The Battle for Laikipia

Daphne Matziaraki & Peter Murimi / United States & Kenya / 2024 / International Premiere / 90 min

In the Laikipia region of Kenya, it’s dry. Very dry. It hasn’t rained for 18 months, creating a desperate situation and bad feeling between the indigenous herders who have grazed in the area for centuries and the white landowners who have stayed in Kenya after the independence. They have erected electric fences that block the herders’ traditional grazing routes and hired soldiers to keep the herders’ animals away. A situation that escalates as the drought lengthens and a political election approaches, eventually leading to violence against animals, black herders and white landowners alike. Following the desperate herders of the Samburu tribe and nervous landowners, ‘The Battle for Laikipia’ tells a thrilling and paradoxical story of the complicated legacy of British colonialism and yet another of the many consequences of climate change. The Samburu tribe drink the cow’s milk, eat its meat, give it as a gift and are buried in its skin, while many of the landowners were born and raised in Kenya and need all the grass for their own cattle.