Since 29 july 2024, 100 women and 100 men from five Maasai villages in Northern Loliondo are working on a daily basis on clearing their village grazing lands from invasive species. The work will take several weeks. They undertake the work in areas that were still healthy grazing lands for livestock and wildlife uop to 10 years age. The community members are clear two areas of each 250 acres (100 ha, 1 km2) that are densily invaded with shrubs and non-native plants as Gutenbergia and Bidens pilosa and Gutenbergia cordifolia. After this clearing, they will not graze these sites until they are burned. One site will be burned in october 2024, and one site in july 2025. These will be the first large-scale fires to return to Loliondo. Until recently, fires were frequently used in rangeland management but this practices was lost due to growing livestock numbers, uncertain land tenure and associated declining sense of responsibility for sustainable land manangement. After the communities were confirmed that they were responsible for this land in 2022, they now are developing these large-scale restoration plans of their rangelands. Restoring open, unfenced rangelands will benefit both communities through better grazing options and large migratory wildlife that still frequently visit these areas.
More information: Lucas Sayori, ph +255 753 168 663 or Saimare Kisindo, ph +255 627 194 196
The villages participating in this rangeland restoration are Oloipiri, Orkuyeine, Lopulun, Olorien, Oldonyowas.
“This is such an impactful initiative I ever participated. It is one of the very rare development and conservation interventions practiced in Loliondo and Maasai land in general.
As a local leader and a pastoralist of this area, I see a lot positives out this project; ranging from community empowerment, job creation, all on the process of pastureland restoration not done for more than 20 years. It is a participatory project of its own, managed and operated by local villagers. Bringing fires back to Maasai pasturelands is bringing back life! I think that’s reasonably why our parents were using as I saw in few occasions when I was a boy.
These pastures were completely get lost out of evasive species but now we can see hopes are back.
It is a best way of improving livelihood as we highly depend on livestock.
We just cannot wait to the impact of this project in the coming few years”