When The Water Ends: Africa’s Climate Conflicts
09 February, 2011 | By Evan Abramson (Yale Environment 360)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
grazing lands.
These herdsmen have long been accustomed to adapting to a changing
environment. But in recent years, they have faced challenges unlike any in
living memory: As temperatures in the region have risen and water supplies
have dwindled, the pastoralists have had to range more widely in search of
suitable water and land. That search has brought tribal groups in Ethiopia and
Kenya in increasing conflict, as pastoral communities kill each other over
water and grass.
“When the Water Ends,” a 16-minute video produced by Yale Environment
360 in collaboration with MediaStorm, tells the story of this conflict and of
the increasingly dire drought conditions facing parts of East Africa. To report
this video, Evan Abramson, a 32-year-old photographer and videographer,
spent two months in the region early this year, living among the herding
communities. He returned with a tale that many climate scientists say will be
increasingly common in the 21st century and beyond — how worsening
drought in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere will pit group
against group, nation against nation. As one UN official told Abramson, the
clashes between Kenyan and Ethiopian pastoralists represent “some of the
world’s first climate-change conflicts.”
But the story recounted in “When the Water Ends” is not only about climate
change. It’s also about how deforestation and land degradation — due in
large part to population pressures — are exacting a toll on impoverished
farmers and nomads as the earth grows ever more barren.
The video focuses on four groups of pastoralists — the Turkana of Kenya
and the Dassanech, Nyangatom, and Mursi of Ethiopia — who are among
the more than two dozen tribes whose lives and culture depend on the waters
of the Omo River and the body of water into which it flows, Lake Turkana.
For the past 40 years at least, Lake Turkana has steadily shrunk because of
increased evaporation from higher temperatures and a steady reduction in the
flow of the Omo due to less rainfall, increased diversion of water for
irrigation, and upstream dam projects. As the lake has diminished, it has
disappeared altogether from Ethiopian territory and retreated south into
Kenya. The Dassanech people have followed the water, and in doing so
have come into direct conflict with the Turkana of Kenya.
The result has been cross-border raids in which members of both groups kill
each other, raid livestock, and torch huts. Many people in both tribes have
been left without their traditional livelihoods and survive thanks to food aid
from nonprofit organizations and the UN.
The future for the tribes of the Omo-Turkana basin looks bleak.
Temperatures in the region have risen by about 2 degrees F since 1960.
Droughts are occurring with a frequency and intensity not seen in recent
memory. Areas once prone to drought every ten or eleven years are now
experiencing a drought every two or three. Scientists say temperatures could
well rise an additional 2 to 5 degrees F by 2060, which will almost certainly
lead to even drier conditions in large parts of East Africa.
In addition, the Ethiopian government is building a dam on the upper Omo
River — the largest hydropower project in sub-Saharan Africa — that will
hold back water and prevent the river’s annual flood cycles, upon which
more than 500,000 tribesmen in Ethiopia and 300,000 in Kenya depend for
cultivation, grazing, and fishing.
The herdsmen who speak in this video are caught up in forces over which
they have no real control. Although they have done almost nothing to
generate the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, they may
already be among its first casualties. “I am really beaten by hunger,” says one
elderly, rail-thin Nyangatom tribesman. “There is famine — people are dying
here. This happened since the Turkana and the Kenyans started fighting with
us. We fight over grazing lands. There is no peace at all.”
Courtesy
09 February, 2011 | By Evan Abramson (Yale Environment 360)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- For thousands of years, nomadic
herdsmen have roamed the harsh,
semi-arid lowlands that stretch
across 80 percent of Kenya and 60
percent of Ethiopia. Descendants of
the oldest tribal societies in the
world, they survive thanks to the
animals they raise
grazing lands.
These herdsmen have long been accustomed to adapting to a changing
environment. But in recent years, they have faced challenges unlike any in
living memory: As temperatures in the region have risen and water supplies
have dwindled, the pastoralists have had to range more widely in search of
suitable water and land. That search has brought tribal groups in Ethiopia and
Kenya in increasing conflict, as pastoral communities kill each other over
water and grass.
“When the Water Ends,” a 16-minute video produced by Yale Environment
360 in collaboration with MediaStorm, tells the story of this conflict and of
the increasingly dire drought conditions facing parts of East Africa. To report
this video, Evan Abramson, a 32-year-old photographer and videographer,
spent two months in the region early this year, living among the herding
communities. He returned with a tale that many climate scientists say will be
increasingly common in the 21st century and beyond — how worsening
drought in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere will pit group
against group, nation against nation. As one UN official told Abramson, the
clashes between Kenyan and Ethiopian pastoralists represent “some of the
world’s first climate-change conflicts.”
But the story recounted in “When the Water Ends” is not only about climate
change. It’s also about how deforestation and land degradation — due in
large part to population pressures — are exacting a toll on impoverished
farmers and nomads as the earth grows ever more barren.
The video focuses on four groups of pastoralists — the Turkana of Kenya
and the Dassanech, Nyangatom, and Mursi of Ethiopia — who are among
the more than two dozen tribes whose lives and culture depend on the waters
of the Omo River and the body of water into which it flows, Lake Turkana.
For the past 40 years at least, Lake Turkana has steadily shrunk because of
increased evaporation from higher temperatures and a steady reduction in the
flow of the Omo due to less rainfall, increased diversion of water for
irrigation, and upstream dam projects. As the lake has diminished, it has
disappeared altogether from Ethiopian territory and retreated south into
Kenya. The Dassanech people have followed the water, and in doing so
have come into direct conflict with the Turkana of Kenya.
The result has been cross-border raids in which members of both groups kill
each other, raid livestock, and torch huts. Many people in both tribes have
been left without their traditional livelihoods and survive thanks to food aid
from nonprofit organizations and the UN.
The future for the tribes of the Omo-Turkana basin looks bleak.
Temperatures in the region have risen by about 2 degrees F since 1960.
Droughts are occurring with a frequency and intensity not seen in recent
memory. Areas once prone to drought every ten or eleven years are now
experiencing a drought every two or three. Scientists say temperatures could
well rise an additional 2 to 5 degrees F by 2060, which will almost certainly
lead to even drier conditions in large parts of East Africa.
In addition, the Ethiopian government is building a dam on the upper Omo
River — the largest hydropower project in sub-Saharan Africa — that will
hold back water and prevent the river’s annual flood cycles, upon which
more than 500,000 tribesmen in Ethiopia and 300,000 in Kenya depend for
cultivation, grazing, and fishing.
The herdsmen who speak in this video are caught up in forces over which
they have no real control. Although they have done almost nothing to
generate the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, they may
already be among its first casualties. “I am really beaten by hunger,” says one
elderly, rail-thin Nyangatom tribesman. “There is famine — people are dying
here. This happened since the Turkana and the Kenyans started fighting with
us. We fight over grazing lands. There is no peace at all.”
Courtesy
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As temperatures rise and water supplies dry up, semi-nomadic tribes along the Kenyan-Ethiopian border increasingly are coming into conflict with each other. When the Water Ends focuses on how worsening drought will pit groups and nations against one another. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/clients/when-the-water-ends-for-yale360
