The face of climate change and insecurity to marginalised Kenyan communities

Imagine spending sleepless nights because of wild animals roaming freely outside your home. And when you wake up in the morning, all your crops are gone. This is the fate of the Maasai community in Nyango village located in the southern coastal region of Kenya.

As climate change accelerates, its impacts exacerbate existing social, economic, and environmental challenges in many contexts, which can contribute to insecurity.

Security concerns linked to climate change include impacts on food, water and energy supplies, increased competition over natural resources, loss of livelihoods, climate-related disasters, and forced migration and displacement.

Insecurity hinders climate change adaptation efforts, leaving already vulnerable communities even poorer and less resilient to interlinked climate and security crises, but climate change adaptation initiatives often fail to fully integrate peacebuilding or conflict prevention objectives.

Kenya has the highest number of its citizen affected by climate change, despite the efforts by the Kenyan government to distribute relief food to over 2.8 million Kenyans, marginalized communities suffer in silence, and the conflict between human beings and wildlife during drought period endangers the lives of locals bordering Kenya national reserves.

Maasai community in Nyango village, southern coastal region of Kenya are victims of hunger but this seems not to be a big issue to the community. Herds of elephants from Tsavo National Park roaming in their village searching for water and feeds give them sleepless nights.

Regina Daudi a resident of Nyango narrates how women in the area forcefully stay indoors fearing for their lives.

“Wild animals have increased in number, they left the reserve and invade our village, moving from house to house so we are in trouble because we are forced to have sleepless nights, at times we are forced to sleep without taking food because we cannot go to fend for ourselves due to fear of wild animals. Before the closure of schools, women are not at peace until their children return home safely,” said Ms  Daudi.

Ms  Daudi confirmed three locals among them a woman is nursing serious head injuries at Kinango Hospital following an attack by an elephant.

“We need help, our people are hurt by the wild animals every day, already three residents are hospitalised in critical conditions,” lamented Ms Daudi.

Echoing her sentiments Ms Betina Meng’oru said the danger exposed by the wild animals paralysed their day-to-day activities.

“We can’t go out to fetch water or firewood, even farming has become a problem, we are living in fear, we are suffering because of these wild animals,” lamented Ms Meng’oru.

On her side, Ms Hajara Ali confirmed a friend had lost her son following a snake bite.

‘Even snakes are in search of feeds and sometimes they get into our houses, there is a woman whose son was bitten by a snake while grazing and died on the spot, they compensated the family and no other action was taken, it’s only the compensation,” emphasised Ms Ali.

Nyango residents are now calling upon the local government and Kenya Wildlife Services to urgently act for their safety.

“We are now calling upon organisations or the County Government of Kwale to ensure wildlife conflict comes to an end, we have been highly affected by drought and our security is at risk. We want Kenya Wildlife Services  to take back their animals to the reserves for us to have a chance of farming to curb the famine affecting us,” appealed the locals.

Cindy Kobei, a community advocate working on a climate change awareness project under African Women in Kenya said there is a need for more women to participate in climate processes, public participation forums and budget allocation forums to raise their grievances.

“County leadership in Kenya should ensure that they are implementing the policies that have been put in place, climate policies and gender policies and ensure they develop them and prioritise the needs of women. When such instances of conflict arise, it affects the children and women mostly because they are the ones who take care of their families,” lamented Ms Kobei.

Kenya Wildlife Services in the southern coastal region of Kenya led by Jacob Orahle confirmed several people have been killed by wild animals in various parts of the region this year. He added that action has been taken to ensure the safety of the locals.

“There are quite some incidences where crops were damaged by elephants and people killed, we have taken action, we have a team in Lungalunga and Kuranze and they are working together with the community to minimise that problem.”

” We are doing a lot of awareness to the community about human-wildlife conflict so the situation has gone down a bit,” said Mr Orahle.

Kenya Red Cross organisation led by principal secretary Dr Asha Mohamed called upon county government and local organisanisations to join hands and come up with an amicable solution for assisting locals affected by climate change.

“It’s very important for the organisations and local government to put more effects to ensure people get help, I urge more organisations and partners to come out and join us and assist our communities,” said Dr Asha.

Kenya National Human Rights Commission chairperson Roseline Odede termed climate change a threat to women and girls saying the commission is partnering with social justice centres to ensure every right of a person is protected.

“As a commission, our mandate is to fight for human rights and this is right in our agenda to partner with social justice centres to ensure every citizen’s right is protected, we have that the area has many challenges, there is no court meaning accessing to justice is not easy, so if we have justices centre here then victims would get their rights easily,” Ms Odede stated.

Environmental agencies, local organisations and the government should scale up initiatives to help communities like Nyango village build resilience to climate security challenges. The results and lessons learned from these initiatives should provide guidance and practical tools for these local communities in tackling climate change.