Watch: East African pastoralists record their climate reality
Joana Roque de Pinho (Aarhus University)
Pastoralists in East Africa have been using video to share their stories and experiences about coping with seasonal and annual climatic variability as part of the project Pastoralist Transformations to Resilient Futures: Understanding Climate from the Ground Up, facilitated by researchers and film makers from the Colorado State University.
Noolarami enole Kapirontoi, one of the female filmmakers, talks about her experience in the project:
Over the course of three weeks, the filmmakers learned how to shoot, conduct interviews, create sequences, storyboard and do some basic editing. They then used their new skills to create short videos about climatic changes and other aspects of their lives they wished to share. With two simple high-definition digital cameras (which they are still using), the filmmakers worked both individually and in groups. Directing and editing decisions were entirely theirs
Meet the Maasai film makers
Follow their training and work
The Maasai filmmakers’ work was later on shared at a community screening that they organized. However, a very heavy, out-of-season downpour made it difficult for many community members to attend it.
The production of a collaborative film (15 minutes), documenting the Pastoralist Transformations project is underway. Provisionally entitled “The Land has Changed”: East African Pastoralist Perspectives on Climate Change, it will incorporate footage by the Maasai filmmakers, Nicolas Tapia and Lindsay Simpson, and will illustrate the points of views held by a diversity of stakeholders in the debate around climate change and other transformations in the East African dry lands.
Pastoralist Transformations to Resilient Futures: Understanding Climate from the Ground Up, aims to explore East African pastoralists’ perceptions of climatic changes and their experiences coping with related challenges The project is funded by the Livestock and Climate Change Collaborative Research Support Programme (CRSP) with support from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). See more films from this project.
Joana Roque de Pinho is a post-doctoral researcher at the Centro de Administração e Políticas Públicas, Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas, Lisbon, Portugal
