Kenyan Scientists Appreciate Indigenous Knowledge in Climate and Weather Forecasting

By Dominic Kirui

KAJIADO, Kenya

As a young man, Olekesi Koisa would always see his father study the stars, birds, and animals both domestic and wild; and would send a word to their village and beyond that there would be rain or drought, and that people should prepare for an impending disaster in the case that it was extreme. 

Over the years, the 70-year-old Maasai elder who has five wives but cannot remember the exact number of his children has inherited the unique ability to predict the weather by reading signs, such as the behaviour of the stars, and observing plants, birds, and animals, both wild and domestic.

Last month, Koisa and his fellow elders were invited to meet with scientists from the Kenya Meteorological Department KMD, the County Government of Kajiado, and non-profit organizations such as the Kenya Climate Change Working Group and Amref Health Africa. The meeting sought to appreciate indigenous knowledge in climate and weather forecasting in a Participatory Scenario Planning workshop that was held within Kajiado town.  

During the workshop, Koisa led his fellow Maasai elders in slaughtering a goat and studying its intestines so they could predict the weather for the next few months in Kajiado. “There will be rain, lots of it,” he said as he pointed at the veins within the gut of the goat. 

They then compared their prediction with the scientific forecasts done by KMD, which they found to be in tandem with what they had predicted from their indigenous knowledge. This, Simon Gachuiri, the Deputy Director at KMD, says has been a necessary step in ensuring the uptake of climate and weather messages in the form of advisories by indigenous communities to cushion them from impending extreme weather events. 

“We came up with the idea that we need a forum where all stakeholders can come together and develop strategies of coping with the issue of climate change,” Gachuiri says. 

According to the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), environmental advocates increasingly realize that the spread of indigenous practices is crucial to the planet’s future. An emerging body of research suggests that traditional techniques, some millennia old used for growing food, controlling wildfires, and conserving endangered species could help arrest the dramatic decline of the natural world.

The dissemination is done after the collaborative weather forecasting event and is organized by many stakeholders within different government departments and development partners including non-government organizations. 

They are then referred to as Participatory Scenario Planning (PSP), a collaborative approach in which stakeholders, such as farmers, local communities, and meteorological experts, interpret and translate seasonal climate forecasts into locally relevant information. This information can then be used for informed decision-making and planning, particularly in adapting to climate change impacts. 

Koisa told the scientists that he had observed the star positions, flowering plants, and animal behaviours, and therefore, there would be rain in Kajiado very soon. The KMD officials confirmed this, saying in their presentation that Kajiado County would receive normal to above-average rainfall in the March-April-May rainy season.

This was also confirmed when Koisa and his fellow elders slaughtered a goat and studied its intestines, telling from the colour and size of the veins that there would be rain. In so doing, scientists and policymakers are giving the community a chance to own the weather forecast as they feel it is their own and therefore easily take it up, easing the downscaling from meteorological models to the localization of the advisories. 

And even though the prediction by the indigenous Maasai elders was not area-specific and could not tell the exact amount of rain that would fall in the area, experts say that is where scientific forecasting stepped in, to complement indigenous knowledge. 

Benson Lubanga, the County Director for Meteorological Services in Kajiado says that this kind of forecast is more accurate and specific. 

“We are now downscaling from the national to the county level, and if you look at the national forecast, it is scanty, but if you look at the county one; it’s more detailed and specific to various locations and livelihoods. We are saying that three-quarters of the county will get rain. And the indigenous forecast does not say where the rain will be,” he says.

Several departments at the county government were then brought together to go around the county and prepare the residents on how to respond to the coming rains. The county’s Chief Forest Officer, Sylvia Sintiyo said that it was time for residents to take advantage of the rains and start planting trees at the onset of the rains and improve the county’s forest cover.

“This offers us the chance to know what tree varieties are best fit for what parts of the county so we can plant them when the rains start. The long rains will help us enhance the forest and tree cover within our county because we have a goal to enhance and improve our biodiversity through restoration plans that we have put in place,” she says.

In the southern part of the county, Hellen Larabi, a project officer at Amref Health Africa shared the advisories developed the week before in Kajiado town with healthcare workers and community health promoters in the area, warning them of impending infectious diseases that the long rains might bring, and preparing them on how to respond. 

“As healthcare workers, we are expecting illnesses. We know that there are places in this area where people don’t have or use toilets, and so we anticipate waterborne and water-related diseases such as diarrhoea”. 

“Also, there are tendencies for the spread of diseases from the change in temperatures because of the rise in population.Also, because of the forest on the other side of the border in Tanzania ,people have encroached into forests and disturbed wildlife in their natural habitats, and in turn they move out and cause conflict, spreading diseases to humans as well.” 

Dominic Kirui is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes on gender, climate change, access to clean water, food security, culture, conflict, politics, and global development. See his portfolio here https://muckrack.com/dominic-kirui