering and selling wild products (for example firewood and medicinal plants); and crop farming as well as bee keeping (Little et al, 2001 italics mine). By taking up these additional livelihood sources, which in most instances – apart from crop farming – are not dependent on the weather conditions, pastoral communities living in Kenya’s dry 39 lands get to cushion themselves against the impacts of climate variability. For instance, among the Samburu of northern Kenya, the income from wage labour allows relatively wealthy households to maintain and expand their livestock holdings, while the same allows relatively poor household to stay viable (Sperling, 1987 as cited in Swallow,

1993).

Figure 4: A picture showing a mixed crop garden of cowpeas and maize in Tamiyoi

1.6.5.4 Reciprocity

According to Roth (1996), pastoralists also rely on the strategy of reciprocity to help their next of kin or members of their social network who as a result of drought have lost all or majority of their livestock stay viable. This is normally achieved by way of the 40 less impacted members of the social network donating a proportion of their herd to those members who have experienced complete or near complete loss to ensure that they can continue to support their families. On a related but rather different strategy, some pastoralists also do sell their livestock to avoid complete loss during drought period and then use the money to restock when conditions are favourable. However, most of the time such sale of livestock takes place when drought has greatly weakened the animals and thus they do not usually fetch a good price at the markets.

1.6.6 Movement Of People And Livestock In North Kenya

Movement of people and their livestock in the northern arid lands of Kenya has been going on for the longest time. As Handley (2012), points out during colonial times such movements were restricted by regulations that required people to register and reside in certain places reserved for local African population. In these periods coping with drought through livestock mobility, meant that pastoralists had to seek grazing permission from colonial administrative officers to move into areas with relative abundance of pasture and water resources but in which they were not registered to reside

(Handley, 2012). As Lesorogol (2008) points out, all land in the Samburu area was declared Crown land in 1915, meaning that it became the property of the British Empire.

However, the Samburu people were not evicted and they continued to stay on the land as nomadic pastoralists without much interference until in the 1930s when schemes for controlling grazing were introduced in some parts of the district (Lesorogol, 2008). The agenda behind the grazing schemes was to curtail environmental degradation supposedly coming from overgrazing of the land by the large herds of livestock belonging to the 41

Samburu people. With the coming of the grazing schemes, access to land became controlled by a foreign government for the first time in the history of the Samburu people

(Lesorogol, 2008). The establishment of grazing schemes considerably affected pastoral people’s mobility in general considering nomadism was the most common form of pastoralism among most of the northern Kenya pastoral communities.

However, when Kenya gained independence in 1963 the grazing schemes that restricted movement of pastoralists was replaced with a new system of land tenure called the group ranch system. Group ranch system allowed pastoral communities to own land collectively and to a large extent re-establish their pre-colonial time movement strategies that largely relied on social relation as a conduit for gaining access rights to pasture and water resources in times of drought. While the change in land tenure system served to revamp the mobility strategy of pastoral communities, national government of Kenya after independence and following terrible bouts of drought including the now infamous

1984 drought that devastated most parts of the country and in particular the pastoral regions, embarked on a development agenda aimed at sedentarizing pastoral communities in the arid and semi-arid regions of the country. As Handley (2012) asserts, mobility in northern Kenya has been greatly affected by the development policy and work spearheaded by government and international non-governmental organisations. Such kind of development initiatives include the promotion of child education (which drains the community of warani who are relied upon to provide the work force necessary to effect livestock mobility), implementing a livelihood diversification strategy that focus on settled living accompanied by keeping of fewer livestock herds (Galvin, 2009), and 42 overseeing a land adjudication process that allows for the subdivision of pastoral land into privately owned parcel of land (Lesorogol, 2008; Galvin, 2009) that compromises the very tenet of pastoral livestock mobility, which is that it relies on an open access regime of resource ownership to be effective.

In spite of all these challenges, livestock mobility still remains a key strategy for pastoral communities that inhabit the arid and semi-arid parts of Kenya (Handley, 2012;

Easterling et. al, 2007).

1.6.7 Major Drought Policies And Programs In Kenya

Drought is not a recent phenomenon in Kenya (Schilling & Remling, 2011). As already mentioned in the previous sections of this chapter drought forms the character of most of the country considering that 89% of Kenya is considered arid and semi-arid

(GOK, 2012a). Over the years, government and its development partners have implemented major relief aid programs aimed at helping communities living in drought stricken areas cope with drought. According to ILRI (2007), “one of the earliest substantial institutional efforts came in the form of a World Bank funded, GOK initiative dubbed the Emergency Drought Recovery Project (EDRP).” This project was operational from 1991 to 1996 and focused on drought recovery efforts in Turkana, Marsabit,

Mandera, Wajir and Tana River, which were the most affected regions (then Districts) during that period (ILRI, 2007).

Through the implementation of the Emergency Drought Recovery Project, it was apparent that short-term interventions do not have significant effect on reducing the vulnerabilities of communities that inhabit the ASALs. Therefore, to reduce their 43 vulnerabilities and enhance their resilience, a long-term approach is better. Based on the foregoing, the government with the aid of World Bank initiated the Arid Lands Resource

Management Project (ALRMP), which according to ILRI was a 15-year three phased project implemented by the Office of the President (ILRI, 2007). ALRMP was instrumental in the development of a drought early warning system and initiation of several livelihood support programs across the ASAL regions of Kenya.

Based on the success of the long-term approach relative to the short-term approach,

Kenyan government embarked on a national agenda aimed at mainstreaming drought management in the country. The country’s economic blueprint, vision 2030, recognizes the need to develop the ASALs, an enterprise that cannot succeed if drought management is not taken seriously. Subsequently, at the close of the ALRMP in 2010, the government established a national institution charged with ensuring that drought emergencies are kept at minimum level and that climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives are rolled out.

The National Drought Management Authority born out of the Drought

Management Directorate is Kenya’s official drought management institution established under the State Corporations Act (Cap 446) of the Laws of Kenya by Legal Notice

Number 171 of November 24, 2011 (GOK, 2011). However, it was not until 2013 that it became fully operational following the appointments of a chief executive officer (GOK,

2013a) and chairperson of its board of directors (GOK, 2013b).

The establishment of the NDMA is a great step forward in drought management in

Kenya. A major strength of NDMA is the fact that it operates independent of the politics 44 of the day – EDRP and ALRMP were both implemented through the office of the

President. This ensures that service delivery transcends individual government regimes, which is an important development because lack of political good will has been a key hindrance in the drive to emancipate ASAL communities.

Drought management in Kenya is based on a drought cycle management approach and NDMA uses an early warning system, which leads up to the production of monthly region specific bulletins detailing the situation of drought mainly in the ASAL counties of the country. The early warning system employed by NDMA was developed by

ALRMP and uses a combination of local knowledge and scientific advancement to predict the likelihood of drought occurrence in any given District – but mainly ASAL districts like Samburu Central District. The efficacy of NDMA and the drought early warning system or rather its impact so far on preparedness, mitigation and adaptation by affected communities can be a subject for future research considering the institution is just starting out.

1.6.8 Mobile Phone Technology

This section of the thesis addresses the mobile phone technology bit of the research topic. It looks into the spread of mobile phone technology across Africa and in particular

Kenya. The section concludes by discussing how the penetration of mobile phone technology into the remote areas of Kenya where pastoralists’ are found is influencing how they manage their environment characterised by drought and livestock disease outbreaks. The section is aimed at putting mobile phone technology into the context of 45 pastoral societies, which will be essential in the discussions of chapter 4 and 5 of this thesis.

1.6.8.1 Growth Of Mobile Phone Technology

Across Africa, mobile phone coverage has grown tremendously over the past decade (Mbiti & Aker, 2010; Butt 2014 in press). For instance, while only 10 percent of the African population (mainly North and South Africa) had mobile phone coverage by

1999, a record 447 million people (60% of African population) had coverage a decade later (Mbiti & Aker, 2010). In economic terms, the mobile industry in Africa contributes

US$56 billion to the regional economy, equivalent to 3.5% of total GDP (Butt, 2014 in press).

In Kenya, the growth of mobile phone technology has been phenomenal as well.

According to the Communication Commission of Kenya, as of March 2012, mobile phone penetration in Kenya was at 75.4 per cent up from 74 per cent in the 2011 (CCK,

2012). According to the World Bank, Kenya is now a leading player in the use of mobile phone technology for development (World Bank, 2012). The mobile money transfer application – M-Pesa3 – developed and run by Safaricom has had far reaching impacts on the hitherto unbanked majority of Kenya’s rural folks and the urbanites alike. Introduced in 2007, M-Pesa facilitates a variety of financial transactions for its users, such as purchasing airtime, transferring money and paying bills (Mbiti & Aker, 2010). Since its inception, the cumulative value of the money transferred via M-Pesa was over US$3.7

3 M-Pesa: M stands for Mobile, while Pesa is Kiswahili for Money 46 billion – almost 10 percent of Kenya’s annual GDP (Safaricom, 2009 as cited in Mbiti &

Aker, 2010).

1.6.8.2 Pastoral Society And Mobile Phone Technology

Debates on the unprecedented growth of mobile phones and its potential impact on societies across the globe have been going on for over two decades now. As Butt (2014 in press) points out, the interaction between technology and society can be understood through a technological deterministic or social deterministic approach. The former holds that technology shapes society (Adler, 2006) while the latter argues that society is an autonomous force that changes technology (Tillberg-Webb & Strobel, 2013 as cited in

Butt 2014 in press; Goguen, 2004). According to Goguen (2004), social and technological determinism theories can each be viewed as a continuum; where at one end of the continuum either is one influence among many, and not an absolute determinant.

While on the other end either is a force that is sufficient by itself – dominant and irresistible. However, the two foregoing theories are forms of reductionism that greatly simplify the interaction between technology and society to an extent that they most of the time fail to capture the complex, evolving and context sensitive relationship between social and technological factors (Goguen, 2004).

Since the beginning of the 21st Century, the spread of mobile phone technology across Kenya has been impressive. The impressive and unprecedented growth in mobile phones across Kenya is the result of several factors including liberalization of telecommunication industry, low cost of buying mobile phone gadgets and cheap calling/exting rates (Jack et al, 2010; Mutungi, 2010; Butt, 2014 in press). According to 47

Butt (2014 in press), liberalization of telecommunication industry in Kenya has led to aggressive mobile phone infrastructural development (building of more base stations) in rural areas along with top notch marketing strategies including “competition among different vendors who craft attractive pricing structures and payment options.” As a result there has been a great leap forward in communication across the country and in particular the rural areas where communication was previously hampered by poor infrastructure or complete lack thereof.

A recent Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) report stressed the potential of mobile phone technology to encourage innovation in the livestock industry, while also reporting that pastoralists and veterinarians in Kenya have taken to the use of mobile phone technology to issue quick alerts of possible disease outbreak and track vaccination campaigns (FAO, 2013). And according to UNDP (2012), mobile technology is starting to have indelible impact on human development and other development areas such as agriculture, employment, crisis prevention and the environment. Mobile technologies can help reduce information gaps and restrictions inherent in market places where consumers and producers have little means of comparing commodity prices between distant markets, establish networks of communication during crisis as well as help keep people abreast with information regarding, for example, weather patterns (UNDP, 2012).

A case in point is the M-Pesa service launched by Safaricom in 2007. “This service allows users to deposit money into an account stored on their cell phones, to send balances using SMS technology to other users (including sellers of goods and services), 48 and to redeem deposits for regular money” (Jack et al, 2010). The service spread quickly across the country and has been embraced both by the urbanites as well as the rural people because it facilitates convenient, safe storage and transfer of money (Ibid).

According to Jack et al (2010), by 2009 a stock of about 7.7 million M-Pesa accounts had been registered.

The expansion of mobile phone technology into the rural areas has seen the arid and semi-arid lands based Kenya’s pastoral communities embrace the technology as well.

According to Butt (2014 in press), “the ones sensationalized sight of herders using mobile phone has now become common place.” Use of mobile phone in arid and semi-arid lands has not been restricted only to the pastoral communities. Non-Governmental

Organisations working in these regions were among the first groups to embrace the technology. As Banks & Burge (2004) point out, mobile phone technology is being applied to an increasingly wide range of human activities and environment in which we live. For example, Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) an

NGO operating in Samburu County recently piloted a project aimed at mapping all the water points within Samburu County (ACTED, 2012). The NGO deployed the mobile phone Nokia Data Gathering (NDG) technology to record key qualitative data from an extensive survey of water points and then mapped them onto an interactive online map. It worked in partnership with members of the local pastoral communities; government authorities and other NGOs involved in water and sanitation interventions within the

County. 49

And according to a recent report by IRIN, “…climate change-related challenges can be managed through the adoption of technology and by keeping communities abreast of weather patterns. But relaying weather forecasts through print and electronic media and television has meant that this information does not reach people in remote rural areas like the pastoralists. And the information available is often imprecise” (IRIN, 2013 italics mine). The foregoing not withstanding, NDMA currently publishes monthly early warning bulletins both electronically and on paper, which in most cases are largely inaccessible to majority of the pastoralists because of sheer remoteness of their location or language barrier due to the fact that the early warning bulletin is published in English, while the literacy level in Samburu County stand at 12% (Lanyasunya et al, 2012). In the face of these challenges, employing mobile phone technology has the potential of enhancing the dissemination of drought early warning news. Likewise, pastoralists’ use of mobile phones has the potential of enhancing their drought coping strategies and further strengthening their resilience to environmental changes in their habitat.

1.7 Overview Of The Study

The thesis is organized into six chapters. Chapter 1 has detailed the theoretical framework of the thesis, study rationale, research questions and a review of relevant literature. Chapter 2 describes the study area. Chapter 3 discusses the methodological framework of the study and the rationale for using a mixed-method approach in conducting the research. Chapter 4 presents the findings from the data collected in relation to the first part of the first research question. The chapter presents the results on how drought refuge areas changed between the 1999 and 2009 drought periods, and goes 50 further to give a discussion of the same. Chapter 5 presents the findings from data collected in relation to the second part of question one (that focused on why drought refuge areas changed) and question two. The chapter discusses the impact of Samburu pastoralists’ use of mobile phone technology on how they cope with drought. In particular, the chapter discusses such impacts in relation to livestock mobility as a drought coping strategy. Chapter 6 then presents the conclusion based on the results and analyses of chapters 4 and 5.

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Chapter 2: Study Area

2.1 Samburu Central District

Samburu Central District is one of the three administrative Districts found within

Samburu County (See figure 5). It is situated in the Southwestern part of the County. The

District falls under the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands of Kenya. Administratively, it is divided into two divisions of Lorroki and Kirisia and 46 sub-locations.

The settlement patterns in the district are determined by various factors such as climate, soil fertility and infrastructure. Kirisia has the largest number of people because of its good climate, fertile soils and many upcoming trading centers. Ng’ari group ranch where this study was conducted shares a boundary with Maralal town on one hand and

Kirisia forest on the other hand. Tamiyoi village, which was the study’s specific area of focus lies between 10-15 kilometers from Maralal town depending on what side of the village one is looking at.

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Figure 5: An administrative map of Samburu County showing the location of Samburu

Central District.

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2.2 Physiographic And Natural Conditions

2.2.1 Topographic Features

Samburu Central District is located on the northern interface between highlands and lowlands. Suguta Valley is positioned on the extreme west of the District. Fault escarpments bound its sides and red clays, boulders and gravel fans cover the floor. The valley is characterized by beach terraces, which give evidence that it was once part of

Lake Turkana. High-level plateaus built by repeated floods of lava from the Rift Valley dominate the eastern part of the valley. Kirisia rising to 2,000 meters above seal level forms the highest point of the plateau. The lava fields form a very thin layer of soil, which hardly support any vegetation.

2.2.2 Soil

Samburu Central District is predominantly covered by Sandy loam soils. The volcanic hills of Lorroki Plateau are covered by shallow dark-to-dark brown rocky and stony soils especially to the north. In the Southwest and high altitude areas where rainfall is above 600 mm per annum the soils are comparatively deep. Topography, rock types and vegetation cover among other factors influence the distribution and development of soil.

Kirisia Division is predominantly covered by sandy loam and sandy clay soils, mostly lithosol (shallow stony soils) and cambisoils. In the areas covered by lithosols water run-off is common and erosion quite prevalent.

Lorroki Division is also predominantly covered by sandy loam soils. The soils are will-drained phaezems. However, some parts of the division are covered by shallow 54 lithosols, including areas surrounding Suguta Marmar where the risk of flooding is classified as medium. The lithic phase of the soils encourage run-off during periods of high precipitation.

2.2.3 Climate

Samburu Central District experiences a fairly erratic rainfall pattern varying significantly both in time and space. However, the District experiences both short and long rains. The driest months are January and February. The long rain season falls in the months of March, April and May. Short rains are experienced during the months of

October, November and December. However, this pattern varies considerably every year with the short rains sometimes succeeding a fairly dry period during the months of June,

July, August and September. While other times the driest period extends into March and the long rains delay till early April and then extend way into the month of June. In terms of spatial distribution of rainfall, the southwest plains and Lorroki Plateau receive between 500mm and 700mm of rain annually. Figure 6 shows a historical monthly total rainfall for Samburu County, while table 1 gives an average monthly total for the long and short rain periods.

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Total monthly rainfall (mm) for Samburu (location 1.375, 37)

300 200 100 Rainfall (mm) 0 1998-01 1998-08 2000-05 2001-07 2002-09 2003-11 2005-01 2005-08 2007-05 2008-07 2009-09 2010-11 2012-01 1999-03 1999-10 2000-12 2002-02 2003-04 2004-06 2006-03 2006-10 2007-12 2009-02 2010-04 2011-06

(Source: TRMM online Database)

Figure 6: Historical (1998-2012) monthly total rainfall for Samburu County.

Table 1: Average monthly total rainfall for Samburu County (location: 1.375, 37) for long and short rainfall periods

Year Average monthly total rainfall Average monthly total rainfall (mm) for (mm) for March, April and May October, November and December 1999 82.79 21.78 2009 64.65 100.44 (Source: TRMM online Database)

Table 1 above shows the average monthly total rainfall for the long and short rains in

1999 and 2009. The rainfall data4 is based on the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) joint Tropical Rainfall

4 “The TRMM climate rainfall products are designated as level 3 products, indicating that they have been mapped into a uniform space and time grid. The level 3 products are generally derived from the level 2 data, which contain meteorological parameters such as rainfall corresponding to the unmapped satellite swath.” Source: http://rain.atmos.colostate.edu/CRDC/datasets/trmm.html

56

Measuring Mission satellite’s measurement of tropical rainfall since December of 1997 when the satellite was launched.

From the table 1 it is evident that more rainfall was received in Samburu during the long rains of 1999 compared to the same period in 2009. On the other hand, more rainfall was received during the short rains of 2009 than the same period in 1999.

In general, using the long and short rains as a gauge it is apparent that the region received below average rainfall between both periods with 1999-2000 periods receiving the least amount of rainfall. While drought is mostly defined in terms of rainfall deficiency

(Smucker, 2012), drought may also be culturally defined through people’s own perception. The foregoing is in tandem with the narratives that were given by members of

Tamiyoi community during the fieldwork. The focus group discussion participants pointed out that 1999 drought lasted longer than the 2009 drought with one key informant stating that in 2009 the first major rainfall came in December, which was not the case in

1999 when drought extended into the following year.

In terms of temperature, the District experiences varying degrees of temperature, which vary with altitude and are generally between 240C mean minimum and 330C mean maximum. The highland belts in the Northeastern side of the Lorroki Plateau are cooler.

The District has a mean temperature of 290C.

2.3 Population Profile

According to the 2009 population census Samburu Central District had a population of 105, 052 people up from the 1999 estimate of 73, 643 (KNBS, 2010). The population is not distributed evenly across the District. Rather, there is high population 57 density in the urban relative to the rural areas (See table 2 and 3). There is also high population density in the relatively wet and fertile highland regions relative to the dry and less fertile lowland regions.

Table 2: Rural population distribution by sex, number of households, area and density District Male Female Total Households Area in sq. km. Density Samburu Central 42,524 44,378 86,902 18,300 3,924.4 22 Source: KNBS, 2010

Table 3: Urban population distribution by sex, number of households, area and density District Male Female Total Households Area in sq. km. Density Samburu Central 9,001 9,149 18,150 4,520 13.0 1,396 Source: KNBS, 2010

The District is home to nomadic pastoralists who live in the relatively dry and less fertile low-lying remote areas as well as agro-pastoralists who reside in the relatively wet and fertile highland areas. The people living in the District are predominantly of Samburu descent. But there are a few people of Turkana descent living in and around major urban centers like Maralal besides the other non-Samburu people who live and work within the

District.

Poverty is a reality among the people living in Samburu Central District. Poverty working alongside other factors such as poor infrastructural development and retrogressive cultural practices (e.g. cattle rustling) has led to an increase in insecurity in the area in the recent past. Incidences of insecurity range from livestock theft to banditry.

For example, it is very common to hear about travellers being ambushed and robbed along the dilapidated roads that traverse the District. 58

2.4 Human Migration

The notable migration pattern is rural to rural movement in the form of nomadism.

But there is also a considerable amount of rural to urban migration occasioned by the gradual expansion of urban centers and rising number of pastoralism dropouts mostly occasioned by pastoral livelihood devastation from recurrent drought. Those whose pastoral livelihood has been severely devastated in the recent past have tended to move to nearby urban centers to look for waged employment usually as security guards, cooks and bartenders at local hotels and/or bars or as businessmen and women selling all kinds of merchandise. In some extreme and rare cases some pastoralism dropouts have turned to begging on the streets of Maralal town.

2.5 Physical Infrastructure

2.5.1 Roads

Samburu Central District has about 220km of road considered to be in poor condition and an additional 150 km of road categorized as good. According to the 2008-

2012 District Development Plan, this poor state of roads can be attributed to destruction by heavy trucks ferrying relief food and poor soils. But based on the conversations I had with locals during the fieldwork, the poor state of the roads can also be attributed to poor governance. The roads are impassable during rainy seasons and this impedes livestock marketing, which is the main source of livelihood for a majority of people living in the

District. The impassable nature of the roads also makes travellers more prone to banditry attacks. For example, the occasional banditry attacks on the Maralal – Nyahururu road 59 usually take place around an area known as Naibor, which happens to be where the road is dilapidated the most.

2.5.2 Housing

In terms of housing infrastructure, Maralal Town has several government quarters, which house civil servants. Some are well maintained through grants received by the

Housing Department. However, settlements are poorly planned and informal settlements are emerging in the town center. The rest of the District is predominantly manyatta settlements although in some areas permanent houses are being constructed especially in the outskirts of Maralal Town.

2.5.3 Electricity

The District has electricity supply in most major urban centers like Maralal town,

Suguta Marmar and Kisima to mention a few. This has led to progress in the development of communication infrastructure within the District. For example, there are three major mobile phone companies operating within the District as well as several radio stations including a community radio (Serian FM) based in Maralal town, which is owned and run by the Samburu community through the Samburu West Constituency.

However, the rural parts of the District still remain largely unsupplied with electricity and they depend on wood fuel (mainly charcoal and firewood) for their energy needs. This is having significant impact on the District’s environment especially the dry land forest known as Loroghi or Kirisia forest. The forest is found within Samburu

Central District and is currently under serious threat from illegal charcoal burning.

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Chapter 3: Methodology

3.1: Introduction

This chapter describes the methodology employed in the research. Section one describes the research paradigm that leads up to the choice of the research method used.

Section two describes the research design. Section three describes the sampling techniques used in selecting research participants. Section four details the data collection methods employed during the fieldwork. Finally section, five, six and seven describe data analysis methods, and ethical issues.

3.2 Research Paradigm

Paradigms may be defined as the worldviews or belief systems that guide researchers (Guba Licoln, 1994 as cited in Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). A paradigm frames and guides a particular orientation to social inquiry, including what questions to ask, what methods to use, what knowledge claims to strive for, and what defines high- quality work (Greene & Caracelli, 1997). This study employs a pragmatic paradigm, which allows for mixed methods approach (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, p.13).

Mixed method studies are those that combine the qualitative and quantitative approaches into the research methodology of a single study or multiphased study

(Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, p.17-18). Mixed method designs use triangulation techniques. Methodological triangulation involves the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods and data to study the same phenomena within the same study or in different complimentary studies (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, p.18). Caruth (2013) contends that the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods present a more 61 enhanced insight into the research problem(s) and question(s) than using one of the methods independently (Creswell, 2012; Frels & Onwuegbuzie, 2013; Hong & Espelage,

2011 as cited in Caruth, 2013). Based on the foregoing, this study adopted a mixed methods research approach to investigate how geography of drought refuge areas in

Samburu Central District has changed in space and time between two specific drought periods i.e. 1999-2000 and 2009, and the role of mobile phone technology in all that dynamism.

3.3 Research Design

Tashakkori & Teddlie (1998) developed a taxonomy for organizing the different types of mixed methods designs and have done an excellent job in explaining the three main designs namely: equivalent status designs, dominant-less dominant designs, and designs with multilevel use of approaches.

In equal status mixed methods designs, an investigator conducts a study using both the quantitative and the qualitative approaches about equally to understand the phenomenon under study (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, p.44). Whereas in dominant-less dominant mixed method designs, one paradigm and its methods are dominant, while a small component of the overall study is drawn from an alternative paradigm (Ibid).

The two foregoing mixed method designs can be looked at from two other standpoints as follows: sequential and parallel/simultaneous mixed method designs

(Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, p.46). In sequential mixed method designs, the researcher conducts a qualitative phase of a study and then a separate quantitative phase, or vice versa (Ibid). Because the two phases are clearly distinct, this allows the investigator “to 62 present thoroughly the paradigm assumptions behind each phase” (Creswell, 1995, p.177 as cited in Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998).

On the other hand, in parallel/simultaneous mixed method designs, the quantitative and qualitative data are collected at the same time and analysed in a complementary manner (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, p.47). Most studies using this approach generate numerical and narrative data that answer similar questions (Ibid).

The third type of mixed method designs is concerned with studies with multilevel use of approaches that are designed in such away that data from more than one level of organisations or groups are used to reach more comprehensive inferences regarding behaviours and/or events (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, p.48).

This research employed the parallel/simultaneous design of the dominant-less dominant mixed methods design (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). Qualitative methods formed the dominant paradigm, while quantitative methods formed the less-dominant paradigm. Figure 7 illustrates the mixed methods design that was used in this study.

63

QUALITATIVE Data collecon methods Data analysis methods

RESULTS

Quantave Data collecon Methods Data analysis methods

Figure 7: An illustration of the research design showing the dominant qualitative method and less-dominant quantitative method as used in this study.

The research design was adopted based on the nature of the data needed for the study. There was a need for narrative data on how the people cope with drought with a special focus on the two study periods, what had changed between those periods and a map detailing the changes. For example, geographic data was vital in the visualization of the drought refuge areas and how they have changed over time. The chosen research design was well placed to achieve the goals of the study, unlike the other designs that would have required more time and additional financial commitment on the part of the researcher. 64

3.4 Sampling

3.4.1 Sampling Methods

The research employed nonprobability-sampling methods in choosing participants.

According to Bernard (2002), nonprobability-sampling methods include quota, purposive, convenience and snowball sampling. Quota and purposive sampling are almost identical except that unlike quota sampling, in purposive sampling there is no overall sampling design that tells you how many of each type of informant you need for a study (Bernard, 2002). You take what you can get (Ibid). For this research, purposive sampling was used in selecting research participants and site. As Bernard (2002) points out, researchers don’t usually pull research sites – villages, tribal encampments, hospitals, school systems – out of a hat. They rely on their judgment to find one that reflects the things they are interested in (Ibid). Because there was a high degree of the researcher’s judgment on whom and where to study, convenience sampling was not as applicable as purposive sampling to this particular study.

The research focused on pastoral communities living with the reality of drought in

Kenya’s Samburu Central District. But who also have embraced livelihood such practices as crop farming, mobile phone use and sedentary living while still retaining traditional practices such as movement of livestock from place to place in search of water and pasture during drought periods. Based on the foregoing criteria, Kirisia Division of

Samburu Central District was purposely selected as the focal area for the research.

Similarly, through purposive sampling, Tamiyoi village was selected as the study site. 65

The participants in the field study can be categorized into two sub-categories as focus group discussion participants and key informants. A total of twenty-one members of Tamiyoi community were purposely sampled for inclusion as focus group discussion participants during the fieldwork. Additional thirteen individuals were purposely sampled from community elders, government officials and NGO workers from around Samburu

Central District for inclusion in the study as key informants.

3.4.2 Selection Of Research Participants

3.4.2.1 Selecting Focus Group Discussion Participants

The strategy used to recruit participants depends on the type of participants required for any given study (Cameron, 2010, p.159). Focus group discussion participants were selected primarily from members of Tamiyoi community. The selection was done using purposive sampling (Bernard, 2002, p.182). In qualitative data collection, purposeful sampling is used so that individuals are selected because they have experienced the central phenomenon (Creswell, 2009, p.217). Community meetings and home visits served as the conduit through which participants were identified and selected for inclusion in the study.

Two visits were made to the manyattas (Samburu homesteads) in late May and early June 2013 during which time I got a chance to interact with various households in

Tamiyoi village and purposefully selected research participants. I also attended two community conflict resolution meetings, which coincided with the two visits to the manyattas. These meetings served as very good ground for selecting even more focus group discussion participants. 66

3.4.2.2 Selecting Key Informants

Key informants were selected from both members of Tamiyoi community as well as other stakeholders from within and around Samburu Central District including but not limited to government officials and NGO workers. As was the case with FGD participants’ selection, purposive sampling was used in selecting those to be included in the study.

The selection process, especially for the NGOs, involved organizational profiling to see which ones have their roles and/or programs directly related or just relevant to the objectives of the study. To achieve this goal, several visits were made to meet with relevant NGO workers to learn about their programs and gauge whether or not they would be necessary to include as participants in the study. Once a potential key informant was identified, a follow up meeting was arranged during which time an appointment was made for a face-to-face interview at the convenience of the interviewee.

As for the government officials, the relevant government Ministry, department and/or agency was identified then an initial introductory visit made during which time the study was explained to officer(s) at the Ministry and a request made to involve the

Ministry or agency and/or department in the research through one of the officer(s). When successful as was the case with all the visits made to the relevant government offices in

Samburu Central District, an appointment was made for a face-to-face interview at the convenience of the interviewee. 67

3.5 Data Collection Methods

3.5.1 Key Informant Interviews

A total of thirteen key informant interviews were conducted with interviewees from a cross-section of people living and/or working in Samburu Central District. The key informant interviews were semi-structured and guided by a checklist that gave room for detailed discussion and description of key issues that the research was concerned about. The questions asked in a semi-structured interview are content focused and deal with the issues or area judged by the researcher to be relevant to the research question

(Dunn, 2010, p.110). One of the major strengths of interviewing is that it allows you to discover what is relevant to the informant (Dunn, 2010, p.103).

The interviews were conducted both in English and Kiswahili depending on who the interviewee was at any particular time. For example, all community members were interviewed in Kiswahili while all the government and NGO workers were interviewed in

English. However, there were instances when even the government or NGO workers mixed English and Kiswahili to communicate clearly in the course of an interview.

Most of the interviews were audio recorded and then transcribed to facilitate analysis. However, there are about four key informant interviews that were not audio recorded and the field notes had to be developed into memos so as to enhance data coding.

3.5.2 Focus Group Discussion

A two day focus group discussion session was held at a local nursery school in

Tamiyoi village between the 7th and 8th June 2013. A total of twenty-one members of 68

Tamiyoi community took part in the discussions. The discussions were conducted in

Kiswahili, which was the language that most participants understood well and were comfortable with. However, there were numerous instances when certain participants used Maa (Samburu language) to express themselves during these sessions. Whenever this happened the research assistant was in hand to give the best possible translation in

Kiswahili.

A large proportion of the data generated from the two-day FGD sessions were community narratives of experiences with drought coping particularly during the 1999-

2000 and 2009 drought periods. On the first day of the FGD, participants mapped out the drought refuge areas used between the two drought periods of interest to the study. They did this by mentioning names of drought refuge areas used during the 1999-200 and 2009 drought period that were then noted down on a flipchart. This was a very interactive exercise. In more than one occasion a participant suggested a place name that was visited during a period outside the 1999-2000 and 2009 bracket only to be corrected by other participants who had better memory. In such cases, consensus was used as the benchmark for moving forward. On the second day, a bit of the mapping that was not completed the previous day was accomplished. Then participants gave narratives of what could have led to the changes in the geography of drought refuge areas including narratives on how mobile phones are impacting livestock mobility during drought periods. These narratives have been reported, analyzed and discussed at great lengths in chapters 4 and 5. 69

3.5.3 Mapping With GPS

Global Positioning System (GPS) readings of important landmarks like grazing field, manyatta, boundaries, and lagga were recorded for digital mapping purposes. The recordings were done using a hand held GARMIN GPS gadget. The GPS points have subsequently been plotted and analysed using ArcGIS (ArcMap 10.1) software and presented as digital map in the data analysis section (Chapter 4) of this thesis document.

In achieving the foregoing, a Globcover5-derived land cover map of Kenya with the land cover classification system (LCCS) legend (46 classes) and published by FAO on

05/13/2009 at 15:49:00 (FAO, GeoNetwork, 2009) has been used. However, for purposes of clarity the 46 land cover classes on the original map have been aggregated to 11 land cover classes by grouping similar classes together. For example, all the different forms of grasslands in the original map have been grouped together as grassland in the final map.

Moreover, considering that I was not able to physically visit each and every drought refuge area that was mentioned, I used the online Google maps application to generate the geographic coordinates for all the mentioned drought refuge areas using their place names. However, the geographic coordinates for Tamiyoi village were recorded using a handheld GPS gadget during the fieldwork.

5 According to FAO, GeoNetwork (2009), “Globecover is currently the most recent (2005) and detailed (300m) global dataset on land cover.” 70

3.5.4 Photography

A digital camera was used to capture still pictures of important scenes through out the fieldwork period. The pictures have been used in sections of this thesis document to convey a visual representation of the study area and fieldwork experience.

3.5.5 Secondary Data

Secondary data was mainly in the form of maps and government reports accessed either in hard copy or digital copy. Sources of secondary data included Survey of Kenya headquarter, Kenya Forest Service headquarter, National Drought Management Authority

Maralal office, International Livestock Research Institute online GIS database, TRMM online database, FAO GeoNetwork online database and Google maps.

3.6 Data Analysis

Data analysis has been given a two-fold approach considering that the thesis is based on mixed methods research design. Analysis of qualitative data was done both manually and through the use of computer-aided programs specifically Nvivo 10 software. The manual data analysis was significant in helping me familiarize myself with the content of the primary data and coding process. Manual coding was specifically used to generate attribute, magnitude and initial codes during the first cycle of coding

(Saldaña, 2009).

In analyzing the primary qualitative data, attribute codes were used to give pseudo names to research participants so that their identity is hidden, remaining only known to the researcher for research ethical purposes. Once attribute codes were assigned, all qualitative data including memos from field notes were subjected to initial coding to 71 generate initial codes. The initial codes were then grouped into categories depending on their similarities or differences. The new codes emerging from this categorization of initial codes was then used to code the qualitative data a fresh. In general, the data analysis process comprised of two coding cycles namely first and second cycle coding.

The qualitative data that was analyzed include field notes, memos and transcripts of key informant interviews. Ten out of the thirteen key informant interviews were analysed and have informed the various arguments presented at various stages of this thesis. The three key informant interviews were omitted because they were not relevant to answering the research questions.

Moreover, as mentioned in the first paragraph of this section magnitude coding was used in the data analysis as well. Magnitude coding was employed to quantify qualitative data so that they could be analysed as quantitative data instead of qualitative data. Other quantitative analysis involved the use of ArcGIS and QGIS digital mapping applications.

The global positioning system’s latitude and longitude recordings were geo-processed using ArcMap 10.1 software. In particular, ArcMap 10.1 software has been used to digitally map out drought refuge areas for both the 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods.

Such mapping has made it possible to analyse the changing nature of geography of drought refuge areas between the two drought periods.

3.7 Ethical Issues

3.7.1 Institutional Review Board Approval

The study got the Ohio University’s Institutional Review Board’s approval

(13E146), which stated that it was exempt from Institutional Review Board (IRB) review 72 because it fell under category 2 – research involving the use of educational tests, survey procedures, interview procedures or observation of public behavior. The approval is dated 6th May 2013 and doesn’t require an annual review of the study.

3.7.2 Research Clearance Permit

The field study was approved by Kenya’s National Council for Science and

Technology on the 23rd May 2013 and issued with a three-month research clearance permit number NCST/RCD/13/013/48. The research permit confined the study to

Samburu Central District, which is one of the three administrative Districts that make up

Samburu County.

The research was conducted in accordance with the provisions of the IRB approval and research clearance permit. Most importantly consent of all participants was sought prior to their involvement in the study. The potential participants were provided with adequate information about the study ahead of time before being asked to take part.

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Chapter 4: Geography Of Drought Refuge Areas

4.1 Introduction

This chapter details the research findings, analysis and discussions relating to the first research question, which seeks to find out how the geography of drought refuge areas used by the Samburu pastoralists has changed with a particular focus on 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods. Considering that the thesis is focused on finding out how use of mobile phones by Samburu pastoralists has impacted their drought coping strategies and in particular livestock mobility, the two drought periods are of great significance.

The 1999-2000 drought period is significant because it presents a major drought scenario where Samburu pastoralists had not yet adopted mobile phones. By the 2009 drought, mobile phones were at the center of the daily lives of Samburu pastoralists of Tamiyoi village.

The first section of this chapter describes the seasonal grazing patterns of the

Samburu pastoralists living in Tamiyoi village, which is important in contextualizing further discussions on the geography of drought refuge areas. The second section discusses the geographic characterization and distribution of drought refuge areas by drawing on the author’s field data.

4.2 Seasonal Grazing Patterns Of The Samburu Of Tamiyoi

This section describes existing grazing patterns that predominates pastoralism in

Tamiyoi village. Understanding the grazing pattern is vital because livestock mobility that is at the center of this study is defined by the nature of these grazing patterns. 74

Moreover, assessing changes in the geography of drought refuge areas first requires a general understanding of regular seasonal livestock movement patterns.

Pastoral grazing patterns reflect mobility strategies to access forage for livestock between three kinds of grazing areas namely wet season, dry season and drought period grazing areas. Grazing patterns are determined by a set of broad factors. First, pasture availability determines where and how far the livestock are moved. Whenever pasture is available livestock are not moved very far from the manyatta and vice versa. Second, livestock variety determines feeding habits that is essential in determining what kind of pasture resource to look for. For example, goats and cattle have different grazing patterns.

Likewise, sheep are usually grazed more closer to the manyatta than the cattle. Third, existence of crop farming has resulted in restriction of livestock movement. Where crop farming is practiced, livestock are grazed away from the farms to guard against crop destruction. Fourth, related to prevailing land use system is the land tenure that determines access. Communally owned group ranches allow for a kind of open access to pasture resources that privately owned land does not permit. Finally, climate variability acts more like an over-arching determinant influencing some of the already mentioned in a variety of ways. For example, pasture availability is directly related to rainfall availability and the opposite is true (Raizman et al, 2013; Butt, 2011; Sieff, 1997).

It is worth pointing out that livestock mobility is a key component of all these grazing patterns and does not stop even during wet seasons. Rather it changes as the seasons change from wet to dry to drought and vise versa. Basically, the nature of livestock mobility required for wet season grazing is less extensive compared to the kind 75 of mobility employed during dry season grazing. The latter presents longer distant movement than the former.

4.2.1 Wet Season Grazing

During the wet season (March-April-May and October-November), members of

Tamiyoi community graze their livestock close to their homesteads (manyatta). Livestock are grouped into categories that are then grazed together. The small stocks including sheep, goats and calves are usually grazed together in patches of pastureland within the vicinity of the manyatta. Lambs and kids are separated from the main sheep/goat herd so as not to compromise milk production.

Young non-school going children are usually responsible for looking after this section of the herd. However, in homesteads where all children are enrolled in school (as is increasingly common in Tamiyoi village), women and men alternate in looking after the livestock depending on their relative daily commitments.

Large stock such as cattle and camels are grazed separately from the small stock.

They are usually the responsibility of the moran. But in the few homesteads where there is no moran (not very common), senior and junior elders are usually the next in line.

Although donkeys form part of the large stock, they are usually grazed together with small stock, close to the manyatta. The reason for this is that donkeys form the main mode of transport for a majority of Tamiyoi community members. Therefore, they are usually made to graze close to the manyatta in case a transportation need arises.

In terms of the grazing pattern, the livestock are released in the morning after milking and directed towards grazing fields (mostly grass land with patches of scattered 76 trees and bush) designated for wet season grazing, which are used alternately to avoid overgrazing. Considering that there is some level of crop farming going on in Tamiyoi village, the livestock are looked after with care to guard against destruction of growing crops. Late in the afternoon the livestock are directed towards the seasonal river that flows through the village to drink water. Livestock then return to the grazing fields that will eventually lead the livestock back to the manyatta just in time for milking. This pattern is largely similar for both small and large stock.

Figure 8: Donkeys grazing alongside goats in Tamiyoi village

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4.2.2 Dry Season Grazing

In the dry season (January-February and June-September), the grazing pattern shifts to a rather extensive format relative to the wet season grazing pattern. Dry season grazing entails movement of livestock, particularly the large stock, further away from the homesteads onto pastureland that has been set aside for dry period grazing either by a particular household head or as in some of the cases, community elders set aside portions of land within the group ranch for dry period grazing. Livestock are usually moved to these areas in the morning and walked back home just before sunset to give ample time for milking before darkness falls.

Figure 9: An elder in Tamiyoi community moving livestock to a dry season grazing zone. 78

4.2.3 Drought Period Grazing

The grazing pattern employed during drought periods is generally very different from the two preceding patterns. Whereas there are well-known drought period grazing zones, which in turn determine the “regular” seasonal grazing pattern, the reality is usually very different especially where drought is thought to be imminent. In moderate drought conditions, a moran or two would be sent to look for pasture and water then bring back information that would inform the decision to move. However, in severe drought conditions there is usually no time for sending warani and waiting on their feedback before a decision to move is made. Rather, in the case of Tamiyoi livestock are usually moved in the hopes of finding pasture and water at places where in some cases there is no such guarantee considering that the herders rely on local knowledge including general background knowledge of prevailing environmental conditions such as weather patterns that have become very unpredictable in recent past. The foregoing is what makes search for pasture and water during drought periods quite different from search for the same during regular dry periods.

According to the focus group discussion participants, access to a drought refuge area is dependent on several things among them the location of that particular drought refuge area, the people who inhabit the area, prevailing land use type, existing land tenure and the social network of the household or community seeking access rights.

4.3 Distribution Of Drought Refuge Areas

As the foregoing discussions reveal, drought refuge areas are a vital component of the pastoralists’ drought coping strategy. Basically, they refer to drought period grazing 79 zones that have either been intentionally set aside for use during drought periods or that are known to perennially contain pasture either because of the nature of land use prevailing in them (e.g. wild life parks/reserves and protected forests) or because of climatic factors such as reliable rainfall, which supports vegetation growth and provides a consistent source of water (Butt, 2011; Huho et al, 2011). But as this next section will reveal, drought refuge areas may also be located in urban areas where animals are fed on discarded vegetable cuttings from grocery stores and watered from open drainage lines or stagnant pools of water.

To answer the question relating to the geographic distribution of drought refuge areas, focus group discussion participants in Tamiyoi were asked to enumerate all the places (excluding dry season grazing zones) they took their livestock to during the 1999 and 2009 drought periods respectively. The two sections that follow detail the findings relating to the foregoing. Moreover, I present two digital map representations of the geography of drought refuge areas for Tamiyoi community specific to the two study periods. The drought refuge areas are mapped on a land cover map of Kenya to further characterize their distribution based on prevailing land cover.

4.4 Mapping The Drought Refuge Areas

In this section, I present the drought refuge areas data for both 1999 and 2009 drought periods in tabular form and as digital map representation. The section starts with an explanation of the criterion used in categorizing drought refuge areas into major and minor categories for both periods. Finally, the drought refuge areas are mapped separately as 1999 (major and minor) and 2009 (major and minor) to make comparison 80 possible and enhance the ease with which change between the two periods can be discerned.

4.4.1 Criterion For Mapping Major And Minor Drought Refuge Areas

Here I discuss the criteria used in categorizing drought refuge areas into major and minor categories. Such categorization is meant to make mapping of the 1999 and 2009 drought refuge areas more detailed in order to better discern the differences in drought- related movements during the two drought periods. According to the focus group discussion participants, drought refuge areas do not hold equal importance to the pastoralists. Some drought refuge areas are considered more important than others based on their location and what they offer. The participants pointed out that more distant areas generally are less desirable because long distant movement weakens livestock making them further vulnerable to drought related stress. Secondly, they identify areas with high risk of predation on livestock by wildlife as a second major concern. Third, they identify areas with prevalence of violent conflict as least favoured especially when considered along side other alternatives that do not pose similar challenges. For example, they pointed out that they prefer to move their livestock into Kirisia forest even though it is illegal to do so than take them to Namunyak conservancy (local pastoralists are granted limited access during drought) where the livestock stand a high risk of being predated upon by lions and leopards. This does not mean they do not eventually venture into

Namunyak conservancy. But it shows that Namunyak conservancy is perceived as second choice relative to Kirisia forest because of the safety that Kirisia provides for the livestock. 81

Subsequently, for purposes of this mapping process I used a favourability criterion6 to aid in mapping out the drought refuge areas. I have categorized the drought refuge areas into two groups based on how they are favoured (in terms of common destination for livestock during past droughts) by the pastoralists of Tamiyoi. The two groups are major and minor where the “major” group refers to the drought refuge areas favoured by pastoralists of Tamiyoi village while the “minor” group is the other cluster of drought refuge areas are less favored by the same group of pastoralists because of reasons outlined in the preceding paragraph.

In the following section, I present in a tabular form the drought refuge areas of

1999 and 2009 as provided by the FGD participants. Considering that the drought refuge areas are not confined to Samburu County, I present them based on their administrative location in Kenya. For example, all drought refuge areas found within Laikipia County are grouped under Laikipia County.

4.4.2 Mapping 1999 Drought Refuge Areas

Tables 4 and 5 below provide a list of major and minor drought refuge areas for the

1999 drought period. The two tables show the drought refuge areas with their relative distance from Tamiyoi village. The distances were measured using QGIS distance measurement tool that uses the latitude and longitude measurements of all the points

6 FGD participants identified drought refuge areas and further provided details that showed, which areas they preferred over the others and for what reasons. This is what has formed the basis of categorizing drought refuge areas into major and minor drought refuge area categories. 82

(drought refuge areas) to calculate distance in meters, which I then converted to kilometers.

Table 4: Major drought refuge areas used during the 1999 drought period

Name of drought refuge area Distance from Tamiyoi village (Km) County Ltirimin 54.2 Samburu Amaya 73.8 Samburu Waso/Ewaso Ng’iro 126.4 Samburu Marti 33.5 Samburu Wamba 54.7 Samburu Malaso 60 Samburu Sereolipi 69.3 Samburu Archer’s Post 99.2 Samburu Loosuk 60.3 Samburu Lorogi/Kirisia 43.2 Samburu Mt. Nyiru 89.6 Samburu Laikipia 129.4 Laikipia Rumuruti 144.7 Laikipia Nanyuki 145.1 Laikipia Nadume 121.9 Turkana Mt. Marsabit 151.9 Marsabit West Pokot 165.8 West Pokot Mt. Kenya 149.5 Meru/Nyeri Nyahururu 154.5 Nyandarua

Table 5: Minor drought refuge areas used during the 1999 drought period

Name of drought refuge area Distance from Tamiyoi village County Pura 58.1 Samburu Angata Nanyukie 38.7 Samburu Baragoi 55.6 Samburu Isiolo 121.2 Isiolo Suguta Valley 107.1 Turkana Gilgil area 212.8 Naivasha/Nakuru Nakuru 177.1 Nakuru Mombasa 657.8 Mombasa Nairobi 298.2 Nairobi Kenya/Ethiopia border 303.7 Marsabit 83

Based on tables 4 and 5, it is apparent that the pastoralists used more major drought refuge areas than minor drought refuge areas in 1999-2000 drought period. Additionally, in terms of average distance covered by livestock movement, there was greater movement (average 203 km) between the minor drought refuge areas relative to the major drought refuge areas’ movement (average 101.4 km).

The foregoing reveals that major drought refuge areas are those that do not require moving longer distances, which weakens livestock. This in part explains why there were more major drought refuge areas (19) relative to the minor drought refuge areas (10).

Figure 10 on the next page maps out these drought refuge areas on a land cover vegetation map of Kenya to further reveal more factors that could have influenced the variations between the major and minor drought refuge areas during this period.

84

Figure 10: A map of drought refuge areas used by Tamiyoi community members during

the 1999 drought period. 85

Figure 10 shows the distribution of both minor and major drought refuge areas for the 1999 drought period. From the map (figure 10), it is evident that drought refuge areas that fall under the major category are generally located close to Tamiyoi village as compared to those that fall under the minor category, which appear to be extensively dispersed through out the country. As already pointed out in the preceding discussion,

Tamiyoi pastoralists generally do not favour far-flung drought refuge areas. They provide that moving livestock over long distances weakens the livestock and as a remedy long distances are only opted for when shorter distances have all been exhausted. There is also the idea of cost of transporting livestock by road to far-flung drought refuge areas like

Mombasa. The cost of hiring a truck to ferry livestock places far removed from Tamiyoi village can be prohibitive as some research participants pointed out.

Table 6: Distribution of 1999 drought refuge areas across different land cover types

Land Cover Type Major Drought Refuge Minor Drought Refuge Areas Areas Mixed crop and Loroki7/Kirisia, Loosuk, Gilgil and Ethiopia/Kenya vegetation Amaya, West Pokot, border Rumuruti, and Nyahururu Mosaic Mt. Nyiru, Ltirimin, Malaso, Pura and Angata Nanyukie grassland/shrubland – Sereolipi, Wamba, Mt. forest Marsabit, Laikipia and Nanyuki Shrub land Marti and Nadume Baragoi, Isiolo Grass land Suguta Valley Sparse vegetation Waso/Ewaso Ng’iro, and Archers’ Post Forest Mt. Kenya Nakuru, Mombasa, Nairobi

7 Loroki is also known by another name called Leroghi 86

Moreover, other than relative distance to Tamiyoi village, the choice of a drought refuge area in 1999 was also determined by land cover type as figure 10 and its derivative table 6 show. According to table 6, 14 out of the 19 major drought refuge areas for the

1999 drought period are found either under mixed crop and vegetation or mosaic grassland/shrubland-forest type of land cover. Further, table 6 shows that no major drought refuge area was located in grassland land cover type and that only one minor drought refuge area was located within a grassland revealing the severe impact of the

1999 drought on pasture resources. The foregoing means that during the 1999 drought,

Tamiyoi pastoralists predominantly moved their livestock to regions known to support diverse kinds of vegetation including agricultural crops.

Additionally, as it turns out forests are not the most favoured drought refuge areas as would have been thought (Tamiyoi pastoralists mentioned forested areas as a top destination for livestock during drought). Instead, only one major drought refuge area and

3 minor drought refuge areas were located in pure forest land cover type in 1999.

Government legislations (protected forests) coupled with limited undergrowth and high elevated tree leaves that characterize forests among other factors may explain why mixed kind of vegetation was more preferred as drought refuge area land cover type during the

1999 drought period. However, it is also important to note that mosaic grassland/shrubland-forest is a type of forest cover and so it is in tandem with the

Tamiyoi pastoralists’ assertion that forests matter as drought refuge area. 87

4.4.3 Mapping The 2009 Drought Refuge Areas

Table 7 and 8 detail the major and minor drought refuge areas for 2009 drought period. The two tables also show the drought refuge areas with their relative distance from Tamiyoi village. The distances were measured using QGIS distance measurement tool that uses the latitude and longitude measurements of all the points (drought refuge areas) to calculate distance in meters, which I then converted to kilometers.

Table 7: Major drought refuge areas for 2009

Name of drought refuge area Distance from Tamiyoi village (Km) County Loroki/Kirisia 43.2 Samburu Mt. Nyiru 89.6 Samburu Rumuruti 144.7 Laikipia Laikipia 129.4 Laikipia Nanyuki 145.1 Laikipia Mt. Marsabit 151.9 Marsabit Mt. Kenya 149.5 Meru/Nyeri

Table 8: Minor drought refuge areas for 2009

Name of drought refuge area Distance from Tamiyoi village (Km) County Loosuk 60.3 Samburu Marti 33.5 Samburu Amaya 73.8 Samburu Malaso 60 Samburu Wamba 54.7 Samburu

Tables 7 and 8 reveal greater movement (average 121.9 km) in major drought refuge areas compared to movement in minor drought refuge areas (average 56.5 km).

This a deviation from the 1999-2000 drought period, which means that there are additional factors other than distance that affects the choice of a drought refuge area. To this end figure 11 maps out these drought refuge areas on a land cover map of Kenya 88 with an aim to further understand how land cover types affect the location and distribution of drought refuge areas.

89

Figure 11: A map of drought refuge areas used by Tamiyoi community members during

the 2009 drought. 90

The map of 2009 drought refuge areas shown on the previous page reveals a relatively different distribution pattern for both major and minor drought refuge areas compared to the one shown in figure 10. Unlike figure 10, drought refuge areas’ distribution in figure 11 is relatively less dispersed. There is also relatively fewer drought refuge areas in figure 11 compared to those mapped on figure 10, which means that there was relatively less movement in 2009 in comparison to the 1999 drought refuge area.

Comparatively, there was a difference of 505.9 km between the furthest place visited in

1999 (Mombasa at 657.8 Km from Tamiyoi village) and that visited in 2009 (Mt.

Marsabit at1 51.9 Km from Tamiyoi village). Even in terms of average distance, the pastoralists covered on average 136.5 km in 1999-2000 compared to 94.6 km in the 2009 drought period. Moreover, the FGD participants pointed out that those who went to

Mombasa8 used trucks to ferry their livestock to the coastal region travelling an approximate distance of 840 Km.

Whereas there was generally less movement in 2009 relative to 1999, based on the major drought refuge areas visited during both periods, it is evident that there was more movement to major drought refuge areas outside of Samburu County in 2009 than in

1999. In fact, major drought refuge areas located within Samburu County accounted for

57.9% of the proportion of major drought refuge areas in 1999 compared to only 28.6% in 2009. This is discussed further in the next section.

8 According to the FGD participants, Mombasa is used in reference to the coastal region of Kenya where the Samburu have social relation with some of the locals, and not necessarily Mombasa town per se. 91

To offer a more comprehensive analysis and deeper understanding of the changes in the geography of drought refuge areas, I bring in the land cover type into play to show how it impacts the distribution of drought refuge areas. Table 9 shows the distribution of

2009 drought refuge area based on land cover type.

Table 9: Distribution of 2009 drought refuge areas across different land cover types

Land Cover Type Major Drought Refuge Areas Minor Drought Refuge Areas Mixed crop and Rumuruti and Loroki/Kirisia Amaya and Loosuk vegetation Mosaic Mt. Nyiru, Mt. Marsabit, Malaso and Wamba grassland/shrubland – Nanyuki and Laikipia forest Forests Mt. Kenya Shrubland Marti

According table 9, the distribution of 2009 major drought refuge areas across land cover types was similar to that of the 1999. In other words, mixed crop and vegetation and mosaic grassland/shrubland-forest land cover types accounted for a majority of the major drought refuge areas. Specifically, in 2009 six out of the seven major drought refuge areas were either located in an area with mixed crop and vegetation land cover type or mosaic grassland/shrubland-forest land cover type. Based on the findings related to the distribution of the 1999 and 2009 drought refuge areas relative to land cover type, it is evident that areas with mixed kinds of vegetation (i.e. mixed crop and vegetation, and mosaic grassland/shrubland-forest land cover types) are more preferred as major drought refuge areas. Building on from the foregoing assertion, three things stand out in terms of the relationship between the distribution of drought refuge areas and vegetation 92 cover type. First, the fact that none of the drought refuge areas – either major or minor – was located on pure grassland or sparse vegetation land cover type in 2009. Second, in relative terms mosaic grassland/shrubland-forest land cover type accounted for more major drought refuge areas in 1999 than in 2009. Third, mixed crop and vegetation land cover type accounted for more major drought refuge areas in 2009 than in 1999. All these observed shifts in distribution of drought refuge areas relative to land cover type, point to the change in the geography of drought refuge areas. In particular, the shift from most drought refuge areas being located on mosaic grassland/shrubland-forest land cover type in 1999 to most of them being located on mixed crop and vegetation land cover type in

2009 may be attributed either to increased adoption of crop farming or increased movement of livestock outside Samburu County during drought as is evident in table 4 and 7 (i.e. more major drought refuge areas located outside Samburu County in 2009 as compared to 1999 drought period). Generally, there has been a shift in livestock movement outside of Samburu County whereby the westward movement to West Pokot and northward movement to Turkana observed in 1999 ceased in 2009 and instead more southward movement to Laikipia in 2009 was observed. Chapter 5 will look into possible causes of such a shift in movement. However, to further elaborate on the observed changes in geography of drought refuge areas between the two periods, table 10 details distribution of drought refuge areas across different land cover types in terms of number available in each category

93

Table 10: Number of drought refuge areas per land cover type

Land Cover Major Drought Refuge Minor Drought Refuge Areas Areas 1999-2000 2009 1999-2000 2009 Mixed crop and 6 2 2 2 vegetation Mosaic 8 4 2 2 grassland/shrubland and forest Shrubland 2 0 2 1 Grassland 0 0 1 0 Sparse vegetation 2 0 0 Forest 1 1 3 0

Table 10 above shows the number of drought refuge areas (categorized as major and minor) for every land cover type represented in figures 10 and 11 in the preceding sections of this chapter. From the table, it is apparent that there has been a reduction in the number of drought refuge areas between the 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods.

This coupled with the revelation in the preceding discussions on this chapter that there was more movement to major droughts outside Samburu County in 2009 than in 1999-

2000, speaks to a change in the geography of drought refuge areas between these two periods. The next chapter will focus in part on establishing the factors that could have driven the observed change.

4.5 Summary Of The Findings

The analysis of the field data in this chapter reveals a change in the geography of drought refuge areas between the 1999 and 2009 drought periods. The study finds that there was generally more movement in 1999 than in 2009. But further reveals that to access major drought refuge areas, Tamiyoi pastoralists moved out of Samburu County 94 more in 2009 than in 1999. In other words, the study finds that there were more major drought refuge areas outside Samburu County in 2009 than there were in 1999, a fact that is attributable in part to more pastoralists’ embracing livelihood diversification particularly diversification into crop farming.

Moreover, the chapter provides that land cover type determines the distribution of drought refuge areas. For example, the study reveals that most major drought refuge areas are located in land cover type that reflects a mixed kind of vegetation specifically mixed crop and vegetation and mosaic grassland/shrubland-forest land cover types.

Forests though mentioned by FGD participants as being central to the adaptation to drought situations, do not really account for a significant share of the drought refuge areas. This is in part due to the fact that forests have little undergrowth and tree leaves hang high up on tall trees. However, it is worth pointing out that the mosaic grassland/shrubland-forest land cover type accounts for a considerable amount of drought refuge areas and may as well corroborate the FGD participants’ claims considering this land cover type constitute some kind of a forest.

95

Chapter 5: Mobile Phone Technology And Livestock Mobility

5.1 Introduction

This chapter addresses the second part of the first research question (that deals with why drought refuge areas are changing) and se research question: what role has the use of mobile phone technology played in the changing patterns of access to drought refuge areas? The chapter achieves this by looking at the role of mobile phone technology in observed change in the geography of drought refuge areas in light of concurrent factors that have driven such a change including duration of drought, violent conflict, livelihood diversification and reduction in herd size.

According to Butt (2014 in press), mobile phones are thought to influence the way different social groups interact with one another as they experience escalating social, political and environmental challenges to their livelihood strategies. In this chapter, I look at how Samburu pastoralists’ use of mobile phone has contributed to the changes in patterns of access to drought refuge areas with a focus on the 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods. In particular, I look at how use of mobile technology has impacted livestock mobility as a strategy that Tamiyoi pastoralists depend on to cope with recurrent drought. To achieve this, I interpret the role of mobile phone technology in

Samburu pastoralists’ mobility and resource management through a social deterministic framework (Pinch & Bijker, 1984; Bijker et al, 1987; Kline & Pinch, 1996).

The chapter is structured as follows: First, I discuss livestock mobility as a drought coping strategy among the pastoralists of Tamiyoi and provide an analysis of how the use of mobile phone has influenced their livestock mobility decision making process by 96 looking at their experiences during 1999/2000 and 2009 drought periods. Then I provide a discussion on changing geography of drought refuge areas looked at through the lens of livestock mobility and the role of mobile phone technology therein vis a vis other over- arching factors including but not limited to violent conflict, livelihood diversification and reduction in herd size. Finally, I provide a summary of the findings.

5.2 Livestock Mobility

In this section, I focus on describing the role of livestock mobility in a pastoral society. To achieve this, I discuss the livestock movement decision-making process and look at how it varies across different scales (i.e. movement from manyatta to the drought refuge area and movement between drought refuge areas). I then move further to analyse the field data to show how use of mobile phone has impacted livestock mobility and in particular, the process of mobility decision-making. Once I establish the impact of use of mobile phone on livestock mobility decision making process, I continue on to analyse and discuss such impact (s) vis a vis other drivers of change including violent conflict, livelihood diversification and reduction in herd size among others to the gauge significance of mobile phone technology impact on changing geography of drought refuge areas for the Samburu pastoralists.

Livestock mobility has long been a central component of pastoralists’ resource management strategy (Roth, 1996; Boruru et al, 2011; Butt 2011; Huho et al, 2011).

Mobility allows pastoralists to exploit resources that would otherwise be inaccessible to them either because they are located far away or due to unfavourable user rights (Butt

2011; McCarthy & Gregorio, 2003). Considering the grazing patterns described in 97 chapter 4, livestock mobility seems to take on a regular pattern. However, as the FGD participants described, the regularity of livestock mobility sometimes gets interrupted especially in extreme drought conditions. The participants pointed out that the existence of well-known drought refuge areas notwithstanding, reality in terms of search for pasture and water during extreme drought conditions differs considerably from ordinary drought periods. Basically, the regular pattern of movement does not hold for those pastoralists who have to look for pasture and water under extreme drought conditions, which according to the Samburu traditional way of predicting drought occurs in a ten- year interval.

Whereas accessing pasture and water is the primary goal of livestock mobility, in drought situations, the decision on where to move livestock has in the past primarily been informed by information gathered by scouts sent out to look for pasture and water. The movement decision making process can be viewed in two tiers. The first is the decision to move the livestock from manyatta to drought refuge areas. And the second is the decision to move livestock from one drought refuge area to another. The former is the preserve of male elder(s) in a household and/or community elders, while the latter is the preserve of the warani as the next session will show.

5.2.1 Movement Of Livestock From Manyatta To A Drought Refuge Area

This section presents a discussion on the livestock mobility decision-making process employed by pastoralists in Tamiyoi village when livestock are to be moved from the manyatta to a drought refuge area when it is obvious that there is a looming drought situation. It focuses on livestock mobility decision-making process before the advent of 98 mobile phone technology. The aim of this section is basically to highlight the livestock mobility decision-making process with a focus on whose responsibility it is to make such decision so as to provide a context within which to understand and identify the changes in livestock mobility decision-making process that have come about since the adoption of mobile phone technology.

As already pointed out in earlier discussions, when livestock is within the precincts of a manyatta they are the responsibility of the male elder(s) in the manyatta. However, when the livestock is moved out to the grazing fields they become the sole responsibility of the group of warani who are looking after them. Subsequently, when livestock is to be moved from a manyatta to a drought refuge area where they will not return home in the evening (as is the norm during wet season and most dry seasons), such a decision has to be made based on information brought by the scouts and sanctioned by male elder(s) of the manyatta or community elders in cases where the movement is taking on a communal pattern (See appendix 2 for a description of Samburu settlements). The following description of how Tamiyoi pastoralists look for pasture and water before moving their livestock captures the foregoing:

This is how it plays out. You start out on foot leaving the cattle behind [with

others] and walk to Loosuk [a region used as a major drought refuge area in 1999-

2000 and minor drought refuge area in 2009]. You can’t move livestock even to

Sunya, [a place in the Wamba region that is usually known to have pasture all

year round], without first doing a survey. The community elders pick on two

warani and charge them with the responsibility of deciding amongst themselves 99

who will travel to Loosuk to survey the condition of pasture and water over there.

Those who take part in the survey also look for places where warani will be able

to set up camp in case they eventually move there. It is those who have taken part

in the survey who will show the way when a decision to move the livestock to

Loosuk is eventually made. – Tamiyoi 4, Community Elder, 14th June 2013.

The foregoing reveals the hand of community elders in the decision making process involving the movement of livestock from the homestead to a drought refuge area further away, in this case Loosuk, which is 60.3 km away from Tamiyoi village. The elders call for the formation of a group of scouts and sanction the decision to move livestock when the team brings back positive feedback. However, in a case where the scouts return with negative feedback – this is not always a likely scenario because the scouts once sent out to look for pasture do not just look at one place plus they keep contact with their social networks who provide further leads to where pasture and water can be found – the pastoralists employ a variety of strategies to manage the situation temporarily while a drought refuge area is sought usually for further away. The strategies as was outlined by some research participants include feeding livestock on vegetable cuttings from Maralal grocery stores; feeding livestock on leaves of certain species of trees cut from the neighbouring Loroki/Kirisia forest; relying on hay ration from the

Maralal Catholic mission and Ministry of Livestock; and in worst case scenario selling of livestock to cushion for loss associated with extreme drought conditions. 100

5.2.2 Movement Of Livestock From One Drought Refuge Area To Another

In the previous section, I have discussed how a decision to move livestock to a drought refuge area from the manyatta is arrived at. According to the preceding discussions, the decision on whether to move or not move livestock is the preserve of elders either at the community or household level. In this section, I set out to show how different the situation is when livestock have to be moved between drought refuge areas.

And like in the previous section, this discussion is based on the experiences of a pre- mobile phone era, as was the typical case during the 1999-2000-drought period.

As already pointed out in previous discussions, whenever livestock is moved to the drought refuge areas, warani are given full authority over them until the day the drought is over and they return home. Always looking after the livestock in teams of two or more people mainly for security reasons, the warani usually strive to keep in touch with people back in the manyatta to keep them posted on the condition of the livestock and also to just check up on their next of kin. They achieve this by sending a colleague or two back

(normally two for security reasons) to the manyatta particularly when they have a certain need that requires help from those in the manyatta (for example, when they need certain kinds of medicine) or when it is time for the livestock to be moved to a new drought refuge area. The FGD participants pointed out that when the warani return home from the field, people whose livestock went with the group where the warani have come from gather at the manyatta where these warani are so that they can be briefed on the state of the other warani and livestock out there in the field. The warani do not move from manyatta to manyatta briefing everyone. 101

In this kind of arrangement, it is the responsibility of the warani to form the scouting group and send them out to look for pasture and water whenever these two vital resources begin to dwindle at their present location. The following key informant describes how warani go about making a decision to move while they are away from home and out of the influence of the elders:

You know they have to look around for pasture first before moving. They do a

survey to gauge where more grass is available. They achieve this by sending some

of their compatriots out to conduct a survey. The scouts will return with

information on pasture availability or lack thereof. If they say there is grass then

the livestock will be moved. They then send word to those at home that the

livestock have been moved to a new location based on the leads from the scouts. –

Tamiyoi 2, Ng’ari Group Ranch Official, 28th May 2013

The reliance on information on the condition of pasture and water resources gathered by scouts to make livestock mobility decision makes mobility strategy a good option for coping with drought. A key informant pointed out that, in terms of condition of drought refuge areas including pasture and water resources the scouts usually look at the following: areas with variety of vegetation including grass, trees and shrubs to serve both cattle and other livestock like goats and camels in cases where they are moved together; water resources range from rivers, shallow wells dug on dry river beds, constructed water pans to borehole water points; and security of both livestock and warani is also a consideration in choosing a drought refuge area (Tamiyoi 4, Community Elder, 14th June 102

2013). Areas prone to violent conflict or known for high incidences of wildlife attacks are given least consideration and only opted for as last resort.

However, the fact that scouting for pasture and water resources is time intensive makes it less desirable especially under extreme drought conditions. As the FGD participants pointed out, while relying on scouts is a central part of the mobility decision- making process, during extreme drought, warani are usually forced to move livestock without relying on information from scouts because waiting may be more risky than moving while searching. In such cases, they rely on their local knowledge (for example, local knowledge of weather patterns, areas of potential insecurity, the distribution of water reservoirs and wells, topography and reports of recent rainfall gathered from within their social network) to figure out which areas are more likely to have pasture and water then move the livestock there. As a community elder explained, it is also very rare to find water and pasture in the same place during drought periods. In most cases, pasture is found in one location and water is situated in a different location and the livestock have to be moved between these two areas at least every two days depending on how far apart they are from each other. The location of pasture and water resources relative from each other is important because movement between these two resources is an additional stress on livestock.

In contrast to information from the scouts, relying on existing knowledge of regional environmental variation and potential exposure to conflict to make decisions on livestock movements during extreme drought situations leads to a more opportunistic pattern of movement. This is due to the fact that livestock are moved to areas generally 103 known to have pasture and water during drought periods, but which may no longer have adequate pasture resources because others have accessed them in the recent past.

However, use of mobile phones for communication among pastoralists from Tamiyoi community is increasingly making it possible to rely on information gathered by scouts even during extreme drought periods. As the next section will show, Tamiyoi pastoralist relied on mobile phones to communicate during the 2009 drought and this brought about several important changes in livestock mobility strategies and in particular the decision making process.

5.2.3 Role Of Mobile Phone Technology On Changing Livestock Mobility

This section presents an analysis of data relating to how pastoralists from Tamiyoi community went about coping with the 2009 drought. In particular, the section discusses how use of mobile phones influenced livestock mobility. As the analyses and discussions in this section will show, use of mobile phone made it possible to depend on information from scouts even during extreme drought conditions, which was not the case when there were no mobile phones as was the case with 1999-2000 drought. However, as the section will further reveal the impact of mobile phone technology is dependent on existing social network.

According to research participants from Tamiyoi community, use of mobile phones can be traced back to a few years before the last major drought in the area. Considering that the community members regard the 2009 drought as the last major drought they experienced in recent past, this puts the entry of mobile phones into Tamiyoi village somewhere around 2003 or later – taking into account the marginalization legacy and 104 how far removed Samburu County is from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Presently, the prevalence of mobile phone use among Tamiyoi community members is significant with

76% of the 21 FGD participants reporting to own or have a mobile phone in their manyatta (See appendix 1 for a discussion of the practicality of mobile phone use in

Samburu County). The high rate of mobile phone adoption among Tamiyoi community members may be explained by their relative close proximity to Maralal town.

Having established high rates of mobile phone ownership, the remainder of this section seeks to identify the primary changes in livestock mobility that have occurred among those who use mobile phone in mobility decision-making. According to the FGD participants, whereas scouts are still sent out to look for pasture and water, there is an emerging trend where information received over a mobile phone informs the decision to move livestock. A key informant confirms the FGD participants’ assertion when he points out that:

Even though mobile phones existed, some people still conducted survey(s). You

know not everybody is to be trusted. So even if you call someone and they tell

you there’s grass and water in their area, you must go and confirm before you

move your cattle. But if it’s your moran or someone you trust then you can move

the livestock without physically visiting the place first. – Tamiyoi 3, Community

Elder, 28th May 2013.

The foregoing speaks to the way new flows of information maps onto pre-existing social relations (trust and kinship) and is important in showing how the impact of mobile phone technology is socially determined. As is evident in the preceding key informant’s 105 assertion, new flows of information made possible by mobile phone use still follow the contours of family and community relationships of trust. Even though a pastoralist may own a mobile phone, how helpful the phone is to him/her – with regards to finding pasture and water resources – is dependent on the existence of a social relation with other trusted pastoralists. As the key informant pointed out, when someone outside the social network shares reliable information on pasture and water availability over the phone, no livestock movement to that area can take place until that information is verified by scouts who physical visit the area or through a confirmation from another trusted person. In relation to the research question, what the foregoing means is that scouts can be relied upon both during normal and extreme drought situations because they are able to relay information almost instantly as they find a potential drought refuge area, which is a deviation from the practice during the periods when there were no mobile phones.

Considering the prevalence of mobile phone adoption in Tamiyoi community, and in particular the fact that most warani had mobile phones in 2009, it follows that communicating the environmental and geographic information about a drought refuge areas between the scouts and those left behind to look after livestock took on a new dimension that combined both passing of information by word of mouth (normal during the pre-mobile phone era) as well as through the use of mobile phones (new dimension since mobile phones). In essence, warani’s reliance on information phone ensured that coordinated movement patterns of normal drought periods were extended onto extreme drought situations, previously characterised by opportunistic movements. 106

As a justification of the foregoing, 100% of the 21 FGD participants spoke to the general positive influence of mobile phone technology, which include enhanced information sharing and ease of money transfer and storage among others; while 60% of the 5 Tamiyoi community key informants spoke specifically to the possibility of use of mobile phone in the search for pasture and water resources. However, in spite of the insinuations that mobile phones were used in search for pasture and water resources during the 2009 drought period, not any of the two groups of research participants provided adequate information that could lead to specific pastoralists (warani) who actually used mobile phones to scout for pasture and water resources during the 2009 drought period thereby making it almost impossible to sufficiently make a specific argument based on the extent of mobile phone impact on the livestock mobility decision- making process.

Moreover, 70% of all the 10 key informants pointed out that although mobile phones exist now, in the recent past there has been a decline in herd size resulting from loss of livestock during extreme droughts including the 1999/2000 drought and frequent raids by Pokot cattle rustlers particularly in the areas of Loosuk and Amaya.

Additionally, 80% of the 10 key informants mentioned that most of the pastoralists living in Samburu Central District are increasingly settling and taking up crop farming, charcoal burning and in particular wage employment in areas like Maralal town to supplement their pastoral livelihood that has been heavily impacted by drought and unfavourable government policies. As one key informant pointed out, the government has neglected these regions (ASALs) for a very long time and even now that there is focus on 107 developing the ASALs, government policy is skewed towards getting the pastoralists to settle and supporting the expansion of crop farming and other livelihood diversification options at the expense of the pastoral livestock industry that has survived recurrent bouts of drought since time immemorial (Samburu 2, Government Official, 17th June 2013).

5.3 Other Over-Arching Drivers Of Change

Based on the foregoing it is important to look at the other factors that could possible have contributed to the observed change in the geography of drought refuge areas. Besides the mobile phone technology, several drivers of change, all of which emerge from the primary data collected during the two month long fieldwork in Ng’ari group ranch, could help explain the observed change in geography of drought refuge areas between 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods. In this section, I will be analyzing and discussing each and every one of these drivers of change to ascertain to what extent they have contributed to the observed change. Then at the end of this section, I will look at the role of these over-arching drivers of change vis a vis mobile phone technology and come up with a factual conclusive argument that explains what contributed to the observed change in geography of drought refuge areas between 1999-2000 and 2009.

During the fieldwork, several over-arching drivers of change were pointed out by research participants including relative duration of the two droughts, violent conflict between the Samburu and their Turkana and Pokot neighbours, on going livelihood diversification programs in Samburu County, and reduction in herd size per household among members of Tamiyoi community. 108

5.3.1 Duration Of Drought

According to the narratives given by the Tamiyoi community research participants,

1999-2000 and 2009 droughts were both very severe and had lasting impacts some of which are still being felt to date. According to personal communication with one community elder cum government official, members of the Samburu community lost most of their livestock during the 1999-2000 drought and others went on to lose everything that was left when another major drought hit in 2009. Some of these individuals have taken to waged employment while a considerable amount of them especially the elderly ones and children from these less fortunate lot dot the streets of

Maralal town leading a street urchin lifestyle (Ibid).

Part of the severity of these two droughts is related to how long they both lasted.

The longer a drought lasts the more the impact it has on pastoralist communities and this was the exact case with the 1999-2000 and 2009 droughts. According to the Tamiyoi community members sampled for the focus group discussion and key informant interviews, the 1999-2000 drought lasted longer than the 2009 drought. As this respondent puts it:

Even that one [referring to 2009 drought] was severe. It was severe but a little

brief. The other one lasted for a long time beginning in January until October of

1999/2000. I think the initial rain fell in December. It was not until December that

it rained. So the 2009 drought was severe but did not last for long. We lost

livestock but not comparable to the 1999 and 2000 drought. – Tamiyoi 2, Ng’ari

Group Ranch Official, 28th May 2013. 109

The foregoing paints a picture of pastoralists winding up their pasture and water search sooner in 2009 relative to 1999-2000. Movement of livestock usually happens in stages as described in the previous section that detailed grazing patterns of the Samburu who live in Tamiyoi village. The movement usually starts from grazing fields closer to the homesteads during wet season and dry periods, and eventually progresses on to grazing fields further away from the homesteads as dry spell intensifies and degenerates into a drought emergency. Therefore, considering that the 2009 drought did not last as long as the 1999-2000, movement of livestock in 2009 did not reach the extent of livestock movement in 1999-2000. Partly, this explains why members of Tamiyoi community moved to fewer and closer drought refuge areas in the 2009 drought period compared to the 1999-2000 drought period as shown in figure 11 in the preceding section.

5.3.2 Violent Conflict

Conflict forms part of human history and its prevention remains a key global challenge (Mwaura & Schmeidl, 2002). This is the exact case in the Karamoja cluster9 in which the Samburu County falls under. The Karamoja cluster is characterized by recurring conflict that is mostly exhibited as inter-ethnic cattle rustling and violent conflict. Meier et al (2007) contend that there is a certain level of violent conflict that is endemic to pastoral regions. For example, availability of water and pasture prompts pastoralists along the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda to migrate away from areas

9 Karamoja cluster is a term that describes a larger, cross-border area of land that covers the Karamoja area of North Eastern Uganda, parts of South Eastern South Sudan, South Western Ethiopia and North Western Kenya (Powell, 2010, italics mine) 110 of dwindling resources; thus raising competition over finite resources with incidence of conflict increasing when these individuals move into areas of crop growing communities

(Bond & Meier, 2005). The conflicts in these pastoral regions have varied causes including political, socio-economic and environmental causes. However, environmental causes, particularly resource scarcity, were fronted as the main driver of conflict in these regions not until new evidence suggested otherwise. Meier et al (2007) argue that resource scarcity is not the sole or most important driver of pastoral conflict. They contend that that pastoral conflict is caused by a host of factors acting in a complex system (Meier et al, 2007) where commercialization of cattle rustling, political marginalization of pastoral societies, proliferation of small arms in the pastoral regions, resource scarcity and the pastoralists’ intrinsic urge to restock dwindling herds interact and feed into each other to produce and sustain pockets of violent conflicts. Depending on what side of the conflict spectrum one stands, these conflicts do have far reaching implications on pastoral societies. The raiders when successful, aside from casualties and injuries, do go home with a fortune. On the other hand the raided, on top of casualties and injuries sustained, are usually devastated and in some instances even forced into destitution (McCabe, 1990 as cited in Kratli & Swift, 1999).

Whenever conflicts arise people tend to flee away from conflicted areas. This is true of the Samburu pastoralist of northwestern Kenya. According to the research participants, because of conflict certain drought refuge areas have been completely abandoned while others are visited minimally. Examples of places that were cited include

Marti towards the northern western part of Tamiyoi village where conflict over water and 111 pasture usually arise between Samburu and their Turkana neighbours. In Loosuk area cattle raids by Pokot pastoralists is so rampant that the Samburu shy away from taking their livestock to graze in the region. However, Amaya is probably the worst-case scenario of drought refuge area made almost completely inaccessible because of violent conflict between Samburu and Pokot communities. As Okumu (2011) points out, “at the height of inter-community violence, Amaya10 market in East Pokot was a no go zone for the Samburu even though many Samburu live just across the Amaya River – a mere 800 meters away from the market.” The back and forth cattle raids between the Pokot and

Samburu in these region had claimed over 500 lives by 2009 (Okumu, 2011).

According to the focus group discussion participants, because of the Pokot-

Samburu violent conflict in Amaya, which started in 200511, fewer Samburu took their livestock to regions of Amaya during the 2009 drought compared to 1999-2000. But the bad blood between the Samburu and Pokot prevented the Samburu from venturing into

West Pokot completely during the 2009 drought, which was not the case in 1999-2000 when some members of Tamiyoi community took their livestock to West Pokot approximately 166 kilometers away. The following statement from a research participant affirms the foregoing:

10 Amaya is an area that traverses East Pokot in Baringo County primarily inhabited by Pokot people and Samburu County primarily inhabited by Samburu people. The area is served by River Amaya and acts as a drought refuge area for the pastoralists. 11 The violence between Samburu and Pokot around the areas of Amaya started in 2005 with the Kanampiu massacre where 31 Samburu and 11 Pokot lost their lives (Okumu, 2011). 112

When there was no conflict between Samburu and Pokot, they (the Samburu)

used to go even to West Pokot. They used to also go to Amaya to the south. But

since the conflict broke out between Samburu and Pokot, Samburu now move

their livestock to Laikipia or Rumuruti and even up to Nanyuki. – Tamiyoi 2,

Ng’ari Group Ranch Official, 28th May 2013.

5.3.3 Livelihood Diversification

Over the last thirty years, livestock-to-human ratios have generally declined to levels that will no longer support pure pastoralism (Thornton et al, 2006). In order to continue surviving, livestock keeping communities have taken to other economic activities to serve as supplemental livelihood sources. Livelihood diversification is not a new thing as many nomadic livestock keeping people have historically utilized ties with foraging, farming and more recently urban communities in times of drought and conflict

(Fratkin et al, 2011). Livelihood diversification in Samburu takes a variety of forms including sale of milk, sale of livestock, poultry keeping, bee keeping, crop farming, charcoal burning and a variety of wage employment (both skilled and unskilled). As

Little (2001) points out, “herders residing less than 40 km from towns typically have more alternative income generating options than those living further away.” Fratkin et al

(2011) contend that, to this end “education has played an increasing important role, particularly in obtaining professional employment in hospitals and health clinics, government offices, military and police, and employment in non-government organizations.” Pastoralists are diversifying their sources of livelihood to reduce risks 113 associated with impacts of drought and conflict on livestock production, which are a common occurrence in the arid and semi arid regions that they inhabit.

While it is true that livelihood diversification can cushion pastoral communities against risks related to drought and conflict, diversification also does pause risks and in certain instances may even make pastoral communities more vulnerable especially where such diversification translates to sedentarisation. Herd mobility and herd diversification remain the major means of managing risk in pastoral areas and efforts to encourage diversification should not impede these strategies (Little, 2001).

Oblivious of Little’s assertion, most diversification that goes on in Samburu

County, and in particular Samburu Central District, emphasizes the adoption of a settled lifestyle. The result has been an increase in small-scale subsistence crop farming and reduction in available pastureland. Considering the close proximity of Tamiyoi community to Maralal town and the devastating impact of recurrent drought, more people are having fewer livestock and taking up alternative means of living. Fewer livestock means reduced movement in search of pasture. As a remedy more members of Tamiyoi community are embracing sale of livestock as a cushion to drought and restocking when conditions are favourable. All these factors playing together serve to partly explain the shrinkage in livestock movement witnessed in 2009 relative to 1999-2000 drought period.

5.3.4 Reduction In Herd Size

According to Tamiyoi community key informant interview participants, an increasing number of people are resorting to having few herds of livestock, especially cattle. However, it is not just that pastoralists are deciding to reduce the size of their herd, 114 but reduction of herd size has also been attributed to cattle rustling by neighbouring communities like the Pokot, which intensifies after prolonged droughts in Pokot land

(Boruru et al, 2011). As the key informants pointed out, this decline in herd size per household has been relatively minimal on the small stock like sheep and goat. All the research participants pointed out that the declining trend of herd size especially cattle is not only within Tamiyoi community but also generally across Samburu County.

Participants attributed the decline in herd size to drought impact, reduction in pastureland due to crop farming and human population increase. One of the community elders described the situation as follows:

It [in reference to herd size] has reduced. It is not like in the past. In the past we

had a lot of cattle, but now it has reduced a lot for most people. And not everyone

has livestock. There are those who do not have livestock. So there is a decline. –

Tamiyoi 3, Community Elder, 28th May 2013.

Herd mobility declines with a decline in herd size and in particular long distance movement of livestock to grazing fields further away. Basically, the incentive to move with livestock for long distances in search of pasture and water declines with a decline in the size of herd. As some of the research participants pointed out, small herd is easier to manage than a larger one. For instance, they pointed out that people with few livestock would find it easy to sell their livestock as drought approaches and then restock when drought is gone. But this is rarely seen among those with large herds, who use the large size of the herd as a cushion against losses associated with drought. Unfortunately, this strategy has not been very effective lately with the increase in the frequency of drought 115 occurrences. Therefore, considering that a decline in herd size is directly proportional to a decline in long distance herd mobility, it suffices to deduce that the reduction in the number of drought refuge areas visited in 2009 by members of Tamiyoi community relative to the 1999-2000 is attributable to overall reduction in herd size within the community.

The foregoing points to the fact that, while mobile phone technology may have the potential to influence pastoral resource management and/or is already impacting the search for pasture and water resources that in turn determines the distribution of drought refuge areas, other over-arching pre-mobile phone era drivers of change in the pastoral societies played a more important role in the changing geography of drought refuge areas between 1999-2000 and 2009.

5.4 Summary Of Findings

Pastoralists are using mobile phones to pass information on availability of pasture and water in times of drought. However, the study reveals that such usage of mobile phones is socially determined and follows well-established family and community relationships of trust. Moreover, based on the analyses and discussions of primary data collected during a fieldwork conducted between May and July 2013, the study further finds out that mobile phone technology has the potential to influence how pastoralists cope with drought and in particular how they go about searching for pasture and water resources and making livestock movement decisions. However, in relation to the specific changes observed in geography of drought refuge areas between 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods, the study finds the role of mobile phone technology to be relatively 116 minor relative to the overarching drivers of change, including conflict, livelihood diversification and reduction in herd size, which are leading to more fundamental changes in pastoralist mobility strategies.

117

Chapter 6: Conclusion

6.1 Introduction

This chapter details the conclusion of the thesis and is divided into six sections.

This section gives a brief introduction. The second section provides a summary of the major findings. Third section of this chapter details the limitations to the study. The fourth section outlines the broader significance of the study. Finally, the fifth section provides areas with opportunities for further research.

6.2 Summary Of Findings

The study documents changes in the geography of drought refuge areas between the 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods. The analyses of the field data in chapter 4 reveal that there was generally more movement in 1999-2000 than in 2009. However, the study further establishes that to access major drought refuge areas, Samburu pastoralists moved out of Samburu County more in 2009 as compared to 1999-2000. Basically, the study finds that there were more major drought refuge areas outside Samburu County in

2009 than there were in 1999-2000. Further, the study suggests that the changes in the pattern of drought refuge may reflect a preference for certain land cover types among

Samburu pastoralists. In particular, the study shows that Samburu pastoralists prefer areas with mixed kind of vegetation for drought refuge areas as compared to those with specialized vegetation type such as grassland.

In chapter 5, the study establishes that Samburu pastoralists are using mobile phones for a variety purposes including communication. It finds that pastoralists are using mobile phones to pass information on availability of pasture and water resources in 118 times of drought, which is vital for making livestock mobility decisions. However, the study establishes that such usage of mobile phones is socially determined and follows well-established family and community relationships of trust, which actually works against the potential of the technology to enhance livestock mobility as a drought coping strategy. In essence, the study finds that relative duration of drought, violent conflict, livelihood diversification and reduction in herd size acting either independently or collectively, contributed towards creating the observed change in geography of drought refuge areas between 1999-2000 and 2009 drought periods.

6.3 Study Limitations

The use of interviews both key informant and group interviews like FGD have some limitation to them. Interviews rely on the willingness of the respondent to give accurate and complete answers. This is made worse when translation from the respondent’s language to a language understood by the researcher is required. For example, one of my key informants from Tamiyoi community did not have good command of either English or Kiswahili. So she could hear my questions in Kiswahili and then answer them in her native Samburu language and my research assistant would then translate whatever she said to me. The problem comes when she would put across a very long response and my research assistant just gave a few sentences as translation to what she said. This left me with the feeling that some information was lost in the translation.

Actual number of livestock that went to each place and more information on the history of use of major drought refuge areas would have been useful in enriching 119 discussions on Chapter 4. Additionally, specific environmental criteria employed by scouts to evaluate forage and water resource conditions at different locations before deciding on their favourability to serve as drought refuge areas would have enhanced the discussion in sections of Chapter 5.

6.4 Broader Significance Of The Study

The foregoing study findings are significant for two main reasons. First, by documenting the change in geography of drought refuge areas and the causes thereof, the study contributes to a growing literature that speak to the transitional nature of pastoralism as practiced in the ASALs of Kenya. This is important for policy level interventions aimed at building the resilience of pastoral communities to recurrent drought episodes.

Second, by establishing that pastoralists indeed are using mobile phones for a variety of purposes and that the significance of such usage is influenced by existing social networks, the study findings provide a basis upon which to design a drought early warning mobile phone information dissemination program whereby warani are used as conduit through which to convey such information to community elders. The warani can be selected from as many locations as possible to increase level of trust in early warning information. As it is now, because of limited trust they prefer to rely on their traditional ways of predicting drought than the monthly early warning bulletins that are also mostly inaccessible to them due to illiteracy and remoteness of their location (Samburu 5,

Government Official, 26th June 2013). 120

6.5 Opportunities For Further Research

There are three further research opportunities of particular importance that emerge from this thesis work. First, as this study confirms, livestock mobility remains a key drought coping strategy even for the increasingly sedentary agro-pastoralists of Samburu

Central District. Considering that existing social networks dictate the impact of mobile phone technology on livestock mobility, a study investigating how social networks can be expanded among Samburu pastoralists will go along way in contributing towards the enhancement of livestock mobility strategy.

Second, from the study’s findings it is apparent that violent conflict that started in

2005 (Okumu, 2011) between the Samburu and Pokot had a significant negative impact on Samburu pastoralists’ livestock mobility and access to drought refuge areas located either in Pokot areas or at the border between Pokot and Samburu communities. In the past, such conflict has mainly been addressed through a national security intervention approach whereby the national government relies on armed police or military personnel to end the conflict. This approach has over time proved successful in the short term but on a long term it has performed dismally as violent conflict keeps recurring between these communities. Therefore, it would be important to investigate how a human security approach to addressing conflict between Pokot and Samburu would play out in the long term and whether such an approach can be applied to other conflicts in the Karamoja cluster. Further, it would be important to investigate how adoption of mobile phone technology by pastoral communities in the Karamoja cluster is producing new dimensions to the existing informal institutional structures of conflict instigation, 121 prevention and resolution, and the implications of the foregoing on future conflict management policies and programs focused on this region.

Third, there is a need to conduct a field based research to ascertain how feasible crop farming as a livelihood diversification option is for the Samburu pastoralists in light of the group ranch system of land tenure and climate variability. It would be significant to establish whether or not crop farming on group ranch land is a form of maladaptation to climate variability. Based on most narratives from the research participants, there is a possibility that emphasis on crop farming at the expense of livestock production is only serving to leave pastoralists more vulnerable to the impacts of climate variability and in particular drought.

122

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Appendix 1: Practicality Of Mobile Phone Use In Samburu County

Whereas mobile phone technology is positively impacting how pastoralists cope with drought in Samburu County, it is not without certain challenges that serve to compromise its full potential. In this section I bring to fore the practicality of using a mobile phone in Samburu by focusing on mobile phone network coverage, battery charging options and airtime top-up options for Samburu warani while they are looking after livestock or looking for pasture and water in some of the remotest parts of the

County.

Mobile phone network coverage

Mobile phone network coverage in Samburu County is not one of the best relative to other places like Nairobi County, where Kenya’s capital city is located. The network coverage is very good in and around the major urban centers like Maralal, Baragoi,

Wamba, Archer’s Post and Suguta Marmar among others. But the coverage gets really bad as you go deep into the remote parts of the County like Opiroi, Marti, Angata

Nanyukie and Sukuta valley among others.

Despite the challenge of poor network coverage in the rural areas, warani have found ways of going around it by looking for strategic spots with fair or good network coverage and designating them as communication points with specific communication times. For instance, if point A has been designated as a communication point then all the rest of the team are made aware of such a development. A communication time is also designated. So whenever the communication time arrives, a representative is sent to point

A to receive any messages and calls that may be coming in, and also make important 137 calls. The Tamiyoi pastoralists mainly rely on calling services and less on text messaging services.

Actually, the foregoing strategy has been employed even by non-governmental organisations working in this region. Some organizations have mastered the art of designating and using communication points and time such that they even hold meetings with their field staff through this strategy. For example, through a conversation with an employee of one of the non-governmental organisations working within the County he had the following to say:

There is a health center we work with in a place called Marti in the areas around

Baragoi. We have provided our field officer with a phone. The field officer in

most cases is a local Samburu Moran who has knowledge of where there is

network coverage. The field officer keeps a constant contact with our office in

Wamba. In case we need to talk to the nurse in charge at Marti Dispensary, we

organize with the field officer so that the nurse is informed. Usually we

communicate with them every Wednesday at 10.00am. So at 10.00am they move

to that place where there is network and we are able to call them and have a chat

on how things are… – Samburu 1, NGO Worker, 24th May 2013.

Further conversations with the NGO worker revealed that Safaricom (the most commonly used mobile phone service provider) has a free service that allows one to receive a short message notification with all calls that tried to come through the phone when it was switched off or was out of network coverage. This makes coordination possible for the NGOs working in this region. It also enhances coordination between 138 different groups of warani in different areas, especially during drought when herd mobility is most essential.

Mobile phone battery charging options

Ordinarily, ensuring that a mobile phone has constant supply of power would be a very big challenge for a person living in a remote region with limited electricity supply.

In fact, this is true for most people in Samburu. So it was in my interest to understand how the pastoralist who talk of the revolutionary nature of the mobile phone, go about ensuring that their phones do not run out of power especially when they are with their livestock in the remote areas. According to the FGD participants, the warani have embraced solar energy and they walk around with portable solar panels with built in mobile phone charging system that they use to tap the abundant sunlight, which in turn charges their mobile phones. According to the FGD participants, this solar panel option is mostly popular with the warani when they go deep into the remote areas where no market center that is supplied with electricity is available.

Other strategies that they employ include but are not limited to purchasing extra phone batteries; sending someone with all the phones that need charging to a nearby market center where he charges them at a fee and returns after a few hours or the next day depending on how far the place is; and switching off the phones whenever they are out of network coverage areas to save on the battery power.

Airtime top up

Considering the length of time these pastoralists can take with their livestock in the wilderness, especially during drought periods, it is only prudent that one understands how 139 they go about keeping their phones topped up. According to the FGD participants, there is usually not a lot of mobile phone communication going on while warani are out in the field looking after livestock. Therefore, they usually do not need a lot of airtime.

Moreover, they do carry extra airtime with them to the wilderness for contingency purposes.

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Appendix 2: Samburu Settlement

Samburu pastoralists have two forms of settlement patterns namely the homestead

(boma in Kiswahili) and Manyatta (Spencer, 1965).

Boma

This is a social unit headed by a senior male charged with the responsibility of directing the activities of the boma. The senior male is the owner of all the livestock in the boma. As Spencer (1965) points out, “a deep rooted Samburu ideal is that each man should have his own herd and ultimately be able to manage it independently.” Typically a boma is composed of a husband, wives and children. Figure 12 below shows two

Samburu bomas in Tamiyoi village.

Figure 12: A photo of two Samburu bomas

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Manyatta

This is a well-defined social unit consisting of a collection of homesteads arranged in a crude circle (Spencer, 1965). Unlike the boma, manyatta is composed of several stock owners12 who depend on each other on a daily basis. As Spencer (1965) points out, stock owners inevitably rely on other members of the settlement and other things being equal a man has the strongest claim for support with his closest kinsmen. Figure 13 below shows a manyatta in Tamiyoi village

Figure 13: A Samburu manyatta

12 Stock owner refers to a senior male of a homestead who directs its activities (Spencer, 1965 pg. 12) 142

Appendix 3: Kenya Counties Map

Source: Survey of Kenya, Nairobi, July 2013

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Appendix 4: Map Of Samburu County Forests

Source: Kenya Forest Service, Nairobi, July 2013

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