This paper synthesizes current knowledge on the impacts of the Gibe III dam and associated large-scale commercial farming in the Omo-Turkana Basin, based on an expert elicitation coupled with a scoping review and the collective knowledge of an multidisciplinary network of researchers with active data-collection programs in the Basin. We use social-ecological systems and political ecology frameworks to assess the impacts of these interventions on hydrology and ecosystem services in the Basin, and cascading effects on livelihoods, patterns of migration, and conflict dynamics for the people of the region. A landscape-scale transformation is occurring in which commodities, rather than staple foods for local consumption, are becoming the main output of the region. Mitigation measures initiated by the Ethiopian government—notably resettlement schemes—are not adequately buffering affected communities from food insecurity following disruption to indigenous livelihood systems. Therefore, while benefits are accruing to labor migrants, the costs of development are currently borne primarily by the agro–pastoralist indigenous people of the region. We consider measures that might maximize benefits from the changes underway and mitigate their negative outcomes, such as controlled floods, irrigating fodder crops, food aid, and benefit sharing. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-018-1139-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Lake Turkana Wind Power, situated on the eastern shores of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, is currently the largest wind-power project in Africa and the biggest private investment in Kenyan history. While this project enjoys strong support from the Kenyan government, at the local level it has unfolded amid considerable controversy and has been accompanied by accusations of land-grabbing, corporate negligence and infringement of indigenous and customary land rights. This article examines the local effects of the Lake Turkana Wind Power's construction. It explores how the value of land has been transformed by the wind farm and the effects this has had on local social relationships, territoriality and connections to place. The largescale, rapid privatisation of land and infrastructure development has produced a variety of apparently contradictory effects; local people simultaneously seek to access 'benefits' from the project and experience new forms of exclusion. This is particularly clear in disputes over the distribution of employment and corporate social investment. A notable consequence has been increasingly exclusive claims to land and interpretations of local history -new values ascribed to the land have generated new feelings of entitlement and raised expectations of 'development'. These contestations reveal that the value of land is about more that the material resource itself. It rests on what other privileges can be accessed through claims to place and belonging.
The megalithic pillar sites found around Lake Turkana, Kenya, are monumental cemeteries built approximately 5000 years ago. Their construction coincides with the spread of pastoralism into the region during a period of profound climate change. Early work at the Jarigole pillar site suggested that these places were secondary burial grounds. Subsequent excavations at other pillar sites, however, have revealed planned mortuary cavities for predominantly primary burials, challenging the idea that all pillar sites belonged to a single ‘Jarigole mortuary tradition’. Here, the authors report new findings from the Jarigole site that resolve long-standing questions about eastern Africa's earliest monuments and provide insight into the social lives, and deaths, of the region's first pastoralists.
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