Fast-growing Nairobi, the capital of Kenya and home to 4 million people, is sprawling ever-further into the countryside and “gobbling up chunks of pastureland,” says the New York Times. The result is a “growing clan of metropolitan herders” who graze their cattle and goats along four-lane highways, on the lawns of wealthy homeowners or in cemeteries.
It is illegal to graze livestock inside the city limits but the herders say they have no choice when looking for forage. “They often get in tangles with the law, having to bribe their way out of jail,” says the Times. “The clash is the worst during the dry season … when the shrinking amount of pastureland shrivels into yellow straw and the rural areas ringing Nairobi turn into dead country.”
Conditions are particularly dire this year due to a harsh drought. Kenyan wildlife officials say wild animal are moving into settled areas. Long-term solutions to urban grazing are bruited, such as irrigation projects and wells in rural areas, says the Times. “But few Kenyans are holding their breath.”