Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Other explanatory factors that will impact on the rise or decrease of violent con-
flicts besides the amount of rainfall or availability of other resources, should, for the
whole period under review, also be addressed:
1 The availability of institutions, rule of law, conflict mitigation, and police or
military forces with relation to stock thefts.
2 Loss of livestock due to diseases.
3 Eagerness to diversify the herd composition (e.g. Turkana eyeing camels to replace
cattle).
4 Cultural reasons: young men going for cattle raids to be able to pay a bride price
(and changes in the amount needed to pay - South Sudan experienced conflicts
recently after becoming independent and young men now eager to settle and build
a family).
5 Availability of other weapons to fight (small arms, including AK 47s) as opposed
to less harmful spears. Imbalances between fighting groups may especially have
resulted in violent outcomes.
6
Increased numbers of youngsters partaking in schooling may have diminished the
numbers of warriors and as a result the casualties.
All of the variables above, and likely other more specific reasons, impact upon
the occurrence and level of conflicts and incidents. At the very least, the suggestion
that abundance of water and grass means more conflicts is blurring the more common
reason for raids: lack of cattle and restocking necessity. Land and water, both of which
are non-lootable resources, can only be won either by invading and gaining,
de facto
or
de jure
, control over these sources as described by Oba (2011). This kind of resource
capture is mostly the result of naturally outnumbering other ethnic groups, pushing
aside or assimilation strategies.
On top of the aforementioned factors, it needs to be recognised that most of
northern Kenyan pastoralists have increasingly reached structurally lower levels of
wellbeing. This is among other factors caused by higher population numbers, certainly
in comparison to the slowly increasing and fluctuating levels of livestock productivity
(quantity and quality) over the last century. Northern Kenyan pastoralists are known
to have seen their heads of livestock per person dwindle with peaks and troughs to
structurally lower levels.
Finally, provisional results from on-going fieldwork in northern Kenya by the
authors has shown that according to 118 Turkana pastoralists interviewed, conflict
is most likely in the dry season (53%) and not the wet season (14%). However, a
substantial number (30%) indicated that conflicts occurred in both seasons. Although
this does not means that the reason behind the conflict is the same throughout the year.
Interestingly, 47%mentioned that in the dry season people co-operate as compared to
22% in the wet season, with 9% in both seasons.
Kenya that took the lives of some 110 people in a series of attacks was explained by a mixture of
reasons ranging from herder/farmer planned wildlife conservation, land titling, (international)
land acquisition and election politics.
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