Land-Use Conflicts and an Alternative Wildlife Management Option for the Loliondo Game-controlled Area, Tanzania: Insights from a Community Survey

Abstract

Summary This tourism case study pays attention to natural resource management conflicts surrounding the Loliondo Game-controlled Area which encompasses 4000 km 2 adjacent to Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania. Maasai, the largest nomadic pastoralist ethnic group in Tanzania, accounts for the overwhelming majority of the population residing in the Loliondo Game-controlled Area. The Loliondo Game-controlled Area has suffered from land-use and property-right conflicts among stakeholders despite establishing a series of wildlife management policies concerning the area. Trophy-hunting tourism has been operated in the Loliondo Game-controlled Area by a transnational private corporation with the Tanzanian government’s exclusive permission. Trophy hunting conflicts with other land uses in the Loliondo Game-controlled Area, including non-consumptive tourism, pastoral livelihoods, and crop farming. Although the Village Land Act 1999 recognizes customary rights vested with local villages to wildlife management in the Game-controlled Areas, the Maasai communities in the Loliondo Game-controlled Area have yet to reap benefits from trophy hunting or photography tourism. To identify an alternative wildlife management option preferred by the Maasai communities, a community survey was conducted in 2018. A sample of 330 households was surveyed, with 55 in each of the six selected villages in the Loliondo Game-controlled Area. The survey confirmed that the Maasai communities were not involved in the decision-making process for wildlife management. This study has found that the Maasai communities strongly support establishing a Joint Venture Wildlife Management Area of 1500 km 2 within the Loliondo Game-controlled Area, with the remaining 2500 km 2 being allocated to grazing, farming, and human settlements. Under the Joint Venture Wildlife Management Area scheme, local villages would jointly manage wildlife and be entitled to rights to manage and use wildlife and other natural resources in the region. The overwhelming majority of the participants in the community survey were optimistic that the co-management scheme would help enhance natural resource management efficiency and social equity. Information © The Authors 2023