Nomadic Skills Should Be Applied More To Fight Climate Change

The aid agency, Oxfam, has concluded that Africa could benefit greatly in its managing of the effects of climate change by applying age-old skills used by some of its nomadic peoples. In a new report released recently, the agency points out that pastoral communities such as the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania could pass on very helpful survival skills to the wider African community as handling climate change has been a way of life for them for millenia. The Maasai have been particularly adept at farming deserts and scurbland, for example. However, many nomadic groups have had their way of life curtailed and criticized over the years, their lifestyle being seen as incapable of fitting into a modern civilization. It has been lost on policy-makers here, therefore, the benefits that could be derived from applying some of the wisdom pastoralists have to deal with challenging contemporary phenomena. Oxfam's report should be a strong wake-up call to them to use age-old, time tested and indigenous means to counter one of the most challenging problems of our time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7568695.stm