The pastoralists in the lowlands of Ethiopia live by shifting season by season to feed and water their animals. Their ways of life are well adapted to these harsh environments but they're not always understood by outsiders. Will they be allowed to keep on managing their own lives?

Drought is a fact of life for many in Ethiopia. Away from the cooler, more populated highlands, mobility is the key to survival. In a good year these hot, dry lowlands are very productive. Groups have careful strategies to share limited resources. But conflict over access to land and development decisions made far away are forcing traditional systems out of shape and clamping down on mobility. The same problem faces nomads and pastoralists across the globe. But even within Ethiopia, different ethnic groups have their own experiences. Home on the Range goes to the Afar people in the North-East and the Boran in the South, to hear the voices of the people themselves.

The Move is On

For most Boran, it's now already the rainy season. In the early morning, women everywhere are beginning their long day's work. Herding and milking cows, churning butter, and feeding the children is just the start of their day. During the dry season, everyone has to move and resettle in an area with better access to water.

All across Borana, there is constant movement to fresh pastures - cattle, sheep, goats - everyone in the olla, or village, must move in the search of grass that will fatten the animals who provide the much prized milk. As soon as the animals use up available resources scouts are sent out to search for new areas. They carry guns for hunting and protection from wild animals and enemies.

In the rainly season, ponds and brooks sustain communites. In the dry season however, the waterways dry up and it is imperitive to be near to the rain-filled wells. Boran wells are collective efforts, hand-dug tens of metres down into the hard earth. And each well system has a manager. In the dry season, different herds are brought down to drink in turn. But having access to water means little if there is no grass for the animals but in these cases, the people and their herds are allowed to move to another well.

Water Ties

Hundreds of kilometres north in Afar it’s still the dry season and Buri village is abandoned for the time being. This marginal land will be well worth grazing, once the rains have come. But until then, Afar people need access to land along the river.

Even further North, the floods came early and without warning. Despite the risk of flooding, land along the river is in demand. It’s the only place there’s water all year round, and the rich soil suits farming as well as grazing. Crops such as maize are grown with the leftovers used to feed the animals.

As long as livestock can still reach the river, farming and herding can co-exist in Afar. But back in Borana, life depends more on rainfall, and farming is more risky. Pastoralists, who relied on livestock for their survival, found that the weather was changing, with shorter periods of rain. Grass disappeared, cattle died, and the Boran had a hard time feeding their families. At first, ploughing the land for crops seemed like the only solution, and it's a lifestyle promoted by the government. But it soon became evident that the lack of rain kills seedlings, just as it does everything else.

Migratory societies ensure their lands have a chance to recover from seasonal use, but a farm doesn't move and the land doesn't get a chance to replenish itself. Farming also means having to get the resources needed to grow crops - especially ploughs and seeds. If these aren't available, disaster looms. One Boran says "the problem with farming is, at ploughing time you’re already hungry."

Economics are difficult for everyone in Ethiopia. Since world coffee prices tumbled, people in the Highlands haven’t been buying so much meat which means fewer sales in the lowlands. And a live- import ban in Saudi Arabia meant they lost another entire market. Some resort to smuggling their cattle into Kenya, but the markets there are little better with no guarantee of a sale. If a herder is caught smuggling, his entire herd is confiscated, leaving him with nothing. With no-one buying surplus animals even in the good times, even the wealthier pastoralists are hit hard.

Farming has moved into many of the valleys previously used for cattle pasture, taking away cattle rangeland. One pastoralist comments on the problems with farming.

"They’re ploughed up so the pasture’s ruined, even though the land’s not good for growing crops. The land is taken from the cattle and they can’t get enough grass to survive. It’s two hands, and we lose on both. Keep farming for the land that suits farming! They should demarcate the land. The rangelands are for cattle; the valleys and the ridges. Then we wouldn’t keep losing animals, and our way of life would be preserved."

Does Protecting Parks and Plants Help?

In Afar, dry-season access to the river is what’s crucial. Herders are in competition with farmers and other herders for the precious water resources and grazing land. National Parks occupy land along the river, too. They protect wildlife, but to pastoralists these are rangelands and they resent being shut out. Some herders see no choice but to secretly move their animals in the park areas to graze.

With the fall of the Dergue regime, most were returned to local people, in theory. But it’s outside investors who have money for irrigation and tractors. Some local people have negotiated arrangements that provide jobs and a percentage of the harvest. But not everyone has such a good relationship with the new investors.

An Afar man describes the potential problems. "The investor will make friends with the clan leader and his sons. If he likes you, you can stay with him and work on his farm. But if he dislikes you, he’ll dismiss you and you won’t get any payoff. We’re pastoralists. We should move back to the cattle."

Another issue is the prosopis juliflora, also known as mesquite, introduced twenty years ago to stabilise soils. Fast-growing, spiny and poisonous, it was a green revolution too far. Where farms are no longer ploughed, it’s galloped out of control.

The ripe pods of the prosopis are edible by people and animals but all other parts of the tree are toxic - leaves, bark and the unripe pods. This means even more land is being taken by a plant with seemingly little use. The government discouraged any cutting of the tress but soon the people learned to make charcoal from the prosopis. Selling it is another matter.

What Does the Future Hold?

In Borana, an indigenous thorn bush is taking over. Partly because burning back has been banned, but also because settlement is forcing people closer together. But drought and conflict made settlement the only option for some groups. Drought and war were just too much and the government moved in to settle many of the struggling pastoralists.

Although it's not an ideal existence, there is an understanding of the necessity of the situation. "What keeps us here is farming and the children. There’s a school now. We can’t just leave them there and move on. It’s not to undermine the old ways, it’s just the reality now. We’re trying to adapt. We’re trying education and we’re trying farming. So take it. This is what it is."

Another pastoralist says "why are ideas about livestock herding always ignored? If cattle are so useless, why don’t they just stop anyone keeping them? In our area our livelihood is 75% from cattle, only 25% comes from farming. So why do they always talk about promoting farming? This question was raised at several meetings and one answer was ‘The government knows nothing about livestock herding. They were not born or educated where cattle are reared. That’s why it doesn’t know about herding’."

Pastoralists want development as much as anybody. Their lives are hard, but they’re all about coping with change. The next generation are learning the strategies they need to succeed as pastoralists and cope with the changing world. But if they continue to be seen as backward by the decision-makers, development projects will continue to be expensive failures.