Engaresero Maasai Pastoralist Heritage Area, Tanzania
GIAHS since 2011
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©FAO/ Christabel Clark
In Northern Tanzania, Maasai have developed an agro pastoral system for centuries. Despite the scarce water and grazing land availability, Maasai have succeeded in adapting their systems to this area satisfying their needs and evolving with the cities nearby. Strongly linked to wildlife this agro pastoral system is not competing with it but functioning in synergy.
Their system integrates at the same time endemic animals such as buffalos, goats and sheep species and food crops such as maize and beans. Besides, Engaresero Maasai community is highly organized splitting the tasks concerning graze land research, water management, livestock movements etc. Strongly attached to its environment, cosmology, religion and culture rely on the conservation and sustainability of agro pastoralism.
With this fragile environment and managing of lands, Maasai have shaped and maintained the landscapes for ages. Sustainable and respectful to the wildlife, Maasai agro pastoral systems must be preserved not to lose their incredible knowledge of nature but also to maintain the magnificence of the landscape.
Global importance
Maasai agro pastoral system is a synergic system adapted to arid dry lands of Kenya and Northern Tanzania. This resilient system relies heavily on their traditional knowledge and practices to be able to carve out a live hood in a rugged environment. Liked to its environment, Maasai culture cannot survive disconnected from agro pastoralism and its lands.
Today, the combination of the loss of access to critical grazing resources, the increased population pressure from both within Maasai society as well as through the influx of other land-users, the sub-division of common property systems and a range of cultural factors, unfortunately has created a set of incentives that discourages Maasai from their traditional sustainable practices and leads to the adoption of unsustainable uses of natural resources.
Food and livelihood security
Maasai agro pastoralism techniques have allowed them to satisfy their needs for ages. Their system has provided them meat, milk, maize meal, beans, wool but also forage, water and manure for the lands. At the same time, being sustainable for its used lands, Masaai people can also harvest what they need in the forest they live in: edible fruits, seeds, honey, medicines, veterinary products, etc.
Maasai people are trying to adapt their systems to current conditions of population, resource availability and socio political factors. However, Engaresero community is facing real and relative poverty and lack of food poverty because of the threats occurring on agro pastoral systems.
Biodiversity and ecosystem functions
Maasai Engaresero community breeds predominantly indigenous species such as Zebu cattle, Red Maasai Sheep, donkeys and goats. Not only focusing on the biodiversity of animals, Maasai also grow plants such as endemic maize and beans local varieties.
Moreover, many grassland habitats of the Maasai area both wildlife abundance and diversity is increased by the presence of the Maasai at appropriate stocking level of livestock. Engaresero functions as an important dispersal area for its many large herbivores and predators. Its current pastoral land use system is highly compatible with the conservation of the Lake Natron Ecosystem and wildlife conservation.
Knowledge systems and adapted technologies
FAO recognized in 2009 as evidence that Maasai’s agro pastoralists have developed unique mechanisms and traditional institutions to cope with water shortage, recurrent drought, etc. It is a deep reservoir of local and indigenous knowledge on livestock rearing and health.
The Maasai use three informal rules to manage their open access land. They avoid used areas, keep appropriate distance from other groups and avoid areas recently vacated by others. Moreover, they select disease-resistant young, ensure water and forage availability prior to livestock movement and decide to move livestock in relation to mineral (salt licks), forage and shade needs.
Cultures, value systems and social organizations
Intricate social interactions between and within Maasai groups ensure this livelihood and livestock security. Inside the communities, roles are divided depending on the social position to accomplish the activities.
Many pastoralist cultures embody strong conservation values, reflected in and reproduced the communities’ cosmologies and religious practices, customary and law institutions as well as stories, songs, riddles. The Oldonyo L’Engai volcano is a great spiritual significance to the Maasai for cosmology and religion.
Remarkable landscapes, land and water resources management
This Tanzanian landscape is remarkable in the sense that it has co-evolved with pastoralist’ Maasai cultural practices. Indeed, the strong conservation values of Maasai culture provided for deep synergies with wildlife. They have co-created and maintained the very landscape in which wildlife can thrive. This area is highly representative of traditional Maasai pastoralism in Tanzania and its conservation is relevant for the sustainable development of rangelands in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania.
Responsible Ministry
Ministry of Agriculture Food Security and Cooperatives
Action plan

Action plan for the dynamic conservation in Tanzania
10/01/2011
In Tanzania, the Maasai Pastoral System has been recognized as a prime example of resilience, meriting support in alignment with the objectives of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS).
Multimedia

Photos
Flickr Album: Maasai, Tanzania
01/01/2011
In Northern Tanzania, Maasai have developed an agro pastoral system for centuries. Despite the scarce water and grazing land availability, Maasai have...
Agricultural heritage and the Modern Maasai
In this episode we are visiting the community of Engarasero, near the border or Kenya and Tanzania.
Stories
Publications

GIAHS in East Africa – Project Summary
10/01/2012
The project is implemented through National Focal Point Institutions in the Governments of Kenya and Tanzania and the communities in the selected project sites, in close collaboration with other government partners, civil society organizations and international organizations.

Tanzania's policies and laws in support of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems
10/01/2011
The goal of the initiative is: to identify and safeguard GIAHS and their associated landscapes, agricultural biodiversity and knowledge systems through catalyzing and establishing a long-term programme to support such systems and enhance global, national and local benefits derived through their dynamic conservation, sustainable management and enhanced viability.

Supporting food security and reducing poverty in Kenya and Tanzania through dynamic conservation
10/01/2008
This project is the Sub-Sahara Africa component of the FAO global initiative on conservation and adaptive management of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems.
Event

Webinar
Hand in Hand with nature: Understanding Nature-Based Solutions in agriculture through GIAHS
The GIAHS-Secretariat is pleased to present its participation in the first webinar of a series on Nature-Based Solutions in Agriculture organized by the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (REU) the past 1st December 2020.

Related links
UNESCO Biosphere Reserve
This biosphere reserve covers a surface area of 4,397,314 ha and was originally designated in 1981. It includes the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in the north of Tanzania. It supports about 1.5 million wildebeest, 900,000 Thompson gazelle and 300,000 zebra.
Other designation: