All posts by : Mesha

The swelling of Lake Nakuru and eventual displacement of people living not too far from its shores was nothing like anyone had seen in decades. But here we were in 2020, reporting cases of lakes merging, homes, hotels and businesses being submerged, and more scary scenes that threatened the ecosystem.

In Mwariki, not too far from Lake Nakuru, Damaris Wairimu, 60, and Anne Wanjiru, 70, had to flee with their entire families to higher ground, as they watched the water body swell and slowly but surely invade their houses, rendering then victims of climate induced displacement.

“I had lived there since the 1970s and never seen anything like that. Our parents worked for the colonialists. Before the white people left, they subdivided the land to their employees. That’s how we got ours,” said Wairimu, adding: “I used to farm and grow vegetables, but since we were displaced, challenges have not ceased. Now I have high blood pressure.”

Wanjiru and several residents of Mwariki were at first reluctant to move. It took the waters to get right inside their homes for them to get the message that something so serious was happening. “We first wondered where we would go, what to carry and what not to. It was until the water levels rose and our beds were submerged that we fled. We lost a lot,” she narrated.

Part of the loss was the two acres on which Wanjiru grew vegetables and spices. It, too, was swallowed. As they escaped, they did not salvage much. It was a true case of everyone for themselves and God for all. “We escaped with the clothes we had on. At my age, what could I do? Everyone was carrying only what they could. Well-wishers on higher ground accommodated us as we figured out what to do,” said Wairimu.

The phenomenon was not peculiar to Rift Valley lakes. Down at the Lake Victoria Basin, there were horror stories. The lake literally invaded people’s homes, and displaced them. Hippos and snakes roamed freely, even to where the displaced found refuge. Livelihoods were lost. No one could fight back.

Henry Mangome, who spent at least Sh7 million USD 56,800 to construct a house in his ancestral home, saw the swelling Lake Victoria turn everything upside down. “My house’s walls cracked. A structural engineer examined it and recommended that it be brought down. He said the swelling of the lake had negatively affected the walls, and also suspected that a movement underground may have interfered with the house’s foundation, hence distabilising the whole structure,” said Mr Mangome.

The lake water has since receded, but many are still counting losses occasioned by its swelling.

“I had spent about Sh7 million USD 56,800 on the house.  I’m still servicing the loan, yet I will have to start from scratch. See what climate change did to me? Now you can imagine how much more poor families living around the lake suffered,” said Mr Mangome.

Sylvia Munyoki, 44, walks around the Nairobi International Trade Fair grounds with hopes of getting more indigenous seeds to expand her vegetable kitchen garden.

Her passion for indigenous vegetables began when she grew up in Makueni County. She recalls her parents plucking and cooking indigenous vegetables that grew on their own.

“I like indigenous vegetables so much that I share them with rabbits. These are the vegetables that grow naturally in the forests, and I adore them,” she says.

Munyoki is, however, disturbed that the vegetables are no longer available. She decries the fact that the seeds have gone missing, and was therefore happy to obtain some during the agricultural exhibition.

“I live on a quarter-hectare plot of land and grow a lot of indigenous vegetables. I have a variety of indigenous vegetables in my kitchen garden, that is why you see I have purchased the African vine spinach, African kale, and pumpkins that I am going to plant,” she says.

The difficulty in obtaining indigenous vegetable seeds is not new. A survey carried out by researchers at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) on African Indigenous Vegetables (AIVs) showed that the seeds are disappearing because the vegetables no longer grow on their own.

“We did sampling of seeds from different varieties of vegetables, including African night shade (managu), the spider plant (saga), jute mallow (mrenda), amaranth specifically the ododo one because amaranth has so many lines, nderema, mitoo and pumpkins and our own Ethiopian African kale or kanzira,” says Alfred Wanzala from JKUAT’s directorate of research, production and extension.

The project’s nationwide survey prioritised the Western and Nyanza regions, which have the highest prevalence of AIVs. The various samples collected were taken to the university, where researchers conducted studies with various parameters. The survey included questions about how they grow, which climate they prefer, what they need, and the best conditions for growing AIVs.

The findings led to JKUAT researchers developing some superior seed varieties, which they then forwarded to the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS), the country’s organisation tasked with quantification and certification.

This resulted in the release and gazettement of nine AIV seed varieties that can be rolled out and distributed to farmers for proper vegetable production.

The studies by JKUAT also discovered that AIVs lack proper production protocols, farmer neglect, and recipes that highlight the key nutrition elements obtained from AIVs, which are all issues that the institution has since resolved.

According to Wanzala, JKUAT is currently running a project in which a team of agricultural experts visits small-scale farmers and trains them on planting protocols through on-site farm demonstrations and the provision of proper planting materials. This, he says, helps farmers to properly prepare land, do proper demarcation, proper spacing, and use proper quantity of seeds, as opposed to traditional methods in which farmers broadcast seeds and end up wasting a lot or underutilising them.

Dry rivers and shallow wells characterise the terrain in the Southeastern parts of Makueni County.

Ravaged by a severe drought where temperatures rose to heights not experienced in the last 40 years, residents fear that serious effects of climate change may have accelerated sooner than expected.

That even bringing down global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius as espoused in the Paris Agreement will no longer be enough is a reality slowly dawning on the people.

“In October, we were feeding our cows that had just calved porridge because we had nothing else to offer and they could not walk for long distances looking for water and pasture,” says Morris Muli from Usungu village in Makueni.

At the height of the drought, from February to October 2022, along the Garissa-Nairobi highway, children waited under the scorching sun for left-over food items and drinks from travellers.

Animal carcasses and goats at the verge of death from lack of water and pasture could also be seen along the highway. Even in the face of looming threat to life from the most prolonged dry spell, pastoralists do not consume dying livestock.

Kenyan government data shows that across Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) spanning over 23 counties, the drought killed an estimated 1.5 million livestock.

“Worse still, the country’s place as a biodiversity hotspot is under threat. We have seen a serious decline in wildlife, especially between February and October 2022. One of the big fives was devastatingly ravaged by the drought,” says John Mwangi Gicheha, a biodiversity expert and independent researcher.

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) released a worrisome report that an estimated 205 elephants died in just nine months. This, Gicheha says, has heightened fears that the country’s broken relationship with nature is reaching a point of no return.

The country’s first ever National Wildlife Census report finalised in August 2021 pointed to signs of trouble.

 For instance, at least five wildlife species are critically endangered and could disappear in the immediate future. There are just 1,650 Tana River Mangabey, 897 black rhinos, 497 Hirolas, 51 Sable antelopes and 15 Roan antelopes.

These findings are in line with the 2022 Living Planet Index, which analysed approximately 32,000 populations of 5,230 species across the world. The Index was conducted by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an independent conservation organisation.

It is the most comprehensive report on the state of global vertebrate wildlife populations and it makes a startling revelation, that the world’s wildlife populations have declined by 69 per cent since 1970.

The greatest regional decline in wildlife population is in the Latin America and the Caribbean region whose average population decline is 94 per cent.

When Silas Otieno, 39, was asked to abandon his daily trade of sand harvesting from River Kibos in Kisumu County, western Kenya, it did not make a lot of sense to him.

He had spent the better part of his life diving into the waters and emerging with buckets full of sand. He would do this alongside his peers from Komonge Village until it was enough to fill one lorry. From these proceeds, he would feed his family and send his children to school.

When the parcel of land riparian to the sand harvesting site was bought and fenced off, Otieno lost his daily income from sand harvesting but got a deal for a monthly salary. He now works as the lead conservationist of the environment that he once took part in destroying.

Unknown to Mr Otieno and his peers, they actively contributed to the devastating effects of climate change that has now got the whole world talking.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), sand mining from rivers and marine ecosystems has led to significant environmental impacts, including river erosion, shrinking deltas, land-use changes, air pollution, salinisation of coastal aquifers and groundwater reserves, threats to freshwater and marine fisheries and biodiversity.

Oblivious of the effects of their actions, many people continue to harvest sand from rivers, not just in Komonge Village but throughout Kenya.

Human activities such as sand mining have been cited by climate change experts as the leading effect on greenhouse gases (GHGs).

Paul Oloo, the Kisumu County Meteorological Director, says human activities had increased the concentration of the GHGs tremendously.

He says the initial ability of the earth to self-regulate the GHGs had been compromised as a result of their concentration levels being interfered with due to issues like accelerated population growth and the large expansion of industries across the earth.

“In its self-regulation mechanism, if for instance the amount of radiation hitting the surface of the earth is 100 units, the same is supposed to be released back into the atmosphere,” Mr Oloo explains.

However, due to the disruption of the concentration levels of the GHGs, a percentage of the radiation is not able to leave the surface of the earth. “This is what increases the temperatures on the earth surface” he says.

With riverbank erosion, air pollution and the threat to biodiversity, it is not difficult to tell that the future of the residents of Komonge village is disturbingly endangered if the wanton sand harvesting is not stopped.

Retired teacher Leonard Ating’a stands at the edge of his farm wondering how his parcel that used to stretch into the river has shrunk in size over the years.

African group of negotiators have expressed disappointment that the Ksh12 trillion (US$100 billion) pledge by developed to developing countries remains unfulfilled.

Alioune Ndoye, President of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), underscored the importance of delivering the $100 billion as soon as possible.

This will help build trust and faith in the multilateral process of addressing climate change.

“We urge developed countries to deliver on their commitment to meet the goal and ensure the progression of efforts in the on-going mobilisation of climate finance,” said Ndoye while speaking to the media on the status of the negotiations at COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.

“We urge developed countries to take the lead in implementing their targets while providing enhanced support to developing countries.”

Collins Nzovu, Minister of Green Economy and Environment from Zambia, which chaired the African Group of Negotiators, said COP27 had been dubbed an implementation COP.

“Africa is worst affected by the climate crisis and yet contributes least to the pollution that causes climate change,” said Nzovu, adding that Africa is plagued by complex overlapping challenges, and many generations of Africans have been left behind and suffer consequences of actions not of their own making.

The systemic problems facing Africa require dedicated and targeted interventions. This will also unleash our continent’s potential to contribute to achieving the 1.5 degrees Celcius global warming.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, Africa will be impacted more than any other continent while it only contributes less than four per cent of the world’s total carbon emissions.

As curtains closed on COP27 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, a Kenyan team was among the four winners of the Local Adaptation Champions Awards, organised by the Global Centre on Adaptation.

The awards recognise locally led efforts to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change across four categories: financial governance, inclusive leadership, capacity and knowledge, and local innovation.

Adaptation Consortium, led by Victor Orindi, was awarded for its efforts in bringing together people with a shared vision of empowering the community in responding and adapting to climate change challenges.

Speaking to our reporter after receiving the award, in the financial governance category, Mr Orindi said his initiatives were inspired after he noticed that climate finance was not easily accessible to everybody, especially the vulnerable communities.

 “We noticed that while a lot was happening in climate finance, it was not happening in a coordinated manner. Vulnerable communities were not able to access funds and we noticed a barrier in sustained funding streams; and that communities could not have a say in the work to be implemented,” he said.

“So, we started bringing people together towards a shared vision of empowering the community.”

Mr Orindi, who is the National Coordinator of the Adaptation Consortium, said the only way countries can successfully mitigate climate change is by making sure that all voices are heard.

“Responding and adapting to climate challenges largely depends on context; and the only way you can get that right is by ensuring that those who are impacted have a say in terms of how and where things are done. So, enabling them to be involved in planning process ensures that their voices count at the end of the day,” Orindi added. 

The Adaptation Consortium supports communities to create, access, and use climate finance from varied sources to reduce their vulnerability to climate change, while strengthening public participation in the management and use of funds.