Pastoralism supports more than 200 million pastoralist households globally, contributes significantly to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of several countries, and employs over 1.3 billion actors in livestock-related value chains worldwide. In Kenya, pastoralism is practiced in approximately three-quarters of the nation’s landmass mainly in arid and semi-arid lands. Contrary to the expectation that herders would be pushed further away from the center of urban areas, pastoralists neighboring the city of Nairobi have increasingly migrated and settled in and around the city. This could be either as part of their seasonal migration routine to seek pasture and water during droughts or to settle and pursue complementary livelihoods in the city. This necessitates the need for requisite empirical evidence to guide the formation of policy and legislation in view of the current dynamics. This study was conducted to determine the drivers of pastoralists’ migration to Nairobi City; the composition and structure of pastoral herds in the city, and land use and land cover changes within the grazing areas of the city over the past 20 years. Data was collected through 178 semi-structured household interviews, 21 key informant interviews, 12 focus group discussions, and four sessions of Participatory-GIS in the study sites. Results of the binary logit model show that the search for pasture and water resources, and alternative markets were the main reasons for pastoralists’ migration to the city. In addition, the findings show that herders with formal education were most likely to migrate and settle permanently in the city as they pursue wage employment besides herding. Poor access to pasture and water resources as well as lack of profitable markets for pastoralists’ commodities at origin increased the probability of their migrating to the city by 36% and 30% respectively, while higher education levels increased their chances of migration by 23%. Although pastoralists encountered diverse livelihood opportunities such as wage employment and trade in livestock products, they equally faced frequent road accidents involving livestock, displacements due to the development of real estates for settlement, and livestock poisoning from sewage and garbage wastes in the metropolitan. In view of these findings, there is a need for a more inclusive policy and regulatory framework that recognizes and considers pastoralism alongside other forms of urban and peri-urban farming. In addition, there is a need to investigate the viability of complementary livelihoods pursued by pastoralists in urban and peri-urban areas and their contribution to household income and resilience. Analysis of pastoralist herd composition and structure shows that the livestock species kept mainly consisted of indigenous breeds with more grazers (cattle and sheep) than browsers (goats). Whereas breeding females comprised more than 50% of the herds, uncastrated males (bulls, bucks, and rams) formed the least class in the herds. Preference for crossbreed livestock was reported to be rising among the interviewed households, especially for the diversity of genotypical traits that make them suitable for multiple uses. There is a need for further research on the performance of the preferred crossbreeds in terms of their tolerance to drought and productivity in the face of climate change. Participatory-GIS analysis of land use and land cover changes revealed a significant increment (between 187.8% and 955.5%) in the built-up area, and expansion (between 402.8% and 865.9%) of bare land area between the years 2000 and 2020. Whereas there was a reduction in grassland and forestland between (28.2% and 39.6%) and (28.1% and 76.7%) respectively, there was no significant change in wetland area during the two-decade period of study. The rapid expansion of real estate development into the former grazing land is restricting access to pasture, and therefore the need for policy interventions for inclusive and sustainable land use plans and by-laws that are cognitive of the multiple uses in the city.

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