Interview with Maasai pastoralist Ole Mepukori
Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Ole.
Grateful for the opportunity.
We're going to speak today about pastoralism and how wildlife conservation poses a threat to this livelihood. But first could you explain briefly what pastoralism is in an African context?
Pastoralism is life. It is our lived reality. It is food, healthcare, social protection, dowry, housing. Basically without pastoralism we die.
For someone who hasn't been to Kenya, could you explain what parks like Tsavo, location of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, look like and the place of the Maasai and their livestock in these Protected Areas, historically and in the present day?
The Tsavo National Park covers an area 22,000 km², approximately 3.78% of Kenya. Growing up, we would move our cattle herds to the Tsavo when droughts were too harsh. Before this expansive grassland was carved out and protected, they were dry season pasture lands for the Maasai people. Our forebears grew up, lived, thrived, raised families and died here.
Our people call this rich grassland Olaililai. The name Tsavo is a colonial erasure of history and the history of the people. To the oppressors we did not exist and we still do not exist.
The soil is sandy and the grass cover is lush during the wet season and very nutritious for the cattle. It is a very hard environment when it is dry. Water is scarce and livestock move long distances to the watering points.
You recently had livestock impounded. Could you tell us more about this event and how the denial of pasture rights for your herds impacts both your livestock and your livelihood?
The policy to impound Maasai livestock in the Tsavo has been ongoing for about a decade. Before that they used to arrest the herders and impose fines. They would also use low flying fixed wing planes to round up and chase down the cattle off the park. They would pour corrosive chemicals on the cows from the planes. Our people lost huge numbers of cows to this.
This two-pronged strategy failed as a deterrence and they introduced huge cattle prisons in the parks. As we speak, there is a permanent fixed wing plane that spots and chases down the cattle, boots on the ground of ferocious drug-fuelled and heavily armed rangers who show no mercy to unarmed Maasai cattle herders and the cattle prisons where impounded livestock go to die of starvation and thirst.
Impounding livestock and issuing fines is nothing new, but you have said that the situation is now getting worse. What are the reasons for this do you think and what do you see as a long-term solution to these problems and how can others best support this fight?
Yes, these actions to deny our people right to pasture have been ongoing since 1948. But local arrangements were made especially during the President Moi regime to allow controlled grazing of Maasai cattle herds in the Tsavo.
Things changed during the President Kibaki regime and got worse during the Uhuru Kenyatta Presidency. The policy to completely finish off pastoralism as an economic system took hold in the last decade.
The Kenya Wildlife Service and the conservation organizations that work directly in the protected areas like the Sheldrick Trust have more funding from carbon offset financing to execute their nefarious mandates to dispossess and violently evict the Maasai people.
What we want is access to pasture and water for our livestock during difficult times of drought. We can work together to have controlled grazing plans in times of pasture stress like now. The Maasai people play host to huge numbers of wildlife in community controlled areas and we don't understand why the Kenya Wildlife Service is showing bias towards the Maasai.
Our call to allies and partners across the world is to add their voice and shine light on the ongoing injustices against the Maasai people. The rangelands is home to both the Maasai and the iconic elephants. We must not allow the Kenya Wildlife Service and their eco-fascists backers to poison the savannah.
We call on citizens of the world to fund our legal actions against these rogue agencies and NGOs and our political action to change the laws and policies that govern conservation.
Coming back to the subject of carbon credits, at the recent US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington DC President Ruto spoke about making Kenya a carbon credits leader. (See: https://medium.com/@shambanetwork/kenya-pushes-to-become-a-carbon-credits-leader-f42ce6dbf80f)
As a pastoralist in Kenya, what are your views on this?
Carbon credit financing and carbon offset projects are opening new war fronts against pastoralists. They basically want us off our lands to execute their nature-based solutions that will allow the global corporations to continue the destruction of the planet. We will resist but first we must survive the current onslaught against the Maasai cattle, our only source of livelihood.
Thank you so much for your time. Hope what you have shared with us will pique the interest of both Africans and Westerners, and encourage more to scratch beneath the surface of the images and narratives of "wild Africa" presented to us by the likes of Attenborough and Goodall, as well as the deceptive rhetoric behind carbon credits and nature-based solutions. Where can readers/listeners hear more from you?
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak and share our lived experiences in the Maasai Rangelands of Africa.
Readers can follow me on Twitter @OleMepukori and I occasionally write on Substack as "The Pastoralist".