ABSTRACT
The development of pastoral regions in Kenya has followed different courses for different areas, reflecting specific ecological and historical conditions. Few African societies have been as romanticized and popularized by Europeans and Americans, while simultaneously neglected and underdeveloped, as the Maasai. The Maasai are a population of over 350,000 residing in Kenya and Tanzania; their language is shared by another 300,000 people including the Samburu, Chamus, and Ariaal in Kenya and the Arusha and Paraguyu in Tanzania. In contrast to the Maasai who were strongly affected by commercial development, the Turkana remain the most isolated and mobile of all Kenya's pastoralists. However, they also have been the targets of one of the largest famine-relief efforts in Africa, and in the 1980s almost one third of the Turkana population were settled around famine-relief camps. The Rendille formerly grazed large herds of camels and small stock in the Kaisut and Chalbi Deserts of Marsabit District.
