When the Savannah Meets the Alps: Maasai Voices in the Kalkalpen National Park

In April, we, the JaC Lab, together with the Welthaus Linz hosted an event that brought together perspectives from two very different places: the alpine forests of Austria and the savannahs of northern Tanzania.

Two guests from Tanzania, Manase King (Tanzania, RA, Human Life Defense Department) and Mbario Tayai Mokotio (Tanzania, Pastoral Women Council), were invited to speak about the complex challenges the Maasai community is facing in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. This event was part of a partnership between Welthaus Linz and the Maasai community. By creating a space for people to meet at Kalkalpen National Park, the dialogue focused particularly on the challenges faced by indigenous communities, such as the Maasai, due to the expansion of nature reserves and tourism projects.

Tanzania's landscapes and wildlife are impressive, making it a popular destination for many tourists. However, for many Tanzanians, who rely on their land for food, water, grazing and building materials, it is becoming increasingly difficult to utilize these resources.

Who Are the Maasai?

The Maasai are a semi-nomadic pastoralist community mainly living in northern Tanzania and southern Kenya. They are known for their unique cultural traditions and herding livestock as a main source of income. For the Maasai, cattle are not only a source of income but also play a significant social and cultural role. Even though the Maasai have kept many of their traditional ways, they’re facing more and more challenges due to changes in land ownership, conservation rules and national development plans.

Conservation and Land in Tanzania

Tanzania is well known for its many protected areas, like national parks and game reserves, like Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. These areas are essential for biodiversity conservation and tourism, which constitutes over 17% of the country’s GDP. At the same time, the expansion and enforcement of these conservation zones have a big impact on local communities.

The law in Tanzania says that all land is public and is looked after by the president for the benefit of the people. This structure gives the state a lot of power over land use, which often has a negative effect on people’s traditional rights to the land. Although people and communities might be granted a "right of occupancy," this isn’t the same as owning the property outright.

This legal context provided grounds for the multiple displacement of the Maasai. Back in 1959, during the colonial era, Maasai communities were relocated from the Serengeti to the Ngorongoro area. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area was established in the late 1950s to protect wildlife and the interests of the Maasai. The government of Tanzania has allowed the Maasai to live in certain protected areas in the country, but this permission is increasingly contested. At first, they were promised they'd still be able to practice their traditional farming methods, but over time, the law changed significantly, and those rights have been gradually taken away.

Then, in 2009, the Wildlife Conservation Act restricted activities such as farming and livestock grazing in the conservation area. Through these laws, mobility is restricted; for example, livestock can only graze in designated areas. Access to critical dry-season grazing areas and water points is also limited. These are fundamental requirements for nomadic pastoralism. As a result, the productivity of pastoralism has declined drastically. In 2022, the Tanzanian government announced plans to relocate over 70,000 Maasai from the Ngorongoro region due to concerns about environmental damage. But critics say that these moves are also driven by interests in tourism development and commercial land use.

Protected Areas and Indigenous Rights

The event organized by “Welthaus Linz” provided a good opportunity to examine how conservation policies, even when ecologically well-intentioned, can sometimes have negative social impacts. The creation of protected areas often involves the displacement of local communities, particularly Indigenous and pastoralist populations.

You can see this happening in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which was given UNESCO World Heritage status because of its ecological and archaeological importance. The area's natural values have been recognised on the international stage, but the role and rights of the Maasai who live there have not received the same attention. Restrictions on land use and increased regulation have made it harder for the Maasai to make a living.

On the other hand, the Kalkalpen National Park in Austria was established with a distinct framework of protection and land management. Established in 1997 on former forestry land, the park contains a large 'natural zone' (approximately 75%) where non-intervention policies are the norm, as well as a managed zone (around 25%) that allows for sustainable agricultural practices and seasonal alpine pasture grazing.

The park's funding mechanism has been designed to be inclusive: annual budgets are secured through formal agreements between federal and provincial governments, and conservation management agreements are used to make sure that land use can continue under regulated and compensated terms. If local farmers or communities are affected by zoning regulations, they are typically provided with compensation. They're also involved in regional development planning, a key aspect of managing the parks.

Inclusive Conservation: Moving Forward

The experiences shared by the Maasai guests emphasise the importance of adopting a more inclusive approach to conservation. There is a growing realisation that indigenous peoples and local communities are not necessarily incompatible with biodiversity goals. In fact, many studies show that lands managed by Indigenous peoples can have the same or even more biodiversity than strictly protected areas.

International organisations, including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), are keen on community-based conservation models that include local knowledge and respect land rights. However, putting these principles into practice is still challenging, especially when law and politics don’t give community rights enough protection.

Conclusion

The event offered a space for reflection on the complex intersection of conservation, land rights, and cultural heritage. By listening to the perspectives of Maasai representatives, we were encouraged to think about the bigger picture of conservation policy and the importance of ensuring that such efforts do not come at the cost of social justice.

It is important to consider the challenges involved in balancing the efforts being made on a global scale to increase the coverage of protected areas with the realities that people are facing. Events such as this can provide a valuable opportunity for people to engage in conversations and reflect on the challenges that we are facing.

We are more than grateful to be able to attend this event.

References

1. Homewood, K., Kristjanson, P., Chenevix Trench, P. (2009). Staying Maasai?: Livelihoods, Conservation and Development in East African Rangelands.

2. Garnett, S., Burgess, N., Fa, J., Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Molnár, Z., Robinson, C., Watson, J., Zander, K., Austin, B., Brondízio, E., Collier, N., Duncan, T., Ellis, E., Geyle, H., Jackson, M., Jonas, H., Malmer, P., McGowan, B., Sivongxay, A., Leiper, I. (2018). A spatial overview of the global importance of Indigenous lands for conservation. Nature Sustainability. 1.

3. Weldemichel, Teklehaymanot. (2021). Making land grabbable: Stealthy dispossessions by conservation in Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. Environment and Planning E Nature and Space. 5.

4. Weldemichel, Teklehaymanot. (2020). Othering Pastoralists, State Violence, and the Remaking of Boundaries in Tanzania's Militarised Wildlife Conservation Sector. Antipode. 52.

5. https://en.kalkalpen.at/aufgaben-ziele Visited: 10.06.2025.