Tourism brings a crisis but alsoan opportunity to Maasailand.
Maasai ancestral homelands are being snatched by an unsustainable and socially irresponsible travel industry that puts profits over people, and currently 1.5 million Maasai in East Africa are losing our land rights, cultural traditions, and ability to sustainably coexist with wildlife. But where tourism brings a crisis, it also brings an opportunity.
The Opportunity
Our goal is to return land to the Maasai people and encourage their traditional ways of sustainable co-existence with wildlife by leveraging tourism dollars and generating equitable ecotourism opportunities to purchase back Maasailand that has been irresponsibly taken and to protect Maasailand from being grabbed for tourism or other enterprises in the future. Working with Maasai communities, our goal is to hand over the tourism industry systematically to Maasai so that they are the primary beneficiaries of tourism happening in their ancestral homelands. A Maasai-dominated industry also supports community conservation and nature-based livelihoods, a much more effective way to protect wildlife than the standard conservation model that disregards Indigenous conservation knowledge and practices.
Protectors of Wildlife
Maasai have traditionally co-existed with wildlife peacefully for hundreds of years. The Maasai pastoralist way of life is very low impact on the environment. Maasai are sustained by cattle and goats which they graze in different green areas throughout the year. When Maasai have access to the full range of their ancestral homelands, overgrazing is not an issue. As well, Maasai do not engage in mass agriculture, which leaves habitats in their natural state. These days, some community conservation efforts take the warrior tradition of the Maasai and mobilize it to prevent poaching in the bush. In general, if the Maasai are not threatened by poverty, they are in a better position to live in their traditional, low impact way of life which allows natural habitats and wildlife to thrive.
How We Do It
Our projects take incremental steps to achieve our goal of restoring land, uplifting Maasai communities, and protecting wildlife for generations to come. Our first project, a safari guide and hospitality training camp, focuses on addressing the barriers that keep Maasai from gaining high-paying employment in tourism: education/vocational training and access to vehicles to lead tours (specifically in the case of safari tour guides). Our subsequent projects mobilize Maasai villages to protect their land and earn generational wealth through eco-friendly, zero carbon footprint lodges built, owned, and managed by the Maasai. These lodges also include the building of Maasai cultural centers that are dedicated to curating the Maa language and local knowledge of the Maasai in order to preserve it for future generations of Maasai and share it with the rest of the world. One of our final projects in our current area of focus (Northern Tanzania), to be implemented around 2025 is the organization of of ICCAs (Indigenous and Community Conservation Areas) and/or responsible versions of WMAs (Wildlife Management Areas) that preserve wildlife, protect Maasailand for Maasai sustainable coexistence, and empower Maasai to sustain these arrangements through tourism-generated wealth.
