Issues of Maasai Land

Issues of Maasai were as follows:

1. The constant loss of their grazing areas.
2. During colonial times, Maasailand was divided in half in 1885 by an international boundary drawn by British Kenya and German Tanganyika.
3. Due to this, the best grazing fields were gradually taken up for white settlement, and the Maasai were forced to relocate to a narrow area in southern Kenya and in northern Tanzania.
4. The Maasai were limited to an arid region with variable rainfall and poor pastures after losing over 60% of their pre-colonial territory.

Beginning in the late 1800s, the British colonial authority in East Africa encouraged indigenous peasant populations to develop farming. As agriculture flourished, pasturelands were converted into cultivated fields. In pre-colonial periods, the Maasai pastoralists controlled both economically and politically their agricultural neighbours. The situation had flipped at the end of colonial control.

Other Issues

African pastoralists were able to migrate over wide territories in quest of pastures in the nineteenth century. When the pastures in one location became depleted, they relocated their cattle to a different location to graze. The colonial authority began imposing different limits on their migration in the late nineteenth century.

Maasai, were obliged to reside within the boundaries of protected reserves. These reserves’ boundaries became the bounds within which they may now move. They couldn’t depart with their livestock unless they got special permission. Permissions were likewise difficult to secure without a great deal of trouble and intimidation. Those who were found to have broken the rules were severely punished. Their issues were:

1. Pastoralists were denied access to markets in white areas and were barred from engaging in any type of trade-in in many areas.
2. Cutting off all linkages was impossible as colonists had to rely on black labor to drill mines, and create roads and villages.
3. Pastoralists’ lifestyles were drastically altered by the new territorial borders and restrictions put on them which affected both their pastoral and commerce enterprises.
4. Earlier, pastoralists not only looked after animal herds but also traded in a variety of things. The constraints imposed by colonial rule made them subject to a number of restrictions.

Pastoralism and pastoral livestock production are very important to the livelihood and economy of Africa’s semi-arid areas. Due to long-term climate change, around 7,000 years ago; it spread throughout Northern Africa as an adaptation to the constantly changing and unpredictable arid climate. Pastoralism in Africa is practiced in 43 percent of the landmass. 

More than 22 million Africans rely on some type of pastoral activity for a living. Among them are Bedouins, Berbers, Maasai, Somali, Boran, and Turkana. Today, the bulk of them live in semi-arid grasslands or dry deserts, where rainfed agriculture is difficult. They raise cattle, camels, goats, sheep, and donkeys, and sell milk, meat, skins, and wool. Some augment their meager and uncertain earnings from pastoralism through commerce and transportation, while others combine mobile lifestyle activity with agriculture.

The lives of African pastoralists changed tremendously over colonial and post-colonial times. From the late 19th century, the British colonial government in east Africa started expanding land under cultivation. As cultivation expanded, pasturelands turned to cultivated fields and this brought a number of problems for the pastoralists and their lives became tough.