Climate change and nomads

how we live — By Bob Riel on August 3, 2007 at 8:05 am

Climate change threatens ice sheets and ecosystems, but it also threatens human cultures.

So begins an interesting report on NPR about the Tuareg nomads of Mali and how their way of life is being affected by climate change.

For centuries, the Tuareg people have lived as nomads, herding their animals from field to field just south of the Sahara Desert in Mali, near Timbuktu.

“Our life is basically the animals we have, so we protect them and we feed them,” says Mohamed Ag Mustafa, a herder living the traditional nomadic lifestyle. “Whenever we need tea or grain or clothes, we take an animal to the market and sell it and buy something.”

But this way of life has become impossible due to a change in the climate. Over the past 40 years, persistent drought has forced the Tuareg to give up their wandering way of life. To survive they have had to start settling in villages and cultivating land to secure a food supply which is less susceptible to drought…

Uwe Korus, director of programs for CARE in Mali, visits the town of Er-Intedjeft near Timbuktu, where he is greeted warmly. He is here to learn what the Tuareg need in order to make the rapid and jarring transition to a new way of life. One of the big questions on Korus’ mind is whether the Tuareg can retain their ancient culture.

The Tuareg welcome Korus with a mishwee, a traditional feast like they used to have in the desert. They build a fire in a sand pit, and when the sand gets scorching hot, they bury a sheep carcass in it. After the sheep has roasted, they blow off sand still clinging it and bring it over to straw mats laid out under rust-colored tents they erected for their guests.

The online story includes a narrated slideshow.