Suchergebnisse

People, livestock and wildlife have lived together on the savannas of East Africa for millennia. Their coexistence has declined as conservation policies increasingly exclude people and livestock from national wildlife parks, and fast-growing human populations and development push wildlife and pastoralists onto ever more marginal lands. The result has been less wildlife, and more pastoral people struggling to diversify their livelihoods as access to pasture and water becomes harder to find. This book examines those livelihood and land use strategies in detail. In an integrated research effort that involved researchers, local communities and policy analysts, surveys were carried out across a wide range of Maasai communities providing contrasting land tenure and national policies and varying degrees of intensification of agriculture, tourism and other activities. The aim was to create a better understanding of current livelihood patterns and the decisions facing Maasai at the start of the 21st Century in the context of ongoing environmental, political, and societal change. With a research design that linked quantitative and qualitative methods and research teams across multiple pastoral sites for the first time, a comparison of livelihood strategies and returns to livestock, crops, wildlife tourism, and other activities across Kenyan and Tanzanian Maasailand was possible. While livestock remains the critical anchor for most Maasai households, many are obtaining income from a variety of alternative sources. Unfortunately, income from wildlife/tourism, an option seen as most desirable by many because of its potential to provide economically and environmentally 'win-win' situations, still benefits relatively few Maasai. Similarly, although governments favor agricultural intensification, significant crop income or enhanced food security from subsistence cropping elude most. This book provides a rich source of new data from across Maasailand and its unparallelled multi-site comparative analyses give valuable lessons of broader applicability. It is a valuable resource for anyone, researchers, development workers and policy makers, who is concerned with improving environmental as well as economic security on the wildlife-rich Maasai pastoral lands in Kenya and Tanzania.

In arid and semi-arid rangelands of sub-Saharan Africa, livestock are a central component of rural livelihoods and national economies, but their production is constrained by drought and disease, and exacerbated by institutional barriers and land use restrictions among other factors. Veterinary interventions may make a major difference to production measures but as with any intervention, they can also entail complex ecological and economic implications. This paper analyses the impacts of a vaccination programme for East Coast fever (ECF). ECF is the major cause of death among calves of Maasai pastoralists and agro-pastoralists and a major constraint on the livelihoods of these people. In our study sites, overall annual mortality in the calf crop due to ECF ranges from 30% to 60% depending on the rainfall (the better the rains, the higher the ECF mortalities). Our study explores the implications of vaccination for pastoralist livestock production, development and poverty and considers the potential impacts on rangeland and wildlife. Livestock mortality, sale, slaughter and exchange were measured using a multi-round survey of 72 households and a register of 1528 cattle in two study areas of different ecology and epidemiology. Livestock performance differed between the two areas, with the highland area showing higher background levels of mortality of unvaccinated animals. The infection-and-treatment method of vaccination has a major and highly significant impact on survival in both areas. Uptake of vaccination is strongly associated with a measure of wealth that includes livestock numbers and economic security, and medium and poor pastoralist households find it hard or impossible to access the full benefits of the vaccine. In one study site, vaccination was more frequent for male animals than females, suggesting an investment in vaccination for improved terms of trade. Vaccination could therefore improve livestock production without driving increasing herd numbers. However, the degree to which increasing survival due to vaccination is offset by increasing volume of trade requires further monitoring as those calves vaccinated at the start of the project reach economic maturity. Our study shows no link between vaccine uptake (or volume of trade) and scale of cultivation, suggesting little cross-investment between these livelihood activities. Vaccination potentially holds positive implications for rangeland and wildlife ecology. However, the logistics and economics of access to the vaccine mean that, under the current system of distribution, it could be driving socio-economic differentiation, rather than alleviating poverty. Alternative systems are suggested. Government and donor promotion of this and comparable interventions need to consider the poverty impacts and take measures to widen access.