Maasai must give wildlife freedom, insists UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has backed the government’s decision to relocate indigenous Maasai sharing the Ngorongoro Conservation Area ecosystem with wildlife. The government, the UN agency and conservationists see the move as the surest way to save the area from being deregistered as a world heritage site. A 2006 UNESCO-commissioned study conducted by the World Heritage Committee in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and Tanzanian stakeholders showed that NCA was losing the characteristics that would enable it to remain on the list of world heritage sites. Eric Tajiru, Programme Officer (Culture) with the UNESCO National Commission of Tanzania, said in a recent interview with The Guardian that moving the Maasai from the area would boost efforts to preserve the heritage site and thus continue to be internationally acclaimed tourist attraction. He said NCA was included in the list of world heritage sites principally because it had three out of the ten characteristics or attributes required, “and the Maasai were seen as an integral part of the system when they totalled no more than 8,000”. “NCA had a superlative natural phenomenon with exceptional natural beauty, a crater complete with a natural habitat invaluable for purposes of conserving biological diversity. This included endangered wildlife species of outstanding universal value,” explained Tajiru. However, he added that the Maasai have since turned NCA into a multicultural area because they practised pastoralism to such an extent that they have overgrazed the area.

Maasai in their traditional attire.

“The area is slowly but surely losing its natural beauty mainly following overgrazing, particularly on the rims of the crater. There has also been a boom in multi-tourism activities,” he noted. Tajiru further pointed out that when NCA was established fewer than 100 vehicles would visit it on a daily basis on average but the figure has since risen to about 400. He partly attributed the development to the government’s decision to lift a ban that prohibited the Maasai from engaging in agriculture, a practice prompted by the famine that the country experienced in 1992. “The NCA conservation board (of directors) took initiatives to introduce a voluntary relocation exercise for the immigrant population but not a single Maasai was ready to leave,” revealed Tajiru, adding: “The government’s plan was for them to be moved to a village some 70 kilometers from Ngorongoro. It also took initiatives to build a school, a dispensary and a police station for the purpose.” UNESCO declared Ngorongoro Crater a natural world heritage site way back in 1979, which was 20 years after Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) was set up. The idea was to protect an area covering 8,300 square kilometres. UNESCO has openly declared that it is far from happy with the massive development going on within the NCA, mainly agriculture but also including the construction of a string of tourist hotels. It says this leads to road traffic congestion, which it sees as unfriendly to wildlife, and also blames it partly on the country’s mass tourism policy. Statistics show that NCA is home to over 64, 842 people, 136, 550 heads of cattle and 193,056 goats and sheep, making it overpopulated. The area was part of the Serengeti National Park when it was created by the British colonialists in 1951. The Maasai continued to live in the newly created park until 1959, when repeated conflicts with park authorities over land use led the British to move the local residents to the newly declared NCA. NCAA Ordinance No. 14 of 1959 came into effect on July 1, 1959 when the NCA began as a pioneering experiment in multiple land use.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN