Climate change has woken us all up to the impact that we have made on the environment. While the countdown is underway for the Copenhagen global climate agreement in December 2009, here’s a look at the impact that climate change is already having on the Maassai Warriors of Kenya.

The United Nations (UN) has been running a Seal the Deal campaign for a global climate agreement to be signed by world leaders in Copenhagen in December 2009. Scientists say that we need to keep the average rise in temperature beneath 2 degrees Celsius to avoid runaway global warming. The purpose of the UN campaign is to seal a deal that will reduce greenhouse gases and generate sustainable growth, while providing assistance to developing countries affected by climate change.

"If needs be we are prepared to walk out of any negotiations that threaten to be another rape of our continent” (Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi).

Africa has threatened to veto the Copenhagen agreement if the systems are not put in place to support Africa’s future. According to the UN, problems that could grow in Africa if global warming continues include “increasingly scarce water, falling agricultural yields, encroaching deserts and damaged coastal infrastructure".

The main reason that the US refused to sign was that there was no call on China, as a coal based economy, to reduce carbon emissions. The US has also claimed to be dependent on fossil fuels to drive the economy. Barack Obama is looking to the upcoming Copenhhagen agreement as an overhaul to the Kyoto Protocol that will allow countries to define their own domestic targets for reduced carbon emissions.

Climate change is already damaging communities where there has been drought. Maasai warriors are the original eco-warriors, making their living by pastoralism in Kenya. Of the estimated population of 1.5 million, approximately 600,000 Maasai live in Kenya. Their nomadic lifestyle had already been affected by the privatisation of land in 1980. They had also been accustomed to dealing with drought that came once every 5 or 10 years but a continuous drought over the last 4 years has been devastating, leaving the Maasai with no time to recover from one year to the next or to plan for the future.

“We used to expect a drought every 10 years. Then it began to happen every five years. Now it’s happening every year, which doesn’t leave any time for our pastoralists to get back on their feet.”

Kenny Matampash (pictured right) was invited to Ireland by aid organisation Concern Worldwide to raise awareness of the cross-breeding programme that is intended to increase food production. The number of Kenny Matampash’s own livestock has reduced in the last 4 years from 300 cattle to 49.

The Maasai cow is a small cow that produces only half a litre of milk per day. The cross-breeding programme is an effort to increase food production with cows that produce more milk.

The situation has also raised a conflict with the ecotourism industry because it is illegal for the Maasai to bring their livestock into the national parks. Land tenure laws were introduced in the 1980s and eighty percent of Maasailand (the informal name for East Africa) has since been subdivided into private ownership, restricting the Maasai's nomadic lifestyle. With the added challenge of climate change, ecotourism should empower indigenous communities to adapt so maybe it’s time to review the access to and exclusion from conservation parks, allowing the Maasai access to grass and water.

Amboselli national park is irrigated by water flowing from Kilimanjaro; the Masai Mara national park by water from the Mau Forest and Tsavo West national park by the Nairobi river. Is it ethical for ecotourism to thrive while the well-being of local people is at stake? Genuine ecotourism has a social ethic as well as an environmental ethic and an ecotourism venture that displaces the indigenous community is a contradiction in terms.

Integrated conservation and development programmes in Kenya seem to have failed so far, partly because of overpopulation and partly because of diminished pastoral land. Globalization has also been a factor, with lands that were previously common areas now privatised as commercial conservation parks, generating more wealth for the wealthy rather than filtering wealth to the local community.