More Views on Manyara Ranch and the Maasai Steppe

Previously I wrote about my trip to the Arusha, Tanzania, for a dialogue on landscape-level action in the Maasai Steppe. You can read more about that dialogue at the LPFN blog (written by yours truly) and at this web page, which also features a good slide show.

Landscape-level action is not easy, but the Focal Landscape Dialogue gave Maasai Steppe Heartland stakeholders hope that they can achieve their goals through coordinated effort across sectors. In this way, their vital natural resources and wildlife can be conserved while production and livelihood interests are simultaneously advanced across the region. The dialogue participants can now move forward together and demonstrate the benefits of a landscape approach to sustainable development.

One small part of this landscape is the Manyara Ranch. This is where we visited during the dialogue and where much of my previous post focused. You may recall that pastoralists and wildlife clashed in the area that was neither private nor public property. I previously wrote: "...Tanzania decided to grant the Ranch to the Tanzania Land Conservation Trust with the dual mandate of restoring the area to wildlife use and benefiting local communities. Soon, grasslands regenerated and wild animals returned in droves." But as we dig a bit deeper, the situation surrounding Manyara Ranch becomes far more intriguing and controversial.

The Other Side of Conservation
When the issue of what to do with Manyara Ranch came before the government of Tanzania, AWF and its conservation allies lobbied hard for the establishment of a protected area. The Maasai communities, meanwhile, lobbied for their own reclamation of the land. The conservation forces won, as Tanzania created a Trust to administer the land, but with the added caveat of supporting the surrounding communities. AWF's investments appear to represent successes in both ecosystem regeneration and community development in the surrounding villages.

A few scholars have investigated further into these surrounding communities, however, and what they have found is concerning. Mara Goldman's 2011 article, Strangers in Their Own Land, found Maasai interested in conservation but also desiring ownership over the Ranch. A few quotes:
"I see that Manyara has been taken from us and I do not have faith that it will be ours again."
"I see that it has no purpose. They said it was ours, but now we get fined for entering and grazing on the grass."
"I would like it to be ours completely, like long ago. My advice would be to leave it as it is, a small conservation area, with the cattle of the ranch there, and our cattle there, all mixed together. We would all mix together and not kill any animals."

Ngeta Kabiri takes another view in Wildlife Conservation and Land Acquisitions: A Case Study of the Tanzania Land Conservation Trust. This view is focused on Manyara Ranch as an example of a land grab in Africa, albeit one focused on conservation interests rather than natural resource exploitation or large-scale agricultural production.

Compared with other land grabs, conservationist pose as risk free and as adding value to the acquired land and to the local communities as opposed to what would otherwise happen if, for example, lands such the Manyara Ranch were to fall in alternative hands. Thus the green grabs declare a win-win verdict for people and nature, even though local communities remain apprehensive of the land acquisition projects. Thus, while proponents claim they have finally delivered on the elusive Integrated Conservation and Development Projects, one that counter the pervasive risks associated with other large land deals, community disquiet interrupts this attempt to read TLCT as a case of the best practice in contemporary land grabs.

This second article is long, but it is a great history of the Ranch and a lot of the issues, even if it comes down on the side of "land grab." I think AWF and the Ranch are legitimately working with local communities to mutual benefit, and the further Maasai Steppe landscape-level collaboration is evidence of this. But these other viewpoints raise the challenges every development practitioner must be aware of in any setting, and we should all focus on the priority of empowering communities rather than dispossessing them.