Dispatches
Burunge Wildlife Management Area: Nine villages, one success story
May 4, 2008
African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) was able to make a sweeping gain for migrating wildlife and local Maasai pastoralists with the establishment of the Tanzanian Land Conservation Trust at the 44,000 acre Manyara Ranch.
The region of Burunge lies just south of Manyara Ranch - another region AWF identified as critical to wildlife migrating between Lake Manyara National Park and Tarangire National Park as well as the region’s overall ecosystem. However, unlike the large, singularly held property at Manyara Ranch, Burunge consists of 9 villages representing about 30,000 residents. AWF faced a new set of challenges getting 9 separate villages to align on conservation-focused management for 60,000 acres of community lands.
Their efforts began with education, engaging key members of the 9 villages and conducting village level seminars regarding the benefits to protecting and promoting their wildlife-rich region as a tourism destination.
AWF worked side by side with the villagers, talking through issues ranging from conservation policies and the benefits of community-based natural resource management to the land use planning and ultimately the demarcation of designated land for what would become the Burunge WMA (Wildlife Management Area).
The people of the Burunge WMA came out on the side of conservation, moving people and buildings away from key migration areas to minimize human wildlife conflict, encouraging and protecting the ready flow of animals through their region. Two short years later, the Burunge WMA now benefits from more than 50% of the income generated from operations of two new safari lodges, the Maramboi Tented Lodge and Lake Burunge Tented Lodge, monies that are distributed to the 9 WMA member villages, supporting numerous community development projects including health services and the construction of 3 schools.
The region now has more than 40 village game scouts who’ve received formal vocational training. Game scouts coordinate anti-poaching and wildlife monitoring patrols, promoting conservation outreach among the nine WMA villages with an overall effect of encouraging positive attitudes toward wildlife conservation amongst local residents and reducing poaching.
In a tidy room on the roadside in Mwada, the speaker and representatives of the nine member villages in the Burunge WMA educated us on their organization’s history and programs, after which they inquired earnestly as to what we in the United States have done to achieve our successes in conservation. Well, we’ve set aside lands for parks. That’s good, right?
And then I considered the myriad species and habitats we have sent to the brink or straight into extinction in our brief 200+ years as a country and the irony of our giving conservation advice to people who have lived in this region for thousands of years without a parking lot, shopping mall or subdivision gracing their landscape. Their lack of our western concept of “progress” has kept their skies filled with birds, elephants and buffalo lumbering through their crops - inconvenient neighbors but not subject to annihilation for the affront.
We told them that we were, in fact, here to learn from them - people who haven’t been raised believing they were supposed to blow more than their share of the earth’s finite natural resources. The WMA members had opted in to save and protect their resources before they were too far gone, giving them a more rewarding return on their efforts.
One of countless lessons from Africa: On occasion, progress defies its own definition.
Tanzania AWF: Kids, cows and cultural exchange give wildlife a hall pass
May 4, 2008
The story of our visit to Tanzania with African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) cannot begin to be told without an unjustly short overview of the Maasai in this region.
Among the most readily-recognized ethnic groups in Africa due to their distinct dress, fierce adherence to their traditional ways and residence adjacent to national parks, the Maasai are a pastoralist society with an aversion to hunting birds and game animals. In a historic context (some might say to their demise), the Maasai were de facto conservationists and their lands have held the richest wildlife populations. Maasai land was appropriated wholesale and turned the region’s most significant wildlife preserves and national parks: Amboseli, Nairobi National Park, Maasai Mara, Samburu, Lake Nakuru, and Tsavo in Kenya; Manyara, Ngorongoro, Tarangire and Serengeti in Tanzania.
Conservative by tradition and skeptical from having their remarkably well-preserved land appropriated by the government, the Maasai remain significant stakeholders in land dealings near the national parks, the wellness of their communities mirror Tanzania’s challenge to balance conservation and needs of local residents.
One of the most significant projects on the Maasai Steppe in Northern Tanzania is the Manyara Ranch and the establishment of the Tanzanian Land Conservation Trust (TCLT).
Think of a figure 8. Put a square in the center and shade it in grey. The upper section of the 8 is Lake Manyara National Park. The lower section is Tarangire National Park. The grey square is Manyara Ranch, which until recently, was privately held land.
As one might suspect, wildlife in Africa is no more gifted than wildlife elsewhere… they don’t understand property lines and Manyara Ranch’s location is an obvious corridor for animal migration between the two parks. Established in the 40s as a cattle ranch, the owner willed the property to the government when he passed in the 60s. Ensuing private lessees ran sub par businesses (and were not exactly stellar land stewards). The Tanzanian government reclaimed the area, at a crossroads as to what to do with the property.
Recognizing it as a critical wildlife corridor directly affecting wildlife in two significant national parks, the AWF spearheaded the formation of Tanzania Land Conservation Trust (the first trust of its kind in eastern Africa) and the acquisition of Manyara Ranch.
Their accomplishments since the establishment of the TLCT:
- Manyara Ranch had long operated a primary school to educate ranch employee children (the majority of whom were Maasai). TLCT recognized several issues with the school including the inevitable human/wildlife conflict in having a school in a key wildlife corridor, not to mention the Ranch school’s profoundly dilapidated and overcrowded conditions in both classrooms and dormitories. The TLCT has built a new facility outside the wildlife corridor. To give an example of the enhancements - each child now has their own bunk, formerly packed together with 4 children to a single bunk. Overcrowding is an understatement of former conditions and the improvement is marked.
The Maasai deal in cows. They are cash, status and subject of constant conversation, but traditional pastoralist society hasn’t been completely in step with leveraging their assets for the modern day market. Ironically, in this cattle filled land, much of the beef provided in high-end restaurants is imported from Kenya and South Africa due to a dearth of high quality, reliable local beef processors and distributors. The AWF aims to change that and has established a series of projects to improve the financial rewards to the Maasai for raising livestock:
- - Creation of a livestock feedlot at Manyara Ranch to improve cattle health and yield, providing education in key sale ages of livestock.
- - Acreage set aside on the ranch for local Maasai to use for grazing during drought.
- - Construction of a local abattoir (sexy French name for the unsexy English word “slaughterhouse“) and teaching Maasai about the increased profitability of processing younger, healthier cows inside Tanzania instead of shipping their herds to neighboring countries with a fraction of the financial reward.
In addition, AWF worked with local Maasai women to create of the Isilalei Cultural Boma, a women-run cultural tourism destination that is an income generating pursuit that educates visitors to Maasai lifestyles and traditions.
And while the aforementioned is very factual, it’s a rather boring description. We visited Isilalei. Our introduction to the women of the boma (village) was striking… greeted by a large group of tall, deeply black, beautiful women of varied ages, heads shaved, children wrapped ‘round their backs, ears and necks heavy with jewelry, bodies swathed in rich reds and radiant indigo. Standing 3 feet away with no shared language between us, I am certain that they stared at me with my pink skin, tee shirt and floppy hat in similar wonder, my visage as strange to them as theirs to me.
They welcomed us with dance, song, tours of their homes and herds, cups of tea. As the boys shot footage, I approached a group of women and children. A woman with a child on her back put a traditional thick Maasai necklace around my neck. I did an attempted rendition of their jumping dance that evoked laughter… one woman stood at my shoulder and sang the tune as I bounced and shrugged my shoulders… the children reeled. Formality falling away, the women came closer and we admired each other’s accoutrements, inspecting ear piercings, footwear and jewelry… something I suppose we women instinctually do wherever we land.
Support, education, exposure and elevation for the Maasai - just a small portion of the great things that AWF is doing in Africa… next stop, Wildlife Management Areas.