'Everything is dry'

Kenya’s remote Marsabit County, in the far north near the border with Ethiopia, is the land of pastoralists. Even in the heat of the midday sun, the smooth tarmac roads are regularly interrupted by meandering goats, cattle or camels passing by.

The region has been dubbed the “Cradle of Mankind” – Kenya has more fossil human species remains than anywhere else in Africa – yet the intensely unforgiving and parched environment means life here has never been easy.

But as East Africa faces a debilitating succession of droughts, the worst in 40 years, the region’s resilient communities are being pushed to their limits.

Benjamin Galwaha was born and raised in Laisamis – a modest town, 3,000 strong – in southern Marsabit. The 33-year-old runs a small shop in addition to owning a few dozen cattle and sheep.

As his three young sons watch American cartoons inside one of the traditional huts he has built for his family, he thinks back to just a couple of decades ago when his hometown seemed like a different place: There were wild animals abound, abundant wild fruits for foraging, plenty of space for everyone’s animals; things were peaceful.

Back then, the town had a mere fraction of its current population, and the landscape was thickly covered with dryland forest.

Now, the sandy landscape appears barren, punctuated by thorny brush and the occasional green shrubs that goats nibble at hopefully.

“Everyone had plenty of animals then,” Galwaha remembers, leaning his slender frame over his motorbike. “We ate meat all the time. But life has gotten much tougher now.”

‘Getting drier’

Marsabit’s arid landscape is a combination of desert, seasonal rivers, and extinct volcanic craters – proliferated by megafauna, such as giraffes and elephants.

But it is also a region of intense poverty: 92 percent of the population lives below the poverty line; it has some of the nation’s lowest literacy rates at around 27 percent; and its remoteness contributes to its marginalisation and lack of integration with greater Kenyan society.

The traditionally nomadic or semi-nomadic Rendille, Samburu, Borana and Turkana people native to the region are proud of their cultural identity as livestock herders, dating back to time immemorial.

Today, as many as 90 percent of Marsabit inhabitants do not live in permanent homes and instead move with their animals based on seasonal forage and available water sources.

The county is known for limited and erratic rainfall, receiving an average of 700mm (27 inches) of rainfall a year during the past 30 years, says Patricia Nying’uro, a climate scientist at the Kenya Meteorological Department – for comparison, Tanzania, Kenya’s southern neighbour, receives an average of 1,017mm (40 inches).

“There is a steady annual decline in rainfall amounts,” Nying’uro tells Al Jazeera. “The area is indeed getting drier.”

Galwaha and his neighbours in Laisamis say that their animals have been dying off and becoming increasingly ill since the rains have failed.

“The few times it has rained this year, it lasts only a few minutes. By the end of the day, everything is dry again and you would have never guessed that there was ever rain,” he says.

This is tough for both humans and animals, who must walk increasingly great distances to reach remaining water sources, while the endemic vegetation does not receive rainfall to regenerate.

‘They can go a day without food’

A report by the Kenya Food Security Steering Group (KFSSG) found that the continuing decline in rangeland resources and lacklustre harvest from poor, short rains have contributed to livestock disease and mortality and general household food insecurity.

In February 2022, there were an estimated 3.1 million food-insecure people in northern Kenya, a 40 percent increase from August 2021. More people have been going hungry since the lack of rains is directly linked to crop failures; food prices have been surging.

While the government-run Hunger Safety Net Programme has been handing out an average of 5,400 Kenyan shillings ($46) to households, rationing food has become more common.

Lekurana Leruguba, a local herder, tells Al Jazeera his children are strong. “They can go a day without food and still be strong and work,” he says.

Dramatic climate shifts also translate to changes in the value systems of their communities, Galwaha says.

It is to be expected for a culture heavily contingent on weather and environmental factors.

“We’ve had to switch back to the wage economy, from a self-sustaining lifestyle that we’re proud of where cattle signal wealth and determine integral social relations,” he says.

The drought has changed the way that people eat and how they prioritise daily goals, he explains.

Herders have been forced to sell off their animals at prices far below market value since they have been dying from the trying conditions; milk has largely dried up.

Instead of harbouring dreams to buy prize cattle, people are now just trying to survive.

Back-to-back droughts

What is happening in northern Kenya should not be mistaken for a singular drought, experts say.

This is the fourth consecutive failed rainy season since September 2020, according to Nicolas Bellet, a climate information expert at the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Applications Center.

“It’s important to note that these communities are highly resilient. They are fine in the face of one or two droughts, maybe even three. But four is really pushing it,” he says.

“This is devastating in the sense that it takes these communities on average five years to recover from one drought – the time it takes to raise a calf to maturity.

“When droughts are back-to-back like this, it’s decimating their livelihoods, all of their wealth. These people are really being pushed to their limits.”

Lemoni Lagwanani – dressed in a traditional red-checked Maasi cloth robe called a “shuka”, bright beads and bones adorning his ankles and ears – may be one of the last of his family lineage to be a career pastoralist.

The 26-year-old says he learned how to read the stars, moon and other astronomical signs to predict weather from his father.

Pastoralism has been a long-standing practice in places like Laisamis; everyone in Lagwanani’s family has been a herder. But now he is uncertain whether he wants his children to continue the path that he has followed.

Lagwanani only has three camels and less than 25 goats left – half the number he started with two years ago – the rest either died, or he was forced to sell them off.

Gathering his wooden staff, he prepares to make the long trek back into the bush to his remaining animals. “It’s just too much suffering,” he says.

A combination of several shocks

“What’s been going on in northern Kenya came as no surprise,” IGAD’s Bellet tells Al Jazeera. “We had seen that the drought was coming [from our predictions].”

IGAD focuses on formulating early warnings and weather predictions ranging from weekly to seasonal in the Horn of Africa and East Africa region.

“Early indications for this upcoming October point toward dry conditions in parts of the IGAD region that are already experiencing drought,” Bellet says.

“What makes this particular situation so serious is the combination of several shocks: drought, COVID, floods, locusts from 2020,” he continues. “Together, they’re seriously testing these communities.”

What makes this particular situation so serious is the combination of several shocks: drought, COVID, floods, locusts from 2020.

The isolation caused by COVID-19 lockdowns exacerbated the marginalisation that under-resourced places like Marsabit already faced, while locusts decimated crops and further chipped away at the food security of impoverished communities in Kenya’s north.

Most pastoralists rely on their animals as their sole income stream. When animals suffer, so do humans.

The dwindling supply of viable forage is pushing livestock herders to desperation, some having to walk as far as 35km (21 miles) a day to the last remaining watering holes – naturally occurring high water tables – just to keep their animals alive. They will continue doing so until the drought is over.

‘Just too dangerous’

Nicholas Ekitela, a herder from Marsabit, sees links between drought and scaling insecurity concerns amongst neighbouring pastoral communities.

As herders have been forced to walk far distances from one area to another in search of water and pasture – venturing into areas where they traditionally have not gone – incidents of conflict have spiked over limited grazing and water. “Not to mention, there’s also increased stress among the families from the deaths of livestock,” Ekitela says.

Ulrich Eberle, a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University and Crisis Group, researches the links between climate shocks and violence. He has found that a 1C (1.8F) increase in temperature can lead to up to a 54 percent increase in conflict probability in mixed areas populated by both farmers and herders, 17 percent in areas occupied by just farmers or herders.

In politically and socioeconomically marginalised regions, such as Marsabit, where the government has a history of being absent from regulating land disputes and empowering local communities, individuals are largely left to fend for themselves.

This was the case for Martin Lesurmat, a cattle-herder and father of two young boys. He had ventured south to a region called Wasiniro, the borderlands between the counties of Isiolo, Samburu and Marsabit. The prospects of finding green grass outweighed the potential for clashes –  as cattle in particular need greener pastures than camels and goats.

Overall, people have been more willing to risk internecine conflict given their animals’ needs. Nearly a thousand herders gathered in Wasiniro in April, Lesurmat recounts. Fighting broke out, killing at least a dozen people.

“I don’t think I’ll be going back to such places,” Lesurmat says, even though the drought has reduced his herd size from 70 goats to 30 as they died off, one by one, from starvation. “It’s just too dangerous.”

In the late afternoon light, the barren landscape is beautiful, no longer camouflaged by the blazing, white-hot daytime sun. Shadows lengthen as sturdy acacia trees seem to perk up, anticipating the coolness of nightfall.

Teens stroll over to the local football pitch, old men are still sitting underneath trees whiling away time, and mothers with tiny children lug big plastic canisters over to the communal borehole pump. Golden light washes over everything.

“The drought has been so problematic to all herders,” Lesurmat says as he stands up to go back to his animals. “We all talk about it.”