Isiolo Deputy County Commissioner Patrick Musango has commended Northern Rangeland Trust (NRT)’s approach in intervention to resolve conflicts among pastoralists who quite often engage in cattle raids in the region.
Musango said that since NRT established conservancies’ a few years back, cases of community conflicts emanating from livestock theft had been reduced by a big margin as the elders and the youth from the neighbouring Counties were involved in chatting out the ways out of the menace including hiring them to work in the Conservancies.
He said that the herdsmen are drawn from the aggressive communities and offered capacity building opportunities in diverse areas from which they can improve their livelihoods and leave the out of date cattle raid activities.
“The alternative livelihoods will ensure the beneficiaries will educate their children being a reliable way of keeping the youth away from the cattle raids and theft that had resulted in loss of lives and property of even the innocent residents,” said the DCC.
The DCC urged the youth who are incorporated in the NRT’s arrangement to spearhead peace through training and providing tools and other equipment to change their lifestyle to embrace the organisation’s will to transform them for the good of their children’s future.
He challenged them to form community based groups especially of more young people and women and seek government and other organisations’ economic support so that they could uplift their living standards.
Mr Musango appealed to NRT and other partners to educate wananchi on zero grazing of camels and other livestock being a strategy to engage many of the local people and evade community conflicts emanating from cattle thefts especially in Isiolo, Marsabit and Samburu counties in the northern Kenya.
NRT CEO Tom Lalampaa said that his organisation allocated Sh 800 million to 16 conservancies in the region which creating over 1400 jobs for the local population hence reducing cattle thefts by a big margin.
He added that since NRT started operating in the area, over 1000 people were permanently employed in the 16 conservancies and over 32,000 students from the region had benefited from education bursaries for Secondary and University levels.
Lalampaa added that during the previous long drought period, the NRT provided free livestock treatment and carried out de-stocking to avert mass loss of livestock.
By Abduba Mamo
