By Job Mainye | BORESHA Project
In the past few years Mandera County experienced human conflicts and Banisa sub-county was among the worst affected areas especially because of competition between different clans for access to communal pasture for livestock. Mandera recorded rains below normal during the long rains. Banisa received high rains as compared to other parts but due to high in-migration from other parts of the County and Southern Ethiopia, most water pans have dried up and pasture depleted.
CARE International in Kenya (CIK) is working with communities in Banisa to promote economic development and greater resilience by ensuring cross-border rangeland and other shared natural resources are more equitably and sustainably managed.
Ismail Ibrahim Affey lives in Eymole location, he is the chairman of a 10-member Rangeland Management Committee (RMC) formed to protect a 4 kilometers square communal rangeland enclosure for indigenous vegetation restoration. The enclosure provides fodder bank for the herds during the dry periods.
The committee is gender balanced with agreed rangeland management guidelines and activities to help protect the enclosure to keep off the grazing animals. “We only allow a few weak cattle that can’t trek far in search of pasture to graze here but at fee to sustain the protection activities,” Ismail said.
“We used withered thorny branches from the enclosure to fence against other animals. It’s not easy work but it’s worth the sacrifice because CARE trained us how to do it cost effectively,” she said. Members man the enclosure in strict shifts due to the vast area of coverage. In the committee women have equal roles as men, “we participate in all meetings, and we work closely with local administration to arrest encroachers and fine them. We also help each other as women – we don’t have to wait for routine patrol schedules – if one of us has an emergency we cover her,” she added.
After the training, the committee embraced communal pasture development with promising benefits. They gained skills on the importance of protecting key tree species for grazing during dry season. “Herders graze far from the enclosure into Ethiopia; away from areas with rich pasture during rainy season then they trek back during dry season,” Salim Abdullahi, CIK staff said.
“Before there was no control of the rangeland due to high in-migration of livestock to Banisa and we had huge loses of cattle during drought. But now we thank CIK and BORESHA for this approach, there are different trees species and generally the natural vegetation is regenerating and wild grass is growing as well,” Ismail added.
CIK has linked the Eymole RMC to the local chief who is sensitizing the community on the importance of enclosed rangelands. Chiefs play a critical role in conflict resolutions and are critical in handling cases from RMCs
Working as cross-border NRM committees
Through CIK, the RMC in Banisa is working together with their counterpart in Ethiopia due to cross boarder grazing. It’s important to work together because the enclosed area is an extension to Ethiopia side and herders from both sides have similar challenges. “We have good working relationship with the committee and local administration from both sides had exchange visits for capacity building. We deal with encroachers and any trespassers on both sides in equal ways,” Ismail said.
Mandera County Director of Livestock production, Hussein Madey has attended all the NRM capacity building trainings organized by CIK. NRM is key to his department due to the high number of livestock in the County. “There are over 6 million livestock in Mandera county, overgrazing is a big challenge hence management of grazing lands is important. There is unreliable rains to regenerate vegetation especially grass and this poses a big problem with pastoralists. It’s important to train the community how to manage their grazing resources and CIK is helping us achieve this through formation of NRM committees in 6 wards of Mandera East, North and Banisa sub-counties. This is a sustainable approach,” Hussein said.
The future
Each member of the committee plans to have individual protected rangelands after learning from CIK. They believe it’s a good approach in securing pasture during dry season or recurrent droughts. This will enable them save more livestock in order to reduce livelihood loss.
Quick Facts
So far CIK has partnered with rangeland and livestock specialists to train 50county staff and the 210 community members on rangeland management. CIK is working with 60 member RMCs in Mandera County as part of community-led protection and rehabilitation of rangelands and management of invasive species. After developing their participatory rangeland management plans CIK will link the RMCs with the county government to represent their issues at county consultation meetings and in the long run in the County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPS). CIK goal to Cross-border rangeland and other shared natural resources are more equitably and sustainably managed.