PhD thesis Title Page Final _Richard Juma - Victoria University ...

prolonged droughts as herders 3 lost up to 80 percent of their small stock
and 50 percent of the 10 million cattle in the region, both to starvation and
infectious diseases (Gudrum and Ander Hjort 1976). This also resulted in a
famine 4 which claimed at least 100,000 human lives in the Sahel and
another 100000 in Ethiopia (Wisner 1977). These disasters opened
peoples’ eyes, and, as a way to stem future disasters and make
pastoralism more resilient, resulted in an upsurge in drought management
studies (White 1974).
This need to study and find new ways of improving pastoralists’ adaptive
capacities does not exclude Kenya. 5 This is basically because Kenya’s arid
and semi-arid lands (ASAL), inhabited by more than 3 million pastoralists,
incorporate as much as 88 percent of the country’s land surface, and carry
approximately 50 percent of its livestock (Republic of Kenya 2002). They
are drought prone areas of the country and seem to have a regular
timetable of natural disasters. They are hit hardest whenever there is a
national drought which occasions shortfall in food production.
Evidence suggests that Kenyan nomads are just as vulnerable to droughts
as the people of the Sahel and Ethiopia. For instance, during 1960-1961
droughts, Maasai nomads lost between 300,000-400,000 cattle. This was
estimated to be between 65-80 per cent of their total herds. Many Maasai
nomads were therefore left stockless and hungry (Dahl and Hjort 1976).
The nomadic Turkana suffered equally badly at that time and lost two
3 Cattle keepers and herders are terms that will be used interchangeably in this thesis.
4 It is not easy to tell when a famine breaks out unless there is mass starvation, as
happened in the Sahel (1971-1974). Devereux (1993) in his book Theories of famine,
brings to light the various perceptions of the famine phenomenon. In reviewing several
famine approaches and theories, as well as case studies, he identifies three dictionary
descriptions of famine, e.g. food shortage, severe hunger, and excessive mortality. This
study draws from Devereux’s (1993) definition of famine, and formulates a general
working definition of famine for this study as a period of low food supplies affecting part
or whole of the community resulting in persisting hunger and a considerable elevation of
community death ratio attributable at least in part to deaths from starvation.
5 In this study, adaptability is taken either as an individual’s ability to cope or adjust
effectively to the effects of drought or as the drought management capability of the
individual. See further discussion in chapter 2.
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