Pastoralist Integrated Support Programme
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Empowered lives. Resilient nations. PASTORALIST INTEGRATED SUPPORT PROGRAMME Kenya Equator Initiative Case Studies Local sustainable development solutions for people, nature, and resilient communities UNDP EQUATOR INITIATIVE CASE STUDY SERIES Local and indigenous communities across the world are advancing innovative sustainable development solutions that work for people and for nature. Few publications or case studies tell the full story of how such initiatives evolve, the breadth of their impacts, or how they change over time. Fewer still have undertaken to tell these stories with community practitioners themselves guiding the narrative. To mark its 10-year anniversary, the Equator Initiative aims to fill this gap. The following case study is one in a growing series that details the work of Equator Prize winners – vetted and peer-reviewed best practices in community-based environmental conservation and sustainable livelihoods. These cases are intended to inspire the policy dialogue needed to take local success to scale, to improve the global knowledge base on local environment and development solutions, and to serve as models for replication. Case studies are best viewed and understood with reference to ‘The Power of Local Action: Lessons from 10 Years of the Equator Prize’, a compendium of lessons learned and policy guidance that draws from the case material. Click on the map to visit the Equator Initiative’s searchable case study database. Editors Editor-in-Chief: Joseph Corcoran Managing Editor: Oliver Hughes Contributing Editors: Dearbhla Keegan, Matthew Konsa, Erin Lewis, Whitney Wilding Contributing Writers Edayatu Abieodun Lamptey, Erin Atwell, Toni Blackman, Jonathan Clay, Joseph Corcoran, Larissa Currado, Sarah Gordon, Oliver Hughes, Wen-Juan Jiang, Sonal Kanabar, Dearbhla Keegan, Matthew Konsa, Rachael Lader, Patrick Lee, Erin Lewis, Jona Liebl, Mengning Ma, Mary McGraw, Gabriele Orlandi, Brandon Payne, Juliana Quaresma, Peter Schecter, Martin Sommerschuh, Whitney Wilding, Luna Wu Design Oliver Hughes, Dearbhla Keegan, Matthew Konsa, Amy Korngiebel, Kimberly Koserowski, Erin Lewis, John Mulqueen, Lorena de la Parra, Brandon Payne, Mariajosé Satizábal G. Acknowledgements The Equator Initiative acknowledges with gratitude the Pastoralist Integrated Support Programme (PISP) and in particular the guidance and inputs of Ali Doti. All photo credits courtesy of PISP. Maps courtesy of CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia. Suggested Citation United Nations Development Programme. 2012. Pastoralist Integrated Support Programme, Kenya. Equator Initiative Case Study Series. New York, NY. PASTORALIST INTEGRATED SUPPORT PROGRAMME Kenya PROJECT SUMMARY KEY FACTS On the arid rangelands of the Marsabit area of northern Kenya, the livelihoods of pastoralist groups are subject EQUATOR PRIZE WINNER: 2004 to threats from overgrazing, land use change, social instability, and climate change. Pastoralist Integrated FOUNDED: 1996 Support Programme (PISP), a local NGO, has worked since 1996 to increase the number of water points that can LOCATION: Greater Marsabit, northern Kenya provide safe and reliable water for livestock and people, while strengthening conservation of key wildlife species in BENEFICIARIES: Over 11,000 pastoralists Marsabit National Park and the wider area. BIODIVERSITY: Pasture conservation Efforts to improve grazing management and to diversify the income stream of pastoralists have helped to reduce pressure on natural resources and thereby lessen tensions between resource user groups, while the group has also held community dialogues and encouraged shared maintenance of water infrastructure to effectively address the ecological and economic stresses that threaten the pastoralist way of life. TABLE OF CONTENTS Background and Context 4 Key Activities and Innovations 6 Biodiversity Impacts 8 Socioeconomic Impacts 8 Policy Impacts 9 Sustainability 10 Replication 10 Partners 11 3 Background and Context Pastoralist Integrated Support Programme (PISP) is a non- Kenya’s harsh landscape. Various features of pastoralist life allow governmental organization based in the greater Marsabit area of people to prepare for, cope with, recover from, and adapt to both northern Kenya. PISP works to reduce poverty and vulnerability to internal and external stresses and shocks. Communities manage drought among the pastoralist communities in one of Kenya’s most drought reserve pastures and water sources to help minimize animal arid and isolated areas by providing innovative water-sanitation losses during drought. Traditional herega committees govern access solutions, livelihoods development activities, educational support to shallow wells. Households aim to keep diverse herds, because and conflict management programs. while cattle need water every two days, smaller animals can go four days without water, and camels can survive up to ten or even eleven PISP conducts its work in north-central Kenya’s Marsabit, Laismis days. This enables camels to graze up to 50 km away from water and Chalbi districts, where 97 per cent of the land is classified sources and makes them the most drought-resistant members of as rangeland. The landscape there is mostly composed of arid family herds. and semi-arid plains dominated by bushland, shrubland, annual grasslands, and barren areas dotted with inselbergs (isolated rock Though sensitive to water shortage, cattle are important to survival. hills that rise abruptly from the surrounding plain), volcanic cones, Milk accounts for over 60 per cent of a pastoralist household’s food and calderas (another volcanic feature). Montane forests, mist forests consumption. At times when milk production decreases, blood is and perennial grasslands dominate the peaks and slopes of region’s mixed in with milk and small stock are butchered for meat or can three extinct volcanoes: Mount Kulal (2,230m), Mount Marsabit be sold or traded for commodities such as maize meal, sugar and (1,700m) and the Hurri Hills (1,310m). tea. In order to split risks, conserve pasture in inhabited areas, and attend to family needs a small subsistence milk herd generally The majority of the region receives an average of about 300mm of grazes near home while the remaining animals are sent to graze afar rainfall annually, while highland areas often get well over twice that in more abundant pastures. These patterns of mobility, flexibility amount. Over the last fifty years, there has been a significant decline and adaptation have traditionally sustained the pastoralists of the in the overall amount of rainfall, but precipitation is known to vary Marsabit region, which is home to approximately 144,739 people, widely from year to year. Climate change has the potential to intensify 150,000 cattle, 460,000 sheep, 360,000 goats, 100,000 camels, 20,000 this annual variability and increase the frequency of extreme weather donkeys and 20,000 poultry. events, including drought and flooding. Groundwater and surface water move east towards the Jubba River Basin, west towards Lake Patterns of mobility have historically allowed for pasture sites to Turkana, and north towards the Chalbi Desert. recover for several seasons between uses. Pastoralists generally graze their animals in the highland areas at times when rain is The pastoralist lifestyle abundant. There, perennial grasses such as dichanthium insculptum, broadleaf herbaceous plants including cammelina africana and The Burji, Gabra and Rendille peoples engage in some limited cameliana benghalensis, and trees such as acacia tortilis and barleria agricultural activities in the Mount Marsabit area. However, the proxima provide desirable forage for livestock. However, highland majority of the area’s inhabitants, notably the Gabra, Konso, Wata water access becomes a problem in the dry season, necessitating and Borana ethnic groups, are almost exclusively pastoralist, both movement to arid low-lying areas where scattered permanent by tradition and necessity. Pastoralist systems evolved as a strategy springs and reliable groundwater are more readily available. for people to adapt both socially and ecologically to the northern 4 Once in the dry plains, livestock rely on annual grasses and sedges and that much of the population is reliant on food aid. 73 per cent of including Aristida spp., digitaria sp., D. velutina, eragrostis, and households spend an hour or more collecting water every day, and chloris virgate. Much of the area’s wildlife follows similar seasonal in most households, this responsibility falls to women. Only half of movements as pastoralists and their livestock. East African oryx the population has access to improved sources of water for drinking, (oryx besia), the endangered Grevy’s zebra (equus grevyi), gerenuk and even more than this have no sanitary facilities and use the bush (litocranius walleri), ostrich (struthio camelus), Grant’s gazelle (nanger or fields to dispose of human waste. granti), reticulated giraffe (giraffa camelopardalis), lion (panthera leo), leopard (panthera pardus), cheetah (acinonyx jubatus) and elephants Some challenges are exacerbated by the failure of conventional (loxodonta africana) are all found in the region. Of these, elephants development interventions to consider the unique constraints of the have the most precarious relationship with their human neighbors; pastoralist lifestyle. For example, 62 per cent of school-aged children they are frequently reported as causing crop destruction and killing attend school, but enrollment and retention rates at secondary both