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Sudan: Watermelons, Conflict and Climate Change
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UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
13 May 2008
Posted to the web 13 May 2008
El Obeid
Several hundred kilometres from the simmering conflicts between pastoralists and farmers [over natural resources] in Sudan's Darfur region, the two communities in the village of Gereigikh in North Kordofan State have learnt to cool the tension with watermelons.
"Our farmers discovered that whenever the Kawahla tribe [traditionally pastoral] brought their livestock into the fields, the animal droppings helped improve production, so the members of the Gawamha [traditionally farmers] started planting watermelons to attract the livestock to the field," recalled Ad-Dukhri Al-Sayed, a community leader in Gereigikh, about 100km northeast of the state capital, El Obeid. "The situation has improved so much. Now everyone lives in peace, we never have problems."
Most of Sudan comprises arid land or desert, and lies in the Sahel, a region described by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) as the most vulnerable in the world to droughts.
Historically, there has always been tension over land and grazing rights between nomads and farmers, according to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conflict resolution project document . "But recently, some parts of the country have been caught in a complex tangle of severe droughts and dwindling resources."
As a result, the pressure on scarce resources like water and pasture has become the trigger of most conflicts, and climate change is set to exacerbate the situation.
Peaceful coexistence
The traditionally volatile relationship between farmers and herders has never escalated into a crisis in North Kordofan because the communities have found a way to co-exist. Several decades ago, members of the Kawahla tribe lived outside the predominantly Gawamha village of Iyal Ali, less than 100km from El Obeid, the North Kordofan capital. Then they moved into the village, and now they have become part of the community and even intermarry.
The situation will always get complicated with political interference, as is happening elsewhere in Sudan - there is no political interference here [in North Kordofan]
Despite several rounds of chai, the villagers struggle to explain why they have been more successful at keeping the peace, while tribes in neighbouring states have often resorted to conflict. "It all depends on the individual," grinned Gasmalla Mohammed, a Kawahla who lives in the village with his family. "If you want to create trouble, you will react to any angry comment or reaction; if you don't, then there is no trouble."
Faisal Eljack of SOS Sahel UK, a development non-governmental organisation and an implementing partner of the UNDP conflict resolution project, explained: "The two communities in North Kordofan have developed a symbiotic relationship - they have relationships in the market place over the supply of manure, labour, they buy livestock from each other. These relationships have cemented over the years."
The two communities have become interdependent on each other economically, particularly during periods of drought, said Sumaya Zakieldin of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of Khartoum. In an assessment of a climate change adaptation project, Zakieldin and three other researchers found that the farmers in Gereigikh often sold water to migrating tribes.
The pastoralists also tended to stay for longer periods because a mutually beneficial relationship developed. "The herders supply the farmers with dairy products such milk, butter and cheese, while the farmers supply them with agricultural produce." The farmers in the region grow millet, sorghum, vegetables and cash crops like sesame and hibiscus.
The risk of conflict
But the risk of a flare-up is always there, usually over animals grazing on cropland and sharing water points with the herders' livestock. "So far they seem to have managed it well because the tribal system, where traditional leaders arbitrate conflicts, is very strong in the area," said Zakieldin.
The more serious disputes take place during the dry season, between pastoralists who migrate from South Kordofan and farmers in the north. "These pastoralists often have their own land in the south and merely migrate up to escape from the harsh environment - the pastoral corridors, also called transhumance routes, are the key site of conflicts in these instances," said Eljack.
"The routes are recognised corridors used by pastoralists to move their animals (mainly cattle and camels) through farmed areas between seasonal pastures. Such routes have a long history: in North Kordofan and some routes are said to be a hundred years old. Routes are generally surrounded by cropped land and are between 20 and 200 metres wide, depending on the intensity of the cropping and the presence of villages," the UNDP document commented.
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More heat, less rain
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