Maasai and Their Cattle
Tall and strong, the men carrying spears and the women draped in brilliant red cloth, the women bedecked in beaded jewelry, the Maasai people symbolize for many the fierce beauty and independence of Africa. They are, by tradition, semi-nomadic warriors and pastoralists whose meanderings through East Africa, and whose strictly animal diet, have depended on their herds.

Their foundation myth proclaims that all cattle originally belonged to the Maasai. This, they believed, entitled them to "reclaim" cattle from other tribes. Cattle raiding gave the Maasai a warlike reputation throughout Kenya and Tanzania, where they maintained a dominant position for nearly 200 years. According to Swedish anthropologist Kaj Arhem, "Their dietary ideal excludes, and their entire culture strongly devaluates, all plant food and game meat."

Yet now, because of pressures from weather, conservation managers, and influences from the outside world, the pastoral Maasai are slowly becoming agriculturalists. By tradition, they have lived on cow's milk and the meat of goats and sheep. When food is scarce, they also drink the blood of cattle by opening a neck vein in a way that causes no lasting harm to the animal. This practice appalls most Westerners. But because cattle signify wealth, they are seldom eaten. The Maasai reserve beef for rare ceremonies like the initiation rites of young warriors.

Maasai herds have shrunken in recent years as a result of drought and disease. Many households have fewer than 10 head of cattle, which is considered to be the level of subsistence. To survive, the Maasai must supplement their traditional animal diet with grain. The shift from pastoral to agricultural life is profound. The Maasai can grow grain, which ties them down, or they can buy it, which monetizes their barter economy. Arhem notes that when food is scarce, especially during the dry season, pastoralists tend to sell their cattle to buy grain.

Maasai Access to the NCA (Ngorongoro Conservation Area)
In 1959, an ordinance was passed in Tanzania (called Tanganyika at the time) that split the great Serengeti National Park into two. The southern part became the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a 3,200-square-mile cornucopia of wildlife and varied terrain. Although small in area, the NCA nurtures an abundance of species from the fertile bottom of the Ngorongoro Crater to the Highlands where, at an altitude of about 7,000 - 10,000 feet, rainfall is usually plentiful and both forests and grasslands thrive. The NCA includes Olduvai Gorge, where the Leakeys discovered the earliest known remains of hominids

Within the NCA live 40,000 indigenous people. Most are Maasai. In addition, 150,000 cattle, sheep and goats graze the NCA, according to a 1996 census. During the dry season from approximately June to November, the Maasai live in permanent settlements in the Ngorongoro Highlands. When the seasonal rains begin, they descend with their cattle to short-grass plains and move from one temporary camp to another.

Planning and Agriculture
A 1975 law charges the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA), an appointed body, to conserve wildlife and "to safeguard and promote the interests of Maasai citizens engaged in cattle ranching and dairy industry within the conservation area." The NCAA is unusual because it has a dual responsibility to conserve wildlife and promote "the human development of resident pastoralists." The Authority does, in fact, allow the Maasai to keep cattle on the Highlands. But the lush Ngorongoro Crater bottom, where the Maasai lived for two centuries, is off bounds to them for cultivation and, intermittently, for both habitation and grazing. Recently, they are allowed to graze their livestock within the Crater only with permission from the NCAA.

Therein lies the dilemma. The Crater is reserved for a rich concentration of wildlife including thousands of wildebeest, zebra and gazelle, predators such as lions and cheetahs, and flamingos, elephants, and some of the last black rhinos in East Africa. But the Maasai have also been part of the ecology for many years. As presented by Arhem, tension arises between the NCAA, which frequently finds the Maasai to be obstacles to wildlife conservation, and the needs of the Maasai, whose newly emerging need for agriculture was not part of the original plan.

The Authority and its enabling legislation conceived of the Maasai solely as pastoralists and did not allow for the possibility that they would need to consume 40% of their food in the form of grain.

When Maasai elders signed a written agreement to vacate the Serengeti in the late 1950s, they were promised "rights of habitation, cultivation and socio-economic development" in the NCA. They did not get them, nor did they receive promised water projects for herds in the Highlands and drugs to keep cattle healthy. In some years, the NCAA has returned major parts of its community development funding unspent. The Authority has also been criticized for adopting policies without giving the Maasai a meaningful role in shaping them.

To learn and record what the Maasai had to say about sweeping changes to their rights of access, an international group know as the Forest, Trees and People Programme, formed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, videotaped their comments during public meetings held in November, 1995. Charles Lane published the results in a highly controversial paper titled "Ngorongoro Voices." A sample of their testimony:

The NCAA argues that the Maasai and their herds overtax the carrying capacity of available land. Outside observers like Lane and Arhem urge the NCAA to recognize the Massai's expertise as resource managers and to support their pastoral traditions while accommodating their need for supplementary food as non-invasively as possible. A future newsletter will present the NCAA's response to the Maasai's concerns and a closer look at the results of the Authority's wildlife conservation efforts within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.