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December 1994
The Dilemma of Development: Maasai, Wildebeest and Wheat

By Mia MacDonald

 

 

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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