December
1994
The
Dilemma of Development: Maasai, Wildebeest and Wheat
By Mia MacDonald
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Convergence of the needs of people, animals and the
demand for economic growth and development form a crucial nexus. Hard
choices will have to be made in the 21st century about which interests
will take precedence as resources dwindle, environmental stress grows,
indigenous peoples’ domains shrink, and demands for “modernization”
rise. What follows is one such story, taking place in late 20th century
Kenya.
A quiet struggle is taking place in a region of Southern Kenya called
Maasailand, far away from most journalists, aid workers and international
mediators. It is a conflict over land — an increasingly volatile
commodity in a country where export crops are critical to the economy,
population is increasing at 3.5% a year, and economic growth is stagnant
or declining. Resolution of the conflicts will have an impact on Kenya’s
national goals for economic development, natural resource conservation
and the tourist industry (still Kenya’s largest earner of foreign
currency). Also affected will be the social and economic interests of
the Maasai people, pastoral herders who still, for the most part, measure
their wealth and security in cattle.
In recent years, lands divided into “group ranches” and
held by the Maasai people on the borders of Kenya’s Maasai Mara
National Reserve have become a center of new large- and small-scale
agricultural development. These lands, which cover nearly 5,000 square
miles, are critical to the livelihoods of the Maasai and their still
largely pastoral economy. The area is also a critical dry-season resource
for the million-plus herd of wildebeest that makes its way each year
into Kenya from the Tanzanian Serengeti. This trek is a major tourist
attraction and brings in substantial revenues to both Kenya and Tanzania.
The Maasai Mara National Reserve covers 1,363 square miles and is one
of the top revenue-generating game parks in Kenya. In 1990, 18% of all
tourist visits to Kenya were to the Mara. Revenue from tourism in the
Mara was 444 million Kenyan shillings in 1987 (about U.S. $11 million),
8% of tourist receipts for the country.
As land surrounding the Maasai Mara National Reserve is developed, it
is fenced off — transformed — becoming inaccessible to both
the 80,000 Maasai in the region, their cattle and the wildebeest. Pressure
on the Maasai to sell or convert their land to crops from pasture is
increasing, both from outside and within their communities. Many Maasai
have become large land-owners, concentrating on raising millet, wheat
and barley. Others have sold or lost title to small parcels of land
and end up cattle-less and jobless in Nairobi or the slums that now
surround many Maasai settlements. Each year, the wildebeest find less
and less open land. And each year, the Maasai pastoral life-style and
economy are increasingly less viable.
The struggle underway in Kenya’s Maasailand is not unique. It
is among a growing number of similar dilemmas throughout the world,
in rich and poor countries (the fight between preserving the spotted
owl or clear-cutting old-growth forests in the northwestern U.S.; the
construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam in western India that will flood
thousands of acres and displace hundreds of thousands of people, as
well as supplying irrigation and drinking water to parched villages).
The question uniting them is the same: how can development be achieved
in a sustainable way that delivers net benefits to present and future
generations? Answers, however, are amorphous and for the most part,
elusive, and a host of issues have an impact on how the situations are
resolved, among them: poverty, power, rights to resources, pressures
for economic growth, and the allure of hard cash.
Land changes hands
Kenya’s wildlife parks and reserves were set up after World War
II as a result of the strong pressure of the conservation lobby. Currently,
12% of Kenya’s arable land is protected. Land for these protected
areas was removed from the control of local people, including the Maasai.
7,000 square kilometers of Maasailand were lost with the establishment
of the reserves of Amboseli, Nairobi, Maasai Mara, Kitengela and Olorgesalie.
In the mid-1960s, a livestock development program divided Maasailand
into “group ranches,” owned by groups of registered members
and managed by an elected committee. Some large, individual ranches
were created simultaneously, generally for and by the Maasai elite.
Implicit in this group ranch program was the transformation of the Maasai
from nomadic pastoralists to sedentary farmers or ranchers, who would
produce goods for the cash market.
It is estimated that by 1991, 60% of group ranch lands had been subdivided
into individual landholdings. Some are quite large and contain land
of high potential; others are quite small and of marginal productivity.
Many researchers find that land distribution has been highly unequal,
favoring local Maasai elites.
Before the national parks were set up, Maasai and wildlife moved freely
across open lands. Both are now constrained by park boundaries and the
increasing subdivision of group ranch lands. Each year, annual population
growth in Maasailand combining births and in-migration is between 6
and 7.5%. Migrating herds of wildebeest compete with cattle for grazing
land; some Maasai refer to the annual migration as “the time of
cattle famine.” Still, given the rapid loss of open land, both
pastoralists and wildebeest are in danger. It could well be that their
fates, rather than being in opposition, are in fact linked. If the wildebeest
go, will the Maasai be far behind? Parallels with the fate of Native
Americans and the wild buffalo in the American West can be made. Without
the land, neither could (or was allowed to) endure.
Right now, land development in the groups ranches bordering the Maasai
Mara National Reserve follows no plan. Plots as small as one acre are
sold, often in marginal areas where crop yields are highly uncertain.
One researcher, John G. Galaty of McGill University, cites the dangers
of creating “a patchwork of relatively small, economically non-viable
holdings in a dry land of no potential.” He recommends setting
minimum standards for landholding in order to ensure the viability of
subdivisions.
The tourism factor
The government of Kenya is committed to expanding the international
and domestic tourist industry through investing in park infrastructure,
training personnel, and undertaking an aggressive marketing program.
The Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife has been effective in gaining international
funding for wildlife protection and conservation, at times when other
aid to Kenya has been reduced or cut off entirely by Western donors
frustrated by President Daniel arap Moi’s often autocratic regime.
Tourism revenues fluctuate with perceptions of Kenya’s political
stability, but remain the country’s largest earner of foreign
currency. Almost a million tourists visit each year, with gross returns
of about $500 million.
Since 1989, revenue from tourism in the Maasai Mara National Reserve
has been shared with surrounding Maasai communities. About 25% of the
revenue generated by the Reserve is returned to the Maasai, mostly in
the form of schools, health clinics and water holes for cattle and crops.
However, this percentage is not considered high enough to ensure conservation
of the region, and many Maasai are demanding more. David Western, who
took over as director of Kenya Wildlife Services from the flamboyant,
sometime paleontologist Richard Leakey early this year, has pledged
to increase the amount of money from tourism returned to communities
living on the borders of national parks.
A priority for Kenya Wildlife Services is stemming the sale of group
ranch lands by demonstrating to Maasai the economic benefits of tourism.
But the question remains: can it establish projects and/or distribute
returns comparable to what Maasai can get from selling their land or
cultivating it?
What the future may hold
In view of the pressures for development, the government of Kenya may
have to take strong — and politically unpopular — measures
if it chooses to conserve wildlife and other natural resources. These
might include: incorporating more land into the national reserve system,
or building fences around game parks. Another option is to enlist higher
levels of international aid to pay for parks development and preservation,
as well as to insure that the money reaped by tourism is returned to
local communities, like the Maasai, for their use.
Halting further development in the group ranch area is opposed by local
politicians, the wealthier Maasai and by the government, which seeks
foreign investment, foreign currency, and a more sedentary Maasai population.
For years, the national government has been playing a tough game of
ethnic and tribal politics; the Maasai are not political favorites.
And in a country of 25 million people, the 150,000 to 200,000 Maasai
as a people do not have much political clout. Some observers in Kenya
say that market forces must be allowed to operate freely in the region:
if Maasai want to sell their land and set a price, why intervene? Critics
of intervention cry ‘paternalism’ — why question the
ability (and legitimacy) of a Maasai herder to decide when and for how
much to sell his land?
A case can and has been made that some form of intervention in the region
could result in a more optimal outcome than the current helter-skelter
situation may bring. Strong arguments can be made that an integrated,
participatory development plan is needed, could be implemented in a
fair manner, and will allow Maasai pastoralists, wildebeest, wheat and
economic growth all to survive on the borders of the Maasai Mara National
Reserve. Some elements of such a plan include: first, zone land in the
group ranches into three categories — farm, wildlife and pastoral,
based on the land’s potential and the route of the wildebeest
migration. Second, ensure that land is used according to its zone through
subsidies and presumptive (land use) taxes. Additional elements of an
integrated development strategy are: establishment of a program to educate
Maasai about the potentials and limitations of subdivision and lands
sales; increase substantially the returns Maasai receive from tourism
in the Mara through enhanced revenue sharing schemes and intensified
tourist industry development in the group ranches themselves; and establish
a government registry for land titles, so that land tenure will be more
secure and, it is hoped, equitable.
So goes pastoralism...?
A range of anthropological studies conclude that pastoralism is an efficient
and ecological system of land management. It also allows for multiple
uses of the land; wildebeest and other migrating wildlife, as well as
tourists, can all roam across a large open range without adversely effecting
Maasai cattle. However, as land in Kenya becomes increasing scarce and
demands for agriculture production increase, the question arises: is
the transformation from pastoralism to large- and small-scale agriculture
inevitable? If so, should it be facilitated? As population growth and
in-migration to Maasailand increase land pressure, some Maasai are making
alternate arrangements. Many now seek jobs in Nairobi, or expect that
their children will. When asked about the future of his older children,
one Maasailand sub-chief said: “they will have to go to Nairobi
to work, of course,” because, he explained, his ranch was too
small to be subdivided among all his children.
If action is to be taken to change the current piecemeal development
taking place outside the Maasai Mara National Reserve, it has to happen
quickly. The situation in the group ranch lands is changing fast and,
possibly, irreversibly.
“We’ve got very strong traditions,” William Ole Ntimana,
a Maasai and a former Kenyan minister of local government, told a reporter
in 1989. “But now with the education of children, we are changing.
In 25 or 30 years, I think we will all be changed.”
This article is adapted from a 1993 study, Wildebeests and Wheat:
Crafting a Land Policy in Kenya’s Maasailand, prepared by
Mia MacDonald and Eric Azumi for the Kenyan Ministry of Planning and
National Development.
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