Diverse Drought Spatiotemporal Trends, Diverse Etic-Emic Perceptions and Knowledge: Implications for Adaptive Capacity and Resource Management for Indigenous Maasai-Pastoralism in the Rangelands of Kenya

Abstract

The study examined the spatiotemporal distribution of drought in the Maasai rangelands of Kenya. The implications of this distribution, in concert with the documented existing and/or projected social and biophysical factors, on critical rangeland resources in Maasai-pastoralism are discussed using an integrated approach. Participatory interviews with the Maasai, retrieval from archives, and acquisition from instrument measurements provided data for the study. Empirical evidence of the current study reveals that drought occurrences in this rangeland have been recurrent, widespread, cyclic, sometimes temporally clustered, and have manifested with varying intensities across spatial, temporal, and, occasionally, social scales; and they have more intensity in lower than higher agroecological areas. An estimated 86% of drought occurrences in this rangeland, over the last three decades alone, were of major drought category. The 2000s, with four major drought events including two extreme droughts, are an important drought period. A strong consensus exists among the Maasai regarding observed drought events. In Maasai-pastoralism, the phenomenon called drought, pastoralist drought, is simultaneously multivariate and multiscalar: its perception comprises the simultaneous manifestation of cross-scale meteorological, socioeconomic, and environmental factors and processes, and their various combinations. The inherent simultaneous multivariate and scalar nature of the pastoralist drought distinguishes it from the conventional drought types, particularly the meteorological drought that predominantly guides drought and resource management in the rangelands of Kenya. In Maasai-pastoralism, the scarcely used (33%) meteorological drought is construed as rainfall delay/failure across spatial and/or temporal scale, and never its reduced amount. Collectively, the current findings reveal that knowledge about drought affects the way the manifestation of this climatic hazard is perceived, communicated, and characterized; hence, ceteris paribus, alongside its spatiotemporal distribution, shapes the nature of the adaptive capacity of and resource management in Maasai-pastoralism. Studies that anticipate enhancing the drought-adaptive capacity of the Maasai should account for cross-scale social and biophysical factors, their processes, and interactions; they must engage the affected inhabitants, and utilize and integrate multiple data sources and approaches. These necessities become more crucial for informing adaptation under the present spatiotemporal distribution of drought as well as in relation to the projected increase in occurrence and intensity of this climatic hazard as the climate continues to change, and as pressures from socioeconomic globalization persistently proliferate into the Maasai's social and biophysical landscapes.

Pastoralist societies in flux: A conceptual framework analysis of herding and land use among the Mukugodo Maasai of Kenya

“…Recent scholarship on pastoralism has benefitted from shifting its focus away from traditional views of pastoral economics to more modern approaches that incorporate the important links between globalization, local markets, migration, economic opportunities, and traditional pastoral livelihoods (Bollig and Lesorogol 2016;Bond 2014;Catley et al 2013;Galaty 2016;Gertel and LeHeron 2011;Jandreau and Berkes 2016;Kibet et al 2016;Mwangi 2016;Watson et al 2016). These new opportunities have subsequently generated new behavioural adaptations and economic strategies that require us to reclassify many of the livelihood tactics and approaches used by modern pastoralists we presented in Table 1.…”

Maasai Livelihoods, Terrestrial Wild Megafauna and Ecosystem Services Synergies and Tradeoffs in the Savannas of Kenya: Scenarios and Implications of Climate Change in DPSIR Model

“…Worth noting, prevailing discourses [18,19,20,31,61] are in accord vis-à-vis attributing the heightened manifestation of predominantly deleterious effects of climate change on societies to existing inadequate adaptive capacities. It must be pointed out that, most livelihood production systems practiced across the ASALs of Africa are coupled socio-ecological systems that predominantly operates under landscapes of frequent manifestation of unfavorable socialbiophysical conditions such as famines, conflicts/wars, recurrent/prolonged droughts, degraded natural resource-base [2,10,11,18,19,20,61,62,63,64,65]. These socio-ecological systems are frequently exposed, and are already highly sensitive and vulnerable to shifts in climatic conditions [18,19,20] particularly occurrences of recurrent and extreme droughts [10,11].…”

“…Apropos these last points, the increased competition for critical rangeland resources (CRR), particularly forage and water, among Maasai's livestock, terrestrial wild vertebrate herbivores, and arable-farmers commonly observed during periods of drought [2,10] exemplify discordant sharing of the same. It must be pointed out that the recurrent and prolonged droughts that characterize the region [11] constitute an additional challenge confronting the proper operation of Maasai's livelihoods and indeed other resource-users across these rangelands.…”

“…In fact, a long-term and on-going project on livelihoods, environments, and development (LEDP) reveals that in 2005 alone, over 50% of Maasai households across these savannas suffered severe food-shortage and malnutrition following an extreme drought that plagued the region during that time (LEDP, op. cit; [10,11]). Among the Maasai people, the emerging agropastoralists were the most affected: an interview conducted with these pastoralists revealed that over 90% have adopted diverse intensive arable-farming strategies [2,9].…”

“…cit). Maasaiscarnivores conflicts of this nature will plausibly intensify under conditions of recurrent and/or prolonged droughts [11] and other deleterious effects of the changing climate [18,19,20,31] and amidst the rapid encroachments of competing land-use types [3,4,5,32] cross these savannas. Suffice that, the interactions of those encroachments with the Maasai's livelihoods and wild faunas' habitat/resource needs, amidst frequent occurrences of droughts, define the prevailing states of the socioeconomic development of the Maasai people, the survival of wild faunas, and the ethical sharing and sustainability of land/land-resources across these rangelands.…”