DROUGHT

ACP has studied the frequency and impact of drought in Amboseli over the past 47 years. Western began writing about the deepening threat of drought in the national press in 2000, in what he dubbed the millennial drought. By then wildlife and livestock numbers in Amboseli and across Kenya were in decline due to shrinking range and degrading pastures, leading to a large scale collapse populations in 2009. The Worst Drought published in Swara detailed the collapse in Amboseli http://www.amboseliconservation.org/storage/Amboseli%20Drought%202009%20Swara.pdf . A further article in Scidev.net based on the long-term studies of ACP in Amboseli looked at the wider implications in the Horn of Africa. http://www.scidev.net/global/desert-science/opinion/better-grazing-practices-hold-key-to-kenyan-droughts.html.  ACP has continued to track the aftermath of the drought in Amboseli (here refer to last update). The NASA Goddard Centre in Washington DC expressed interest in collaborating with ACP to calibrate satellite imagery against the Amboseli monitoring data through the drought period. The preliminary finding show the prospects of coupling high tech satellite imagery with the low tech ground measurements of pasture and grazing David Maitumo conducts in Amboseli each month.

 http://www.earthzine.org/2013/07/22/tracking-vegetation-changes-in-kenyas-amboseli-national-park/