Nomad encampment, Chad

The nomadic herders of the Kanembu, Peul and Fulbe peoples let their livestock graze on Lake Chad’s marshlands and fertile alluvial soils, as do the Buduma, sedentary inhabitants of the lake islands. At dusk, the herders light fires, as at this encampment on the lake’s northeast shore. The livestock take cover of their own accord amid the thick smoke, avoiding flies and mosquitoes’ stings that infest the region and spread deadly diseases. But there is another threat to the survival of the Kuri breed of cattle, which now number 400.000 heads: the lack of fodder during six months of the year. Endowed with impressive horns, which act as buoyancy aids, the breed is confined to lacustrine grassland in the islands of Lake Chad, and its fate is closely dependent on that of the lake’s waters, which unfortunately have shrunk by 92% over the past forty years, through the combined effects of human interference and climate change. In order to save the lake, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, countries that share its water, plan to divert a tributary of the Congo River but the decision making process is taking a long time.