Soil fertility management has been a great challenge to smallholder farmers in the Northern Tanzania, especially in the Maasai landscape. Therefore understanding the nutrient status become important ...to forecast productivity, promote sustainability, and propose an appropriate technique for crop productivity sustainability. The study examines soil fertility status of the Maasai landscape. Systematic approach known as the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF) were used to identify soil sampling points. A total of 604 soil samples from two soil depth (0 – 30 and 30 – 50 cm) were collected for physiochemical properties analysis using Mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy. The chosen level for determining statistical significance, was set at P = 0.05. Results showed a significant differences (P < 0.01) for particle size distribution, SOC, EC, CEC, TN, pH, N, P, K, Ca, S, Mg, Mn and Zn across the landscape zones. It was observed that soil parameters such as pH (6.62 – 7.44), CEC (27.59 – 32.82 meq/100 g), and EC (90.12 - 121.93 µS/cm) were in the adequate and acceptable range while SOC (0.89 – 1.89 %) was observed to be in low amount. Other nutrients such as N (0.09 – 0.14 %), P (9.46 – 14.87 mg/kg), and K (175.91 - 293.5 mg/kg) were in inadequate amounts except for the S (12.9 – 15.43 mg/kg) which was in optimum, Ca (3117.5 - 4155.31 mg/kg) ranged between low to optimum, and Mg (556.95 - 603.26 mg/kg) was in excessive amounts. However, Mn (114.13 mg/kg – 128.95 mg/kg) was in excess. This study found that, there is a significance difference on soil fertility status across the landscape. Major soil nutrient fertility constraints found were N, P, Ca, and K for some soils. The study recommends that interventions to address the issue of soil fertility in the northeast Maasai landscape should consider the altitude issue due to variations in soil health and nutrient content.
•We examine coping mechanisms used by Tanzanian Maasai in response to the 2009 drought.•Increased fragmentation of rangelands is leading to new coping strategies.•Mobility remains an important coping ...mechanism but is being practiced in new ways.•Adaptive capacity is linked to new entitlement bundles.•Household level adaptive capacity may not lead to adaptive capacity of the social–ecological system.
This study examines the ways in which the adaptive capacity of households to climatic events varies within communities and is mediated by institutional and landscape changes. We present qualitative and quantitative data from two Maasai communities differentially exposed to the devastating drought of 2009 in Northern Tanzania. We show how rangeland fragmentation combined with the decoupling of institutions and landscapes are affecting pastoralists’ ability to cope with drought. Our data highlight that mobility remains a key coping mechanism for pastoralists to avoid cattle loss during a drought. However, mobility is now happening in new ways that require not only large amounts of money but new forms of knowledge and connections outside of customary reciprocity networks. Those least affected by the drought, in terms of cattle lost, were those with large herds who were able to sell some of their cattle and to pay for private access to pastures outside of Maasai areas. Drawing on an entitlements framework, we argue that the new coping mechanisms are not available to all, could be making some households more vulnerable to climate change, and reduce the adaptive capacity of the overall system as reciprocity networks and customary institutions are weakened. As such, we posit that adaptive capacity to climate change is uneven within and across communities, is scale-dependent, and is intimately tied to institutional and landscape changes.
The purpose of this study was to examine the particular reasons why the maasai ecosystem is home to the spectacular assemblages of the remaining African terrestrial wildlife populations. We highlight ...how the adherence to locally devised rules, values, and practices play an important role in the management and conservation of land resources particularly wildlife resources. This article indicates that despite the external pressures to dismantle maasai ecological strategies and practices through imported religions, western-oriented education, constraining policies, and the cumulative loss of land, the community has continued to maintain significant practices for the conservation of tanzania's wildlife ecosystems and livestock. The article extends the overall argument that indigenous practices are central to a continued nurturing of biodiversity conservation.
The Greater Maasai Mara Ecosystem (GMME) in Kenya is an iconic savanna ecosystem of high importance as natural and cultural heritage, notably by including the largest remaining seasonal migration of ...African ungulates and the semi-nomadic pastoralist Maasai culture. Comprehensive mapping of vegetation distribution and dynamics in GMME is important for understanding ecosystem changes across time and space since recent reports suggest dramatic declines in wildlife populations alongside troubling reports of grassland conversion to cropland and habitat fragmentation due to increasing small-holder fencing. Here, we present the first comprehensive vegetation map of GMME at high (10-m) spatial resolution. The map consists of nine key vegetation cover types (VCTs), which were derived in a two-step process integrating data from high-resolution WorldView-3 images (1.2-m) and Sentinel-2 images using a deep-learning workflow. We evaluate the role of anthropogenic, topographic, and climatic factors in affecting the fractional cover of the identified VCTs in 2017 and their MODIS-derived browning/greening rates in the preceding 17 years at 250-m resolution. Results show that most VCTs showed a preceding greening trend in the protected land. In contrast, the semi- and unprotected land showed a general preceding greening trend in the woody-dominated cover types, while they exhibited browning trends in grass-dominated cover types. These results suggest that woody vegetation densification may be happening across much of the GMME, alongside vegetation declines within the non-woody covers in the semi- and unprotected lands. Greening and potential woody densification in GMME is positively correlated with mean annual precipitation and negatively correlated with anthropogenic pressure. Increasing woody densification across the entire GMME in the future would replace high-quality grass cover and pose a risk to the maintenance of the region's rich savanna megafauna, thus pointing to a need for further investigation using alternative data sources. The increasing availability of high-resolution remote sensing and efficient approaches for vegetation mapping will play a crucial role in monitoring conservation effectiveness as well as ecosystem dynamics due to pressures such as climate change.
•A deep-learning based high-resolution mapping workflow was proposed.•Vegetation cover types were mapped in 10-m in Greater Maasai Mara Ecosystem (GMME).•Woody vegetation densification is happening across much of the GMME.•A density decline in grass cover was observed in semi- and unprotected lands in GMME.•The woody vegetation densification is correlated with rainfall and human pressure.
This article examines strategies adopted by Maasai and other pastoralists in Kenya to adapt to climate change, population growth, land loss, decreasing livestock holdings and land degradation, aimed ...at achieving greater socio-economic resilience. Using case studies mostly from Narok
County and reviewing the increasingly rich literature on pastoralism and conservation in East Africa, we show that pastoralists employ three main strategies to adapt their livelihood systems: intensification (changes in land use systems to increase productivity per hectare); extensification
(through territorial expansion into unoccupied areas or territories of neighbouring communities in our cases); and diversification (the combination of pastoralism with other livelihood strategies, mainly farming, conservation, tourism, business and wage jobs, often through migration to small
towns or urban centres). Maasai communities have been quick to adopt these strategies, individually or in combination, in order to overcome ecological and socio-economic stress and to pursue opportunities as they arise. Since these strategies are generally compatible with extensive pastoralism,
this land use will continue to play a key role in sustaining the livelihoods of people living in semi-arid and arid rangelands. However, when intensification and diversification through the adoption of ranching and farming occur, the rangeland becomes fragmented, with severe impacts on wildlife.
In such cases, incentives for sustaining conservation and wildlife tourism will need to increase to compensate land holders for foregoing these more intensive land uses, thus moving towards reconciliation of ecological sustainability and strengthened livelihoods. These findings are illuminated
by Gunderson and Holling's (2002) panarchy model and its nested adaptive cycles, where resilience is achieved by providing for change through loosening and reorganising connections between elements in the system.
Previous research has demonstrated that Maasai and Europeans tend to align in their ratings of the physical strength and aggressiveness of Maasai male faces, calibrated to hand grip strength (HGS). ...However, perceptions of attractiveness of these faces differed among populations. In this study, three morphs of young Maasai men created by means of geometric morphometrics, and depicting the average sample and two extrema (± 4 SD of HGS), were assessed by men and women from Tanzania, Czech Republic, Russia, Pakistan, China, and Mexico (total sample = 1540). The aim of this study was to test cross-cultural differences in the perception of young Maasai men's composites calibrated to HGS, focusing on four traits: physical strength, attractiveness, aggressiveness, and helpfulness. Individuals from all six cultures were able to distinguish between low, medium, and high HGS portraits. Across all study populations, portrait of Maasai men with lower HGS was perceived as less attractive, more aggressive, and less helpful. This suggests that people from diverse populations share similar perceptions of physical strength based on facial shape, as well as attribute similar social qualities like aggressiveness and helpfulness to these facial images. Participants from all samples rated the composite image of weak Maasai men as the least attractive.
•We focus on a bottom-up approach to understanding community well-being.•Livestock, children and land resources were some of the attributes of well-being.•Tourism negatively and positively affects ...identified well-being attributes.•Tourism contribute to the elevation of women’s status.•Dialogue between global and local definitions of well-being is necessary.
The World Tourism Organization (WTO) proposes tourism as a tool through which the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) can be accomplished yet the goals have been criticized for their top-down conceptualization of well-being. Critics further argue that long-term improvements in the livability of indigenous communities require the MDGs to account for indigenous interpretations of well-being and development. This inquiry adopts a bottom-up approach to examine indigenous conceptions of well-being and to understand how tourism influences indigenous experiences of well-being. Informed by the body of work on community well-being, this study focuses on two Maasai communities, Esilalei and Oltukai, in Tanzania. The findings highlight the need for dialogue between the externally defined universal measures (i.e., MDGs) and localized conceptions of well-being.
Locus-specific amplicon sequencing was used to HLA type 336 participants of Maasai ethnicity at the HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1, -DQB1 and -DPB1 loci. Participants were recruited from three study villages ...in North Tanzania, for the purpose of investigating risk factors for trachomatous scarring in children. Other than HLA-A, all loci significantly deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, possibly due to high relatedness between individuals: 238 individuals shared a house with at least one another participant. The most frequent allele for each locus were A*68:02 (14.3 %), B*53:01 (8.4 %), C*06:02 (19.2 %), DRB1*13:02 (17.7 %), DQB1*02:01 (16.9 %) and DPB1*01:01 (15.7 %), while the most common inferred haplotype was A*68:02 ∼ B*18:01 ∼ C*07:04 ∼ DRB1*08:04 ∼ DQB1*04:02 ∼ DPB1*04:01 (1.3 %).
Studies about resource access in pastoral communities in sub-Saharan Africa have tended to focus on rangelands where livestock graze. While rangeland spaces are indeed critical to livestock ...production and pastoral livelihoods, the emphasis on resources in rangelands has obscured the importance of livestock-related resources and the management of such resources in other spaces; namely, the pastoral home. Moreover, given that herders who lead livestock to graze in rangelands are generally male, the focus of studies in rangelands has underemphasized women’s roles in managing livestock-related resources within the home. This article therefore demonstrates how the question of resource access for pastoralists pertains not only to forage in rangelands where livestock graze but also to resources within households and women’s spaces. Contested resources in households include livestock themselves and the milk that they produce as a principal source of food, both of which are primarily managed by women. Relying on mixed methods data (including interviews, surveys, an in-depth focal household study, and participant observation) collected over 14 months from 2014 to 2015 in a pastoral community in southern Kenya, this article uses a gendered approach to re-conceptualize resource access in pastoral households by considering the multiple, gendered spaces and levels at which livestock-related resources are managed. This article provides evidence for how alternative views of livestock management strategies based on intra-household resource access can complement existing scholarship on pastoral livelihoods.
•This formal education is dangerous, ruthless, and totally evil.•A society cannot produce a leader like a President or Prime Minister by tending cattle in the bush.•If you have cattle, it is nice to ...have a modern life too.
Although extensive research has been conducted on education practice among the Maasai pastoralists, there has been no detailed exploration of their responses to and perspectives on formal education. Employing an interpretivist qualitative approach, this study explored various responses to and perspectives on the current practice of formal education among the Maasai in Monduli, Tanzania. The study drew primarily on interviews with two Maasai chiefs and 18 elders, as well as focus groups with 30 parents, 20 students, and 20 out-of-school morans and girls. The results revealed mixed responses to and contested views on formal education among the Maasai, ranging from positive and negative responses to the complementary response (coexistence of two knowledges). The findings suggest the need for a dialogue among various sections of the Maasai population to reach a consensus on an alternative educational option, which can work best for all segments of people in the community.
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