Silencing the guns: West Pokot women turn to tree planting to tackle banditry
Members of Kalya Self-Help Group carry tree seedlings on February 21.
What you need to know:
- Scores of people have been killed, hundreds of others displaced and livestock stolen following heightened attacks late last year.
- The situation has led to severe socioeconomic distress and residents blame it on their pastoralist lifestyle.
The Sarmach area along the West Pokot-Turkana border has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons, for decades.
Scores of people have been killed, hundreds of others displaced and livestock stolen following heightened attacks late last year. The situation has led to severe socioeconomic distress.
Some residents have been maimed and others driven out of their farmlands, homes and denied opportunity to engage in income-generation activities.
For a long time, the semi-arid area has been a no-go zone following heightened banditry attacks. Sarmach has semi-tropical vegetation on the slopes, while the floor of the valley is covered in dry thorny bushes.
But despite the dry weather conditions and the bloodletting, residents have opted to rewrite its story.
Local women are now promoting resilience to climate change shocks. Their goal is peace and stability. They prepare and sell tree seedlings to boost forestation and incomes, a shift from their pastoralist lifestyle that has been responsible for banditry attacks.
Under the banner of Kalya Self-Help Group, they seek to protect biodiversity as they empower themselves towards financial freedom.
In 2021, they embarked on a journey to a better and peaceful environment. Kalya means peace.
The tree seedlings, mainly of grafted mangoes, avocados, papaws and Neem tree (mwarobaine), flourish.
Also read: Embrace green jobs to root out banditry
A grafted seedling goes for Sh120 and the others are sold at Sh100. From the proceeds, members have changed their lives.
Martha Longra, their chairperson of the group, says the project has reduced their overdependence on livestock keeping and provided an alternative means of survival.
“We sell most of the tree seedlings to the Safer World Organisation. This business helps in environmental conservation and we encourage more people to plant more trees,” she says.
“We hope the sound of guns and banditry will end. This area is insecure; we enter our houses at 7pm to sleep.
"We can’t eat from outside. We turn off radios and sleep while alert with ears sharp. We thank God when it reaches morning.”
“This initiative has changed our lives completely. We are now able to take our children to school without struggling, there is peace in our homes.”
As a result of capacity building, courtesy of Safer World Organisation, the group improved their own nursery production and extended the skills and knowledge.
Their vision is to increase forest cover in the county.
Asha Ekuman, a member, says the move has improved the area's economy and created wealth for women.
“We decided to end banditry because no one kills trees like goats or cows. We are Christians and we got saved.”
Kenya Pastoralists Community Organisation peace director Diana Rotich, says the area has many widows and widowers as result of banditry and they offer psychosocial support and empowerment for them to bounce back.
“Many have been bereaved,” she explains, adding that they support vulnerable women affected by conflicts.
Victor Ijaika, of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission in the Upper Rift Valley, says the women have become environmental stewards.
“If you buy one tree, you will help mute gun sounds, give income to a widow whose husband was gunned down in a conflict to educate and feed her child,” he says.
He says the move will help to realise sustainable peace. “We want the county government to buy trees from the women,” he says.
William Lokwaling’a says the project has helped the area to be green. “You can’t steal trees like cows, which can be sold.”
