This archive report was first published on 4 September 2019.
Kenya's Mau Forest has been a contentious issue for years, with the government's latest round of evictions sparking protests and arrests. The forest, which is the largest drainage basin in the country, is a vital source of water and food for millions of people.
But the Mau Forest is not just a local issue. It is a symptom of a larger problem - the growing strain on the world's food systems due to climate change, water scarcity, and soil and biodiversity loss.
According to award-winning Australian science journalist Julian Cribb, the world is facing a ticking time bomb of food, land, and water conflicts. Cribb, who spoke to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, warned that the world's food systems are coming under increasing strain and that a major grain-growing region failing its harvests could lead to a global food crisis.
"We tend to think of food crises as something that happens in Africa or some other developing country," Cribb said. "But the world only has about three months' supply of grain in store at any one time."
He identified seven "powder kegs" at risk of conflict in the coming four or five decades, with South Asia topping the list, followed by Africa and China.
Meanwhile, the World Resources Institute (WRI) reported that nearly 25 per cent of the world's population (about 1.7 billion people) faces a water crisis, with even a small dry spell potentially causing a crisis.
"Water stress is the biggest crisis no one is talking about," claims Andrew Steer, president and CEO of WRI. "Its consequences are in plain sight in the form of food insecurity, conflict, and migration and financial instability."
The Mau Forest is a flashpoint in this larger conflict, with Kenya's very existence hanging in the balance. If the country runs out of water, what then? Will the zero-water areas attack water-rich ones? The politics of the sub-region could be remade, with Kenya potentially seeking to seize water-rich lands from its neighbours.
But there is also hope. In the face of climate change, new grasslands and "wetlands" have emerged in the dried parts of the Kariba dam, straddling the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. Wildlife and plants have popped up and are thriving, suggesting that we could survive not as big centralised nations, but city states built around ecological oases driven by green energies and technologies.
After we have buried the hundreds of millions of people who will have died (may their souls rest in peace), it could still be a very interesting world.
— Mr Onyango-Obbo is curator of the "Wall of Great Africans" and publisher of explainer site Roguechiefs.com. @cobbo
