How indigenous Tanzanians cope with climate change

Arusha. It is common to see the traditional livestock keepers moving from one part of the country or village to another.

The movements are more pronounced during the dry seasons, when there is a marked scarcity of water and forage for the animals.

But for the herders themselves, there is more than that. It is better known as “transhumance,” a way of reaching out to better pastures at any particular time of the year.

It is one of the survival tactics of the nomadic herders, in particular, and has saved thousands of people and their animals from the severe impacts of unfavourable weather.

Again for the majority of Tanzanians unfavourable weather has much to do with prolonged or severe drought as experienced recently in the northern regions.

Longido District in Arusha Region was and continues to be one of the localities much impacted by prolonged drought.

It left hundreds of families without food after losing their large herds of cattle, which were not only a source of food but cash to buy grains.

Some of the critically affected families have been forced to rely on charitable organizations for maize supplies to sustain their lives.

“With many of our people facing a serious food shortage, there is no way out except donations from well-wishers,” said Ms Nalemuta Ngoitika, an official of a pastoralist NGO.

According to her, the vast plains of Longido have not seen sufficient rains for about three years, exposing many people to hunger.

The donation was made by an Arusha-based Pastoralist Women Council (PWC) with the support of an organization called ICONIC.

At least 2,400 critically affected families in 13 wards in the vast district will share the donated food, but that is not sufficient.

At least 26 other villages in the district have not been spared by the alarming drought, and they also need relief food.

Ms Ngoitika said the nomadic herders, in particular, were most affected by the calamity, “with many losing their cattle to drought.”

Longido is predominantly inhabited by the Maasai pastoralist community, which is among the indigenous communities found in Tanzania.

Although the debate over the indigenous people continues to rage, the other ethnic groups classified as indigenous communities are the Barbaig and Hadzabe, also found in the north.

If the definition of indigenous communities remains “people surviving on nature,” then the list is a bit longer but mostly in the northern and central regions.

There is no contention that this group of people tends to suffer most from the vagaries of weather; their survival depends on “the whims of nature.”

Longido MP Steven Kiruswa, who is a scientist, acknowledged the severity of the drought in the semi-arid district.

Like other scientists, he concurs that the failed rains had much to do with climate change, a phenomenon associated with climate change.

Dr Kiruswa, who is the deputy Minerals Minister, said the suffering communities should be assisted in coping with the biting drought.

Incidentally, the food crisis in the area has been aggravated by a lack of suitable land for agriculture in the entire Longido district.

The situation was and continues to be grim also because the emaciated cattle heads found in the district in their thousands do not fetch money in the markets.

The ravaging drought has seen increased mortality of livestock and wild animals as well due to water stress and lack of forage.

A recent report by civil society organizations (CSOs) said that close to 100,000 livestock and wild animals have perished due to the drought in the Arusha region.

At least 38,770 of the 100,000 cattle lost in the vast region perished in Longido alone, according to the district livestock development officer, Nestory Daqqaro.

The prolonged drought in Arusha and the northern regions did not start this year, although the impact has been felt.

The situation started at the end of last year (2021) due to reduced rains in the zone famous as one of the reliable food baskets for the country.

In Ngorongoro, the iconic highlands that are famous the world over, drought-induced poverty has been on the rise.

Poverty has descended on the once-proud Maasai pastoralists, such that some of them have been reduced to paupers begging for food.

The deteriorating human well-being indicates that 50 percent of about 100,000 Maasai in the area are now categorized as “very poor.”

About 70 percent of them have acute hunger, in essence under siege from starvation and hence aggravating their poverty status.

The Maasai are the majority of the indigenous pastoralists found in the vast Ngorongoro area.

For over 50 years now, they have been denied their rightful share of the national cake since the authorities banned farming in the area. The government insists that Ngorongoro be preserved to benefit the multi-million dollar tourism industry and nature conservation.

Incidentally, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, or NCA for short, was, among others, established “to safeguard and promote the interests of Maasai citizens.”

In recent years, the Maasai and Barbaig (also known as Datooga) cattle keepers have been forced to migrate to other areas.

With the ban on farming that would have helped address the food needs of their growing families, they have been forced out of their ancestral land and into areas where cultivation is allowed.

PINGOs Forum, one of the powerful NGOs advocating the rights of the Maasai and other indigenous people, has countless times sought intervention.

The platform believes that mitigation measures against the climate change impacts have to include conservation systems by the indigenous communities.

“We have to fully recognize and support indigenous communities’ practices on conservation and management of resources,” it said.

Gideon Ole Sanago, a climate change coordinator with PINGOS, says respect and protection of the pastoralists’ livelihoods are intertwined with conservation.

Mr Sanago has persistently defended nomadic pastoralism practised by the nomadic communities, saying it was resilient to climate extremities.

“We don’t accept the notion that nomadic pastoralists were contributing to climate change,” he says, noting that nomadic people were the victims, not the cause, of climate extremes.

He cited the Maasai and Barbaig cattle herders as among the indigenous communities whose mode of life should not be blamed for global climate hazards.

Mr Sanago was responding to suggestions often made that the traditional herders should discard their nomadic way of life.

“If you tell a Maasai to abandon cattle, that will be the end of his or her livelihood,” he said, noting that the pastoral economy hardly contributed to carbon emissions like other sectors.

He added that instead, the traditional cattle herders in Tanzania have been the victims of climate-related hazards ravaging the world even with limited emissions from their countries.