By Alex Wynter in Dhuko, Oromiya, Ethiopia
The numbers of livestock held by southern pastoralist families have fallen drastically over the past two decades as animals die from disease induced by climate change and the severe drought it brings, according to a new report by Ethiopian and Netherlands researchers.
In one of three areas surveyed, Borena zone of Oromiya region, the average numbers of livestock owned by pastoralist households were found to have declined from 10 to 3 oxen, 35 to 7 cows, and 33 to 6 goats.
For families entirely dependent on their animals for income and as a food source, losses on this scale would be disastrous.
Climate-change impacts increased poverty and food insecurity as livestock possession fell, according to the report, Climate Change-Induced Hazards, Impacts and Responses in Southern Ethiopia.
Unidentified diseases
The research was carried out by the Ethiopian Forum for Social Studies and the Netherlands group, Cordaid - a partner of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in The Hague, with experience of drought management in the Horn of Africa.
Tick and skin diseases in camels, cattle, goats and sheep are common anyway during severe droughts, the study said, while even camels and goats - normally considered more resistant to drought and adopted as a "coping strategy" by pastoralists in place of cattle - are affected by newly prevalent diseases.
The distribution of diseases and pests has also changed in the study area, according to senior researcher Aklilu Amsalu. "Existing diseases...are expanding and new types are emerging," he said, while unidentified new diseases were also causing the sudden death of camels and goats.
As their animals died, people became dependent on aid, while dry seasons triggered local "resource conflicts" over water and pasture, the study found. "About a quarter" of all households in Borena and Guji zones suffered from cattle-raiding related to conflict in the period 2004-8.
Recent press reports in Ethiopia, meanwhile, said 50 per cent of people in the country's Somali region will remain dependent on international food-aid until at least the middle of the year. In Somali region "humanitarian access and aid remains very erratic", said the Reporter newspaper. The International Federation in December launched an appeal for nearly US$ 100 million - one of its biggest ever for a "hidden disaster"- and with the Ethiopian Red Cross Society is planning to carry out food distributions shortly in mainly pastoralist areas.
However, donor response to date has been very limited. As things stand, only one major distribution "hub" - out of a planned four in Ethiopia - is guaranteed.
"I pray for rain"
"We're doing the very best we can with the donor backing we've had," says Roger Bracke, the Federation's Addis Ababa-based head of operations for the Horn of Africa.
"Everyone was pleased the latest inter-agency assessment brought the Ethiopian national total of people outside the government safety net needing emergency food aid down to just under 5 million last month," he adds. "But that's still a very large number."
Ute-Muda Garero knows all about rustling. He's one of the few pastoralist herdsmen who have stayed behind in Dhuko village, Oromiya, to sit out the dry season, fearful of getting mixed up in a local conflict over water and pasture he says bedevils an area where hundreds of other men from the village have temporarily migrated, seeking better grazing.
But his animals are suffering for it. They have already deteriorated to the exact mid-point of the official yardstick of animal health: between two and three on a four-point scale, four meaning near death.
"I pray for rain," he says.
"My cattle will be 'threes' even if the rains start on time," he explains, referring to the main seasonal rains due next month. "If the rains fail, they'll die for sure."
Apart from the women and children, only a handful of community leaders and elders are left Dhuko.
Reduced rations
It's there and in countless thousands of settlements like it that the disaster in the Horn of Africa is hidden: difficult to see, even standing in the middle of it.
Children who look half their age from malnutrition; unnecessarily high infant-mortality statistics; "resource wars" fought between tribes who might otherwise live in peace; the gradual erosion of an ancient lifestyle - pastoralism.
Earlier this month the World Food Programme (WFP), the Federation's main UN partner in the Horn operation, reported a relief-funding shortfall of just over US$ 400 million for 2009.
Reduced food rations have applied since July 2008, WFP said, adding that households continue to engage in "negative coping strategies in order to meet their basic food needs [including] selling a higher number of productive assets than usual (44 per cent), reducing the number of meals...(92 per cent), and borrowing food or money (69 per cent)."
In February WFP was distributing reduced rations for cereals and oil and prioritizing blended food for beneficiaries "in hotspot areas only, including Somali region".