Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the impact of colonialism on East African landscapes using sediment cores from Lake Baringo. The paleorecord findings contradict the notion that colonialism and European settlement exacerbated land degradation in the region.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates the impacts of colonial influence on East African landscapes based on evidence in the sediment cores recovered from Lake Baringo. Results from the Lake Baringo paleorecord challenge the prevailing view that colonialism and European settlement in the Lake Baringo ecosystem are the geneses of land degradation in the region. During the colonial period, the European settlers alienated the indigenous pastoralists from their dry season grazing lands by occupying, and fencing off the well-watered highlands to the south and east of Lake Baringo, confining the local pastoralists to the climatically harsh and ecologically fragile lowlands. In addition, the European settler community severed the seasonal grazing areas and watering points from the African herders, condemning them to use the fragile lowlands, which quickly degraded permanently. However, the Lake Baringo record shows no significant change in the high sedimentation rates for both the prehistoric period, before European settlement in the Baringo ecosystem, and after, including more recent times, which questions the widely held view that land degradation became synonymous with the Baringo ecosystem following European settlement and colonization.