Ethiopia’s pastoralists struggle with harsher weather

 DUBULKE, Ethiopia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Dida Gemechu is in his sixth decade, and he has never seen life as tough as it is now.

Gemechu, a pastoralist, relies on cattle for his livelihood in the Borena region of Ethiopia’s largest regional state, Oromia. But increasingly frequent droughts have made it harder to find boreholes to water his livestock.

Pastoralists represent 11 percent of Ethiopia’s more than 80 million people, but they occupy more than 60 percent of the country’s land, mostly in the northeast and southeast, and are especially vulnerable to changing weather patterns.

Gemechu says that the increasing population in the area has caused conflicts with other pastoralists and nearby farmers over grazing land for their cattle, leading them to reduce the size of their herds.Read more…