Bringing back grasses with Maasai pastoralists
The Olgulului – Ololarashi group ranch is close to the border of Tanzania and home to Maasai pastoralists. For the Maasai people, livestock is very valuable and at the center of everything. But nowadays, it’s not easy to keep livestock. Due to severe droughts, overpopulation, and therefore overgrazing, and less communal land for the Maasai, the rangelands are heavily degraded. Trees, shrubs, and grass species have disappeared resulting in heavy erosion. The loss of pasture due to all the above has resulted in a decline in livestock productivity and an increase in competition between people and wildlife, especially elephants…
But….. Together with partners African Conservation Centre (ACC) and Amboseli Ecosystem Trust (AET) we started a 1.5-year program (July 2019 – December 2020) to restore and regreen the degraded areas and to improve the livelihoods of the communities. We selected a combination of interventions among which the digging of bunds, setting up and managing olopololi’s (dry season grazing areas) and grass seed banks and educating the Maasai communities about livestock and grazing management.