Staying Maasai?

Studies In Human Ecology And Adaptation

Series Editors: Daniel G. Bates Hunter College – City University of New York, New York,

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Ludomir Lozny Hunter College – City University of New York, New York,

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AFRICAN LANDSCAPES:Interdisciplinary Approaches Edited by Michael Bollig and Olaf Bubenzer

AS PASTORALISTS SETTLE: Social, Health, and Economic Consequences of the Pastoral Sedentarization in Marsabit District, KenyaElliot Fratkin and Eric Abella Roth

RISK MANAGEMENT IN A HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENT: A Comparative Study of Two Pastoral SocietiesMichael Bollig

SEEKING A RICHER HARVEST: The Archaeology of Subsistence Intensification, Innovation and ChangeEdited by Tina L. Thurston and Christopher T. Fisher

STAYING MAASAI?Livelihoods, Conservation and Development in East African RangelandsEdited by Katherine Homewood, Patti Kristjanson and Pippa Chenevix Trench

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Katherine Homewood · Patti KristjansonPippa Chenevix TrenchEditors

Staying Maasai?

Livelihoods, Conservation and Development in East African Rangelands

EditorsKatherine HomewoodDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity College LondonLondon, UK

Pippa Chenevix TrenchDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity College LondonLondon, UK

Patti KristjansonInternational Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)Nairobi, Kenya

ISBN: 978-0-387-87491-3 e-ISBN: 978-0-387-87492-0DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-87492-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008941000

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Foreword

The Future of Maasailand: Its People and Wildlife

The area of Maasailand straddling the Kenya–Tanzania border supports the most abundant wildlife populations on earth. It also encompasses 14 of the world’s most renowned national parks, including Serengeti, Mara, Ngorongoro, Amboseli, Tarangire, Manyara and Tsavo. Over a million visitors flock to the area each year, generating over $1.5 billion in revenues. Often overlooked is the even greater abundance of livestock and the pastoral peoples who depend on them.

Despite thousands of years of pastoralism in eastern Africa, pastoralists are often blamed for the destruction of the savannas. The blame stems in part from a long-held view that pastoralism is inefficient and destructive. Research over the last three decades has dispelled that view and shown that traditional pastoralism is as productive as well-managed commercial ranches.

The dichotomy scientists and conservationists drew between the natural and human realm also hampered research on pastoralism for decades. Researchers plumbed the ecology and behaviour of virtually every wildlife species in the savannas, yet black-boxed pastoralists and livestock as aberrant and unworthy of study. The focus on wildlife and parks masked the dominant role pastoralists play in savanna ecosystems.

Researchers are finally peering into the black box and studying people, as we shall see in Homewood et al.’s important book on Maasai livelihoods. A look at government policy in the pastoral lands shows just how timely this study of livelihoods is.

Policy among East African governments is still rooted in the view that pas-toralism is an inefficient and destructive use of land. Policy does differ between Tanzania and Kenya in terms of state versus individual ownership, but both adhere to the same prescription of curbing migration, settling families and com-mercializing herd management and production. Land ownership and settlement are seen as prerequisites for improving infrastructure, investment, market access and social services.

This prescription works well in arable areas such as the Machakos district in Kenya, where erosion has fallen sharply since the 1940s, despite a fivefold increase in human population and large jump in crop production. Contrast this with the adjacent Kajiado district where livestock numbers have barely risen since the 1960s, land degradation has increased and poverty has climbed.

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The difference reflects differential productivity and malleability of arable and pastoral lands. Whereas the yields of cereal crops in arable lands can be boosted manyfold using modern agroindustrial practices, protein production on pastoral lands already matches the best commercial ranches.

Policy is far better when it comes to wildlife conservation in pastoral lands – at least in Kenya. On the basis of detailed studies in Amboseli, Kenya’s 1977 wildlife policy recognized the limitations of parks and the need to conserve entire ecosystems by making wildlife profitable to landowners. From their small beginnings in Kenya Maasailand, community-based conservation policies have spread across Africa and beyond. The underlying assumption of the approach is that wildlife will generate sufficient income to justify its presence on private and communal lands. But does it?

In “Staying Maasai?”, Homewood et al. look at how Maasai are adapting to change in the Kenya–Tanzania borderlands, and whether wildlife incomes feature significantly in their livelihoods. The results show the diversity of responses to economic transition among the Maasai, ranging from continued pastoralism to crop farming and employment. The range of responses bucks the view of Maasai as unchanging traditionalists and shows them investing livestock wealth into new opportunities. There are, however, huge disparities in wealth and opportunity. Best off are cattle-rich families whose herds help educate their children and broaden their prospects. Worst off are the cattle-poor families who diversify out of necessity and lose herds in the process.

Off-farm income is sure to grow in Maasailand as the options on the land narrow. Just as ranching families in the American West found it impossible to survive on small allotments when the open range was subdivided, so the Maasai will face a similar conundrum. According to surveys we conducted recently at the African Conservation Centre, Maasai families already see education and off-farm jobs as the best option for coping with population growth and future droughts.

Other observations in this book echo problems of settling the open range. Richer and influential families are already securing the best land in Kenya and buying out poorer families. Fewer families will control large holdings in the course of privatizing the pastoral lands. This may well improve the outlook of the health of land and wildlife, as has happened on Laikipia in Kenya. But one hopes that land consolidation does not reach the point of scuttling the small family rancher as cattle barons did in the American West.

This book takes a hard look at the importance of wildlife incomes at a house-hold level around parks. Contrary to assumptions in Kenya that gross tourism income will trickle down to households, few families are benefiting significantly, except perhaps in Maasai Mara. Even in Amboseli where community-based conservation originated, benefits in the form of bursaries and health care are too diffuse to offset household income losses to wildlife. Unfortunately, some studies in this book fail to capture all sources of wildlife revenues to communities and the extent to which income is skimmed off by corruption. Notwithstanding these shortcomings, household incomes in Amboseli clearly fall far short of projected gross flows and far short of what it will take to offset wildlife losses.

Foreword vii

The situation is worse in Tanzania where communities have little control over commercial concessions. Tanzania’s policy takes no account of the costs and benefits of wildlife, and marginalizes the very constituency on which the future of wildlife most depends.

The individual household surveys are by far the most important contribution of this book. Finally, we have some rigorous science showing us what the Maasai are doing and why, rather than repeating the presumptions and misassumptions that have shaped land use and conservation policies and practices.

The elemental message of this book is that we must look at Maasailand and its future prospects from the viewpoint of Maasai families. Population growth, land loss and social transition among the Maasai are overwhelming the capacity of their herds to support their families. Environmental vulnerability has risen sharply. Marginalization and poverty are severely constraining Maasai choices. The larger, longer-term concerns of wildlife and habitat conservation take back-seat for families scrambling to survive. So, what can be done to improve liveli-hoods, health and education?

This book rightly makes a case for a better policy framework. Its message comes at a time when the Kenyan government’s Office of the President has accepted that the many policy initiatives dating back to colonial times have failed because of misplaced assumptions. A new policy is needed, based on an under-standing of pastoralism and semi-arid environments. Such open-mindedness is new and refreshing. But even with such good intentions, new policies take time. And beyond policy formulation lies the challenge of institutional restructuring, culture change and retraining of personnel.

Given the political and economic marginalization of pastoral communities, the ground zero for new policies in the semi-arid environments is an assessment of land ownership and user rights of natural resources. Even Kenya’s solution of granting individual land titles to customary owners militates against pastoral communities in a free market economy where wealthier ethnic groups can secure loans to buy land from the poorer ones. The resulting immigration of richer farming communities into poorer pastoral ones and displacement of pastoralists has created ethnic clashes in Kenya.

This book concludes that the lack of wildlife user rights for pastoral commu-nities in Tanzania will hasten its demise. More rights and greater flexibility will bring bigger returns to Maasai communities and encourage wildlife use, as in Mara. But is a laissez faire policy the answer, given the size of the tourism indus-try in Kenya Maasailand already and its weak reflection in household incomes?

Clearly, there is more to policy than a national strategy and enabling legisla-tion. Above all, there is the political structure that favours agricultural communi-ties over pastoral and elite cabals over the poor and serves to dilute and subvert policy. There is also the drawback of the diffuse governance structure of pastoral societies. These work slowly and surely in traditional disputes, but hamper the Maasai when it comes to establishing landowner associations, producer coopera-tives and the political advocacy needed to counter their marginalized position. Add the self-interest of leaders among many pastoral communities in keeping

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communities weak for their own gains, and the difficulty of translating policy into practice is apparent.

Without greater individual liberty and strong local institutions, national policy, however good, is not enough. The devolution of decisions and the strengthening of grassroot institutions will do more to elicit development than policy ever can, and will be far harder to reverse or subvert.

This is borne out by evidence that the most innovative wildlife conservation programs are emerging in the pastoral areas of Kenya far removed from parks, rather than those adjacent to them. In the absence of a park, wildlife conserva-tion is a matter of choice, not obligation, and it must pay its way. Where they have more latitude to do so, communities are inviting in tourists and tourism businesses, setting up their own wildlife sanctuaries and employing their own scouts to protect them. And, unlike a national park, these new community wild-life sanctuaries do not exclude livestock use. Many, like those of Shompole and Olkiramatian in the Lake Magadi region of Kenya Maasailand, serve as grass banks for livestock during dry seasons and droughts.

To succeed, policy must create the conditions for self-starting, self-developing and self-sustaining communities. “Staying Maasai?” shows that the Maasai are adapting and diversifying as far and as fast as the economic, ecological and political environment will allow. Such research has a major role to play in bringing knowledge of what is happening among the Maasai to the attention of governments, donors, NGOs and conservationists, just as it has in bringing outside knowledge to the attention of the Maasai.

Nairobi David Western3 May 2008

Acknowledgements

This book is largely a product of a collaborative research program, “Assessing Trade-Offs Between Poverty Alleviation and Wildlife Conservation”, co-ordinated by the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi. We are deeply grateful to Robin Reid, who had the vision and courage to push ahead with a project based on important principles that began with hiring Maasai community members as critical research team members, and the energy and commitment to inspire, learn with and lead the team throughout and beyond the life of the project. Our thanks go to the Maasai people who joined in the various surveys as well as district and local government officials from all of the various study sites in Kenya and Tanzania. Many people were involved in field research and we acknowledge the contributions of Leonard Ole Onetu, Moses Ole Neselle, Everlyn Partoip, Joyce Meshuko Ndakaru and Sylvia Sumare who were part of the team undertaking the family portraits together with Dickson ole Kaelo, David Nkedianye, Steven Kiruswa and Kath Cochrane. We are also grateful to the many other field assistants involved in the individual studies. Others who contributed in the intellectual and scientific evolution of this project were Beth Bishop, Julian Derry, Shem Kifugo, Eric Lambin and Joseph Ogutu. We extend our thanks to John McDermott, Director of research, ILRI, and the many other staff at ILRI who were involved in a myriad of different ways and are too numerous to men-tion. We are grateful to the Governments of the United Republic of Tanzania and the Republic of Kenya for granting permission to undertake this research. Finally, we thank DGIC of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and International Co-operation, Belgium who provided the main funding for this project. Additional funding for the family portraits was from the Department for International Development, UK.

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Contents

1 Changing Land Use, Livelihoods and Wildlife Conservation in Maasailand ............................................................. 1 Katherine Homewood, Patti Kristjanson, and Pippa Chenevix Trench

1.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 11.2 The setting ................................................................................... 31.3 A conceptual framework ............................................................. 151.4 Structure and Sequence of this Volume ...................................... 32

2 Methods in the Analysis of Maasai Livelihoods .............................. 43Suzanne Serneels, Mario Herrero, Shauna BurnSilver, Pippa Chenevix Trench, Kath Cochrane, Katherine Homewood, Patti Kristjanson, Fred Nelson, Maren Radeny, D. Michael Thompson, and Mohammed Yahya Said

2.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 432.2 Design and Implementation of Field Surveys ............................ 442.3 Characterizing Livelihood Strategies .......................................... 562.4 Household Choice of Livelihood Strategy ................................. 602.5 Factors Influencing Income and Wealth Levels ......................... 612.6 Discussion ................................................................................... 62

Family Portraits – Mara...................................................................... ...... 69

3 Maasai Mara – Land Privatization and Wildlife Decline: Can Conservation Pay Its Way? ....................................................... 77 D. Michael Thompson, Suzanne Serneels, Dickson Ole Kaelo, and Pippa Chenevix Trench

3.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 773.2 The study ..................................................................................... 823.3 Livelihood Strategies in the Mara in 2004 ................................. 863.4 Trends in Mara Livelihoods, 1998–2004 .................................... 943.5 Conservation Dividends, Rents and Politics:

Wildlife Associations and Conservancies ................................... 101

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3.6 Discussion ................................................................................... 1063.7 Conclusion .................................................................................. 111

4 Assessing Returns to Land and Changing Livelihood Strategies in Kitengela ....................................................................... 115 David Nkedianye, Maren Radeny, Patti Kristjanson, and Mario Herrero

4.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 1154.2 The Study – objectives, approach and methods’ ........................ 1184.3 Livelihood strategies, land ownership and determinants

of wealth in Kitengela ................................................................. 1224.4 Conclusions ................................................................................. 139

Family Portraits – Amboseli ..................................................................... 151

5 Pathways of Continuity and Change: Maasai Livelihoods in Amboseli, Kajiado District, Kenya............................................... 161 S.B. BurnSilver

5.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 1615.2 Amboseli Livelihoods ................................................................. 170

5.3 Predicting Livelihood Strategies and Household Well-Being .................................................................................. 187

5.4 System Trends ............................................................................. 194

Family Portraits – Longido................................................................. ...... 209

6 Still “People of Cattle”? Livelihoods, Diversifi cation and Community Conservation in Longido District ........................ 217 Pippa Chenevix Trench, Steven Kiruswa, Fred Nelson, and Katherine Homewood

6.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 2176.2 Study Sites, Methodology and Analysis ..................................... 2236.3 Longido Maasai Livelihoods ...................................................... 2266.4 Categorizing Livelihoods Strategies in Longido ........................ 2306.5 Determinants of Livelihood Strategies ....................................... 2376.6 Determinants of wealth ............................................................... 2426.7 Costs and Benefits of Wildlife in Longido Livelihoods ............. 2456.8 Discussion ................................................................................... 251

Family Portraits – Tarangire..................................................................... 257

7 Cattle and Crops, Tourism and Tanzanite: Poverty, Land-Use Change and Conservation in Simanjiro District, Tanzania............................................................................................... 263 Hassan Sachedina and Pippa Chenevix Trench

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7.1 Introduction ............................................................................... 263 7.2 Setting and Research Approach ................................................ 265 7.3 Livelihood Strategies on the Simanjiro Plains .......................... 269 7.4 Community-Based Conservation in Simanjiro ......................... 283 7.5 Tanzanite and Land-Use Change

in the Simanjiro Plains .............................................................. 291 7.6 Conclusion................................................................................. 294

8 Community-Based Conservation and MaasaiLivelihoods in Tanzania ..................................................................... 299Fred Nelson, Benjamin Gardner, Jim Igoe, and Andrew Williams

8.1 Introduction ............................................................................... 299 8.2 Rural Communities and Wildlife Conservation

in Tanzania: A Brief History ..................................................... 301 8.3 The case studies ........................................................................ 307 8.4 Wildlife Conservation and Maasai Livelihoods ........................ 327 8.5 Conclusion................................................................................. 329

9 Policy and Practice in Kenya Rangelands: Impacts on Livelihoods and Wildlife .............................................................. 335Katherine Homewood

9.1 Introduction ............................................................................... 335 9.2 The Policy Framework in Kenya .............................................. 336 9.3 Policies and Outcomes: Why the Gap? .................................... 350 9.4 Policy/Practice Distortions: Powerful Players,

‘Participation’ and ‘Partnership’ ............................................... 357 9.5 Summary and Conclusion ......................................................... 359

10 Staying Maasai? Pastoral Livelihoods, Diversifi cation and the Role of Wildlife in Development ......................................... 369Katherine Homewood, Pippa Chenevix Trench, and Patti Kristjanson

10.1 Introduction ............................................................................... 369 10.2 Staying Maasai? Livestock, Cultivation and Non-farm

work in Contemporary Rangeland Livelihoods ........................ 372 10.3 Tourism and Wildlife in Maasailand ......................................... 393 10.4 So What? Lessons for Policy .................................................... 400

Index. ........................................................................................................... 409

Contributors

Shauna B. BurnSilverSchool of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Kath CochraneRainforest Foundation, London, UK

Benjamin GardnerDepartment of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, CA

Mario HerreroInternational Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya

Katherine HomewoodDepartment of Anthropology, University College London, UK

James IgoeDepartment of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

Dickson Ole KaeloInternational Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya

Steven KiruswaAfrican Wildlife Foundation, Arusha, Tanzania

Patti KristjansonInternational Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya

Fred NelsonMaliasili Initiatives, Arusha, Tanzania

David NkedianyeInternational Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya

Maren RadenyInternational Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya

Hassan SachedinaOxford University Centre for the Environment, Oxford, UK

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Mohammed Yahya SaidInternational Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya

Suzanne SerneelsDepartment of Geography, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; Broederlijk Delen, Brussels, Belgium

D. Michael ThompsonWater and Sanitation for the Urban Poor, London, UK

Pippa Chenevix TrenchDepartment of Anthropology, University College London, UK

David WesternAfrican Conservation Centre, Nairobi, Kenya

Andrew WilliamsTanzania Natural Resource Forum, Arusha, Tanzania

xvi Contributors