A prolonged drought in East Africa in the 1890s not only killed tens of thousands of the native Maasai people, it also reshaped the ecological and political landscape, according to new research published in the current issue of the African Journal of Ecology.
Droughts and disease outbreaks took place from 1883 to 1902, a series of events that the Maasai dubbed the ”Emutai” (”to wipe out”). Rinderpest killed Maasai cattle in 1883 and 1884, and then small pox devastated the people; this was followed by a drought, including two years with no rain. Not surprisingly, a severe famine persisted for much of the 1890s.
”There were skeleton-like women with the madness of starvation in their sunken eyes, children looking more like frogs than human beings, ‘warriors’ who could hardly crawl on all fours, and apathetic, languishing elders … They were refugees from the Serengeti,” wrote Austrian geographer Oscar Baumann in 1894.
A period of severe erosion resulted from the combination of drought, fire and overgrazing, reports researcher Lindsey Gillson of the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Gillson’s study was done in Tsavo National Park in south-eastern Kenya.
This is a surprising result because the region is semi-arid and plants are drought tolerant. However, when the cattle died, the Maasai were forced to rely on goats and sheep, which probably led to temporary overgrazing, Gillson writes.
By the time the rains finally came, erosion had changed the region’s capacity to support livestock and other grazing animals.
Kenya’s world-famous national parks — Serengeti, Tsavo, Amboseli and Mkomazi — were traditionally central to the Maasai tradition and economy, but were nearly depopulated when European colonists arrived, says Jon Lovett, of the Centre for Ecology, Law and Policy at the University of York in the United Kingdom.
The research throws additional light on the likely effects of climate change. This is expected to result in droughts and floods in Africa that are more extreme and more frequent, Lovett says, but: ”Predictions of future climate change only give a small part of the story. What history tells us is how ecological shocks are related and the catastrophic results this can have on social systems.”
Already, parts of Kenya have endured drought since 2003. In northern Kenya, pastoralists have lost 10-million livestock; two-thirds of the population in Turkana have lost their livelihoods; and the Maasai region of Kajiado has lost five million cattle, Sharon Looremeta — a Maasai environmentalist — told delegates at the conclusion of the United Nations conference on climate change in Nairobi last week.
”Scientists are telling us that pretty soon, this kind of picture of hunger and suffering is the only kind of picture you’re going to be able to see here in Africa,” Looremeta said in a statement.
Dislocation
The rise of the Zulu kingdom also coincided with changing environmental conditions. Droughts in Southern Africa in the early 19th century coincided with war and dislocation among the Nguni peoples, Lovett said.
The Nguni moved into the Highlands of Tanzania, forcing the HeHe people to defend their territory. When German colonists arrived at the end of the 19th century, they encountered an effective HeHe fighting force, which led to the famous defeat of the German colonial military at Lugalo.
The strict German military rule that followed resulted in massive socio-economic disruption for the HeHe and left large areas unpopulated. Some of these became forest reserves in the 1950s and the Udzungwa National Park, Lovett writes in the same issue of the African Journal of Ecology.
”What we can learn from the past is how human societies reacted to extreme events,” he says.
The Nairobi climate-change meeting concluded on November 17, having made little progress in finding ways to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from industrialised countries — and in providing funds to help Africa adapt to a changing climate, environmentalists said.
But, ”Events like [the Emutai] are going to become more common in the future, and we need to be ready for them,” notes Lovett. ”[Gillson’s] work is important because it shows what has happened in the past; we are now forewarned. But the big question remains: Will policy makers take any notice?”
As the UN climate delegates headed off on safari or flew back home after the meeting, Looremeta reminded them that her people remained behind and were ”left out here with very little food, very little water, with our herds dying around us”.
”My people are living on the edge of existence,” she said. — IPS