The Nyangatom, a small agro-pastoralist community stretched between in border areas of South Sudan and Ethiopia, will be heavily affected by climate change. However, it is their indigenous knowledge systems that might help them adapt to these challenges.
A Nyangatom herder walking through the Omo valley (Photo by: Simon Bunchuay-Peth)
Climate change transforms the way we live our lives. However, its impacts are felt differently around the world, with marginalized communities in the Global South typically experiencing greater impacts while having fewer resources to adapt to climate change. One community, for whom this is the case, are the Nyangatom. As an indigenous community, climate change threatens their immediate environment as much as their cultural livelihoods. However, their knowledge systems may shape their capacity to adapt. Understanding the role of these systems in climate adaptation lies at the core of this project.
Who are the Nyangatom?
There is not a lot of research on Nyangatom communities, it is even hard to estimate how many exist. Most estimates argue that there are around 30,000 Nyangatom residing in Ethiopia and similar numbers in South Sudan. (They speak their own language – Nyangatom – and predominantly live an agro-pastoralist lifestyle, relying on growing crop and livestock as the main economic activity. This entails that they frequently move between different locations. These movements are influenced by a variety of factors, the most dominant of which is the change from wet to dry seasons. In Ethiopia, where the research of one of the CuHeMo Subprojects is centred, they reside in the South-West of the country, between the Omo and Kibish River.. Other Nyangatom communities reside in the South-East of South Sudan and the Ilemi Triangle. The communities around the Omo depend on the proximity to the river as flood recession agriculture is one of their main means to sustain their livelihood. However, this way of life is increasingly under threat, as climate change endangers not only the Nyangatom, but many of Ethiopia’s (agro-) pastoralist communities, which comprise 10 million people and make up 15% of the country’s population.
These climatic changes are not only scientifically measurable, they are already being directly experienced by pastoral communities across the country. They feel the rising temperatures as well as the decreasing rainfall leading to droughts making it harder for their crops to grow and their livestock to survive. These developments are also exacerbating conflicts between different pastoralist communities – as resources become scarcer and the struggle over them increases). In this difficult context, the majority of pastoralist communities are forced to climate adaptation.
How Gender influences climate adaptation
The Nyangatom have already found some responses to changing climatic conditions. Most prominently, they rely on temporary migration into new areas survive. But they also began growing crops in flood-prone areas or gathering wild fruits and leaves. Other factors include herd diversification and alliances with other ethnic communities in their surroundings. However, these adaptation strategies are not feasible for all Nyangatom equally: Those who own more livestock, have off-farm income and better access to information are more likely to adopt new practices), while others might be left behind.
Nyangatom women are likely to be among those who are less able to adapt to climate change. Not only are pastoralist women often poorer than the men in their communities), leaving them with fewer resources to successfully adapt, but the traditional knowledge systems used by pastoralist communities to cope with climate change are often gendered. However, as of right now, many of the details of these processes are under-researched. Current research on the Nyangatom’s climate adaptation practices is limited to a few studies, and there has been little examination of how their knowledge systems impact adaptation efforts overall, particularly regarding the influence of factors such as gender.
Yet, understanding how this unfolds is crucial because it provides insights that go beyond the case of the Nyangatom: Recognizing how indigenous epistemologies inform local perspectives on climate change can help decolonize the discourse on climate adaptation. With the CuHeMo project, we aim not only to contribute to this academic debate, but also to rethink the way sustainability projects are implemented in the Global South, so that they are more in tune with the realities of life in mobile communities.
