Deadly invasion shows land-use conflicts in Kenya

NAIROBI: Renewed invasions of private ranches by herders in Kenya’s northern Laikipia region a year after similar invasions led to deadly conflicts is a sign of cracks in the country’s land use system, experts said. A herder was shot dead when police tried to confiscate his cattle after they invaded one of the ranches last week, police and ranchers said. “That herder was killed as a matter of self-defense by the police,” Martin Evans, chairman of the Laikipia Farmers Association said. Dozens were killed and injured in Kenya’s drought-stricken Laikipia region last year as armed herders searching for scarce grazing land drove tens of thousands of cattle onto private farms and ranches from poor-quality communal land.

“Right now, it is very dry out there,” Evans said. “The November rains have failed and if it doesn’t rain between now and April the situation is going to get worse.” Francis Munyambu, the Rift Valley police commandant, said the shooting was under investigation but security in the region had returned to normal. Increased droughts due to climate change, as well as population growth and the enclosure of public lands, have pushed many traditional nomads to move onto grazing land on private ranches.

“This is really putting pressure on normal pastoralists in terms of where they are going to access pasture and water,” said Nyangori Ohenjo, program manager at Centre for Minority Rights Development. Each cow needs at least 10 acres of land to be healthy, Evans said, but the large herds of cattle kept by pastoralists was leading to depletion of grazing land. “All the land in the north is already destroyed and that’s why they are moving southwards,” he said. The conflict in Laikipia highlights the struggle for land between indigenous communities and conservationists across the world, Ohenjo said, and is partly a legacy of Kenya’s colonial past.—Reuters