This is the story of a group of women from the Kitengela rangelands area, which boarders the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, who have come together to form the Olmakao Cultural Village to provide alternative sources of income to their livestock-based livelihoods in the face of increasingly frequent droughts that have decimated their herds.

In April of 2010, Drs. Mario Herrero and Philip Thornton of the International Livestock Research Institute contracted with Drs. Boone and Conant to create a global rangeland model of moderate complexity. Boone was funded for a 50 day effort, and Conant for ca. 40 days. An opportunity to prepare a manuscript for a special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science arose, and Conant took the lead in that effort. Boone created the rangeland model, called G-Range, with input from Conant, drawing upon existing models and new information (see Acknowledgements).

What’s the future for Africa’s livestock herders as our climate changes, becomes less predictable, heats up? How can scientific research help remote pastoral communities? Among the poorest of the world’s poor, herders supply milk and meat not only for themselves but for large numbers of other poor people. Although their animals produce few of the greenhouse gasses harming the earth, these people will be among those most hurt by the climate changes we expect. Population growth and land degradation are already causing problems over much of the continent’s traditional rangelands.

This is the story of a group of women from the Kitengela rangelands area, which boarders the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, who have come together to form the Olmakao Cultural Village to provide alternative sources of income to their livestock-based livelihoods in the face of increasingly frequent droughts that have decimated their herds.