live off the profit: a business essentially. “You sell the cow, you buy a calf and there is money left over to save.”
“We aim to do this,” NTR Trading’s Commercial Director Ture Boru told Capital FM News, “as we head into the dry season.”
“And say we buy a cow for Sh50,000 depending on the weight, we contribute Sh2,000 to a fund while the seller contributes Sh1,000; 60 per cent of the money raised in that manner goes into development projects while 40 per cent goes into the running of the conservancies, the recurrent expenditure,” Lalampaa explained.
A model NRT Trading is working to replicate in Lamu through a ‘fish to market’ programme and in Tana River through a ‘mangoes to market’ programme.
But the question was, at least for me, what does NRT Trading do with the cattle it purchases?
According to Boru, they ‘value add’ — so to speak — to the cows by fattening them up, “on well-managed grasslands,” before selling them off for slaughter.
“Tom was central to the development of this programme that uses international private investment funding raised by The Nature Conservancy to provide the capital to buy thousands of community cattle each year, giving herders a guaranteed market and fair price.
“In return, pastoralists and communities living in conservancy lands agree to carefully manage where they graze their livestock and not to overgraze,” the programme brief reads.
A job, those who’ve worked with Lalampaa say, he couldn’t be more uniquely qualified for. “Tom has a unique perspective because he’s not just an academic or an activist, he’s also lived that life on the line where animals and people interact,” said Charles Oluchina, Director of Field Programmes in Africa for The Nature Conservancy. “He brings that experience as well as having an easy personality, sharp critical thinking, patience, humility, and even a sort of soft approach. It is that soft power that he brings to the table that really has been tremendously empowering and transformative across the landscape of our work.”
In terms of professional qualifications, Lalampaa holds a Social Work degree from the University of Nairobi and an MA in Strategic Management.
“I remember the day I made my way from Isiolo, on an Akamba bus, to the University of Nairobi, it took me seven hours to make my way from the bus station to the campus because I was too afraid to ask for directions.”
The fear of being taken advantage of, is a universal fear but the Samburu, Lalampaa explains, are particularly afraid of loans; afraid of having what they hold dear carted off.
“I know of one woman who moved her animals away after discovering that her son, who had a job, took a loan to buy a car.”
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