There is no doubt that failed rains are the immediate cause of Kenya’s poor maize harvest, forage shortage and drying water supplies. The long rains failed over most of Kenya after poor rains in 2008. But rains have failed as badly in the past with nothing like this level of impact on the rangelands.

The tragedy of the 2009 drought stems from three decades of failed policy and lack of development in the rangelands rather than poor rains or climate change. During the 2000 drought I wrote an article in the Nation newspaper titled “Drought: Kenyans Have Not Seen Anything Yet,” warning about worse to come unless the systematic causes of rangeland degradation were tackled. In a second article, “What We Can Do to Ease Life for Pastoral Nomads?” I suggested measures for reducing drought vulnerability. Little has been done to address the systemic causes of drought in the nine years since.

The systemic causes of recurrent drought include the steady loss of pastoral lands over many decades; a rapidly rising human population; fear of land loss and in many areas settlement on plots too small for each family. Ultimately the problem comes down to far too few livestock to support pastoral families--yet far too many for the land--and few options for them to join Kenya’s mainstream economy. There simply isn’t the land or the drought refuges left to support a migratory subsistence lifestyle, much less permanent settlement on 100 acre plots. The problems are exaggerated by the loss of traditional husbandry knowledge among young herders, many of whom are hired hands, and by uncontrolled settlement of prime grazing lands and drought refuges.

The upshot of years of failed policy and national indifference is that droughts now recur once every four or five years rather than every ten. Today, the depth of drought is better predicted today by livestock cycles than by rainfall. Pasture production has fallen sharply due to continuous heavy grazing and erosion. The huge drop in water discharge into the rangelands caused by urban growth and farming has added to the pasture shortfall: wetland and riverine pastures vital for late season grazing by livestock and wildlife have shrunk.

Kenya’s present disaster could have been averted by sound government policies and investments in the rangeland after the severe 1970s drought. Instead, since then, extension services have shrunk, pastures have deteriorated, livestock numbers have fallen by 3 percent a year and wildlife populations have halved in and outside our parks. The low population density of the rangelands, and their small contribution to the national exchequer, has given the pastoral regions little political leverage in the scramble for social services--this despite producing over half the nation’s livestock.

What can be done to reverse the worsening droughts in our rangelands?

If far too little and too late, the government is right to buy up rangeland cattle as an emergency measure. Money spent buying emaciated cattle before they die puts cash in herders’ pocket, lowers dependency, cuts the costs of famine relief and raises the chances of getting the hardiest animals through the drought. Buying up surplus stock also spares the rangelands worse damage and conserves their vital ecological services, including water capture, fisheries production, hydroelectricity generation, wildlife conservation and tourism. The 50 billion shillings or so I estimate it would take to buy up cattle that will otherwise die before the end of the drought will save ten times that cost next year alone, and avoid a far worse human catastrophe.