Conservation Easements in Simanjiro
The Simanjiro plains are one of northern Tanzania’s most important wildlife areas, providing a key wet season calving and grazing habitat for thousands of wildebeest, zebra, and antelopes which spend the dry season in Tarangire National Park. The Maasai pastoralist communities in Simanjiro live alongside these herds as the herds of wildlife graze and cross their land. During the past thirty years, due to decreasing per capita livestock holdings and other social changes, such as immigration of people from other areas, land in Simanjiro is being increasingly farmed resulting in the conversion and loss of both livestock pasture and wildlife habitat to farmland.
In 2004, the UCRT joined with a number of collaborators, including the Wildlife Conservation Society and several private tourism companies, to initiate an innovative approach to supporting integrated wildlife conservation and livestock production in Simanjiro. We helped facilitate a voluntary arrangement with Terrat village, which possesses a portion of the key short grass plains in Simanjiro. The village is paid an annual lease fee by a consortium of tourism companies for maintaining the plains as livestock pasture, where permanent settlement and farming is prohibited. This serves to maintain the habitat for seasonal livestock use and for wildlife. As part of this arrangement, the village also has a number of village game scouts who work to prevent illegal wildlife use and charcoal production, and who collect data on wildlife numbers and movements.
The arrangement, often referred to as northern Tanzania’s first ‘conservation easement’, has proven to be a successful way to integrate external conservation interests and local land use concerns in a way that benefits both pastoralists and wildlife. Efforts are currently underway to expand the project to other communities in the vast Maasai Steppe ecosystem. In 2010, Sukuro Village signed a similar agreement to protect their grazing lands.
The ‘conservation easement’ has thus far proven robust and reliable, as local communities see the economic and social benefits of protecting valuable communal grazing lands from being sold off to individuals for farming. The ‘conservation easement’ has also demonstrated that by supporting community institutions and providing modest financial incentives, local communities are willing to conserve wildlife, particularly when the incentives they receive are aligned with local economic and social interests.
You can read more about the conservation easements in this article "Making Wildlife Pay in Northern Tanzania".
In 2004, the UCRT joined with a number of collaborators, including the Wildlife Conservation Society and several private tourism companies, to initiate an innovative approach to supporting integrated wildlife conservation and livestock production in Simanjiro. We helped facilitate a voluntary arrangement with Terrat village, which possesses a portion of the key short grass plains in Simanjiro. The village is paid an annual lease fee by a consortium of tourism companies for maintaining the plains as livestock pasture, where permanent settlement and farming is prohibited. This serves to maintain the habitat for seasonal livestock use and for wildlife. As part of this arrangement, the village also has a number of village game scouts who work to prevent illegal wildlife use and charcoal production, and who collect data on wildlife numbers and movements.
The arrangement, often referred to as northern Tanzania’s first ‘conservation easement’, has proven to be a successful way to integrate external conservation interests and local land use concerns in a way that benefits both pastoralists and wildlife. Efforts are currently underway to expand the project to other communities in the vast Maasai Steppe ecosystem. In 2010, Sukuro Village signed a similar agreement to protect their grazing lands.
The ‘conservation easement’ has thus far proven robust and reliable, as local communities see the economic and social benefits of protecting valuable communal grazing lands from being sold off to individuals for farming. The ‘conservation easement’ has also demonstrated that by supporting community institutions and providing modest financial incentives, local communities are willing to conserve wildlife, particularly when the incentives they receive are aligned with local economic and social interests.
You can read more about the conservation easements in this article "Making Wildlife Pay in Northern Tanzania".
A Plain Plan - ResourceAfrica UK
Watch this short clip produced by Resource Africa UK with UCRT and the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum. A community visits their 'easement', which is used to graze wild animals and livestock. Income from tourism helps contribute to the village income, but even it is suffering from a lack of rainfall and the community is having to manage the use of the land very carefully.
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