On January 31, Miriam Gathigah wrote

"Too hungry to play, hundreds of starving children in Tiaty Constituency of Baringo County instead sit by the fire, watching the pot boil, in the hope that it is only a matter of minutes before their next meal.

Unbeknownst to them, the food cooking inside the pot is no ordinary supper. It is actually a toxic combination of wild fruits and tubers mixed with dirty water, as surrounding rivers have all run dry.

Tiaty sits some 297 kilometers from the capital Nairobi and the ongoing dry spell is not a unique scenario.

Neighbouring Elgeyo Marakwet and Turkana County are among the counties spread across this East African nation where food security reports show that thousands are feeling the impact of desertification, climate change and rainfall shortage."

These phenomena as vividly explained by the articulate author are not new and neither are they confined to Kenya alone many African countries in Eastern and Southern Africa know these issues too well and can easily relate. When i read the introduction of the author's article, I found it to be a mirror to the story of a rural boy described in the opening of my upcoming book, "A Desert in the Making",  

Under the scorching sun of Africa, cropping systems in some agricultural communities are bound to fail. At the same time there is a confinement to agriculture as the primary source of livelihoods and subsistence for the same people in those agricultural communities.  

Betrayed and failed by the weather in their farming endeavors, it is only inevitable for communities to resort to and seek alternatives and among them what nature and its biodiversity has to offer. From fruits up above the ground to roots and bulbs down in the depths of soils, children and women climb and dig to get a meal. 

But what happens then, when these gifts of nature are exhausted, or when they are not sustainably harvested for example the cutting down of a big fruit trees as a resolve to reach to its fruits that cannot be accessed through climbing? It sounds far-fetched to many but here in Africa we have seen it happening. The moment the tree is cut down, is the same moment the future benefits from that tree are cut down with it. 

These are the minor hidden wars being fought in parts of Africa. Insignificant they may seem when we count one tree or a small forest, but when we count the number of those affected by climate change leading to food insecurity, the significance can then be seen. Our duty therefore, to which a lot of our energy would have to be sacrificed, would be to preach the message of nature, that nature is our friend, and that we ought to give back to it as it gives to us. That in the absence of symbiotic beneficiation, one will fall and the other in the relationship will follow.