NAIROBI, 9 July (IRIN) - Over three million Kenyans continue to depend on emergency food aid as the north and east of the country enter a fourth year of drought.

Pastoralists are being forced to move out of their traditional grazing lands in search of suitable pasture. An estimated 60 percent of the livestock in the northeastern town of Mandera had migrated to Ethiopia, where there have been better rains this year, UN-OCHA Kenya said in its June update.

Humanitarian agencies doubt the ability of many pastoralists in the north to maintain their traditional lifestyle under such circumstances: "The sustainability of the pastoralist livelihood is looking increasingly bleak as a result of the climatic, social and other developments," the OCHA report said. It called for support to preserve the pastoralist way of life, and for a partnership between the Kenyan government and development agencies to assist those who were no longer able to feed their families.

Paul Rossiter, regional livestock coordinator for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told IRIN that in many areas between 10 and 20 percent of livestock had died, and said these figures could be significantly higher in isolated pockets. "Even sheep, goats and camels were dying in localised areas," he said.

Rossiter estimated that 35 percent of households in one province of Kenya were food insecure and would probably need relief assistance. "The long rains have been a disaster in Eastern Province," he told IRIN. He added that the drought was continuing in Turkana, Marsabit, Isiolo, the lowlands of Samburu, Tana River and several other areas. "Drought and food insecurity are far from over," he warned.

"To all intents and purposes, the drought continues in north-east Kenya," OCHA Kenya said.

Hoped-for rains in the pastoralist areas of Mandera, Wajir, northern Garissa, Turkana and parts of Tana River District had failed to arrive. "Kenya's food security outlook is less optimistic than it was last month, largely as a result of an unseasonable critical absence of rainfall," OCHA quoted the US-funded Famine Early Warning System as saying. According to a press release on 28 June from the Kenyan government's Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMP) many villages in the north-east were now relying on water brought by tanker from up to 100 km away.

Meanwhile, attempts by drought-stricken communities in southern Kenya to clear land for agriculture were destroying the environment and further hindering long-term recovery. Successive droughts in Kajiado District had resulted in environmental degradation as communities had cleared forested areas for agriculture and charcoal production, in turn resulting in soil erosion, poorer precipitation and more severe droughts, humanitarian sources said.

Overpopulation coupled with a less and less reliable climate was putting great pressure on the land, and people were being forced to move into the arid, traditionally pastoralist areas, he said. Rossiter said that communities in those areas would be faced with the same problems in the future unless a way was found to establish sustainable pastoralism, and that alternative livelihoods were found for failed pastoralists. "We need more imaginative drought-contingency planning, with a more flexible approach from donors," he added.

The continuing hardship of people in Kenya's arid areas meant the World Food Programme (WFP) had decided to extend emergency relief efforts into 2002. WFP was appealing for US $70 million to feed three million people in 16 districts through general relief distributions, school feeding programmes, and Food for Work projects, OCHA said.

However, OCHA reported that donor response to the 2001 Horn of Africa regional and country appeals had been only "modest". By 29 June, The UN (WFP) had received pledges for only 43 percent of the US $ 455 million needed to feed 10 million drought-affected people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. Only 21 percent of the non-food side of the appeal had been provided so far, UN sources said.