This is part three in a series of three stories that look at forests, trees and how they are used in East Africa.

At the end of Kenya’s Rift Valley is the world’s largest desert lake. Nestled into the northwestern corner of one of Africa’s largest economies and surrounded by Uganda, South Sudan and Ethiopia, the area around the lake is home to the Turkana, a pastoralist people who gave the alkaline lake its name.

The region is dry, with as little as 150 mm of rain annually, about six times less than the capital Nairobi, and is getting drier. Years of drought are forcing the nomadic people to abandon their traditions and cluster in villages around the lake.

Instead of pastoralism, they are settling in villages around the lake to farm and fish, and look for other economic opportunities, adding to the growing environmental challenges brought on by climate change.

Emmanuel Moru Losia is one of those who have been forced to settle down.

A 59-year-old herder-turned-farmer, he has tended his one-acre farm for four years to feed his family and sell his crops to pay his bills.

Losia lost all of his 45 cows, 100 goats, seven donkeys and four camels, and he was forced to abandon the pastoralist lifestyle he loved.

“I used to rely on livestock but three things happened: drought, sickness among my animals, and rustling,” he said.

But this model is under strain. As nomads lose their herds to drought and are forced to farm to provide for their families, there is increasing conflict with other groups struggling to secure water and other scarce resources in the dry landscape.