ACROSS MAASAI LAND INITIATIVE
Ezekiel Ole Katato
September 28, 2023
Across Maasai Land Initiative {AMLI} is a community-based organization created to mitigate the perennial and un-desired conflict between the Maasai and elephants. To achieve this goal, AMLI is working to create peace between the Maasai and elephants to place communities at the centre of conservation and promote peaceful coexistence. The main purpose for creating the peace is to address the long-standing community grievances that are the main causes of conflicts between the Maasai and elephants, and which has been ignored and/or overlooked for eons. The community grievances include; lack of tangible conservation benefits to the community, lack of enough and separate water points for villagers and elephants, and the tedious process of claiming compensation for deaths and injuries resulting from elephant attacks and destructions. The situation is further compounded by lack of indigenous knowledge to enable the younger generation to co-exist peacefully with elephants.
The Maasai/elephant peace declaration will facilitate creation of community conservancies to enable villagers to legally manage the 70% of elephants outside national parks and create an elephant economy to generate alternative income from elephant conservation. The peace maker in the Maasai/elephant conflict is a ‘cow’ because it is a symbol of peace in the Maasai community. A cow is the main source of livelihood for the Maasai providing milk, meat and money for families; a cow is exchanged to create solid friendship between individuals; a cow creates peace between individuals, family and community members; a cow pays dowry to get a wife and create a family; a cow is used in cleansing ceremonies including murder. A COW IS A
SYMBOL OF PEACE IN MAASAI LAND
Across Maasai Land Initiative is currently mitigating the threats to elephants by providing diesel to pump underground water for elephants and villagers in Indupa village, Kajiado County in Kenya. Prior arrangements have been made for villagers to use the borehole water during the day and elephants at night. However, when elephants hear the generator running during the day, they know that water is ready for them at the borehole and they walk in to drink the water. This is a big challenge that requires flexibility and vigilance on the side of villagers because you cannot tell elephants to keep their time.
Background
One of the poorest tribes in East Africa, the Maasai are a noble and dignified people who despite the pressures of the modern world have proudly maintained their traditional lifestyle and cultural identity. They live a nomadic lifestyle raising cattle, sheep and goats, wearing traditional clothes, and living in small villages called Manyattas, which are circular arrangement of mud huts. In the process of preserving their culture, however, the Maasai have embraced a system where change in weather pattern pressures against elephant conservation are nothing short of overwhelming.
According to statistics, 70 per cent of elephants live outside national parks, a clear indication that many of them live in Maasai villages. The main reasons for this is that designated areas for elephants like national parks are too small to sustain elephants throughout the year, and many migration routes connecting national parks are effectively closed by urban development and mushrooming of small towns.
Amboeli national park is 392 kilometres squired translating to 39,206 hectares and it has the largest elephant population in Kenya. Natural water sources gets depleted quickly in Amboseli national park forcing elephants to move into villages looking for water and food. The Kenya government has not put in place mechanisms to provide water for
elephants outside national parks, forcing them to enter into villages where they can get underground water from boreholes.
When villagers protest the elephant’s presence in villages, Kenya Wildlife Services visits the village to shoot in the air or use helicopters to drive elephants out but this approach has totally failed because elephants return to the village after a few days. Over the last five years, elephants arrived in villages over two hundred kilometres away from the national park, a clear indication that elephants require more habitats with more water and pasture resources because their life is no longer tenable in national parks.
Additionally, Tsavo national park borders Maasai land to the east, serving as a migration corridor for elephants moving between Amboseli and Tsavo national parks. For years, elephants walked through villages to either sides, but are now forced to make villages their new habitats because of availability of underground borehole water and expansive foraging areas.
CAUSES OF CONFLICTS BETWEEN THE MAASAI AND ELEPHANTS
The change in weather patterns, economic and lifestyle factors that combine to cause conflicts between the Maasai and elephants are numerous, and taken together, almost impossible for all but the most informed and empowered villagers to comprehend. Even when the above factors are mitigated, the younger generation have an added impediment of lack of indigenous knowledge to enable them co-exist peacefully with elephants.
Climate Change Factors
Human/Elephant conflicts; A very big conflict is currently going on in Maasai land between villagers and elephants because a devastating drought forced elephants out of Amboseli national park
into Maasai villages looking for water and food. Elephants sometimes turn up in boreholes and water pans unexpectedly, sending villagers scampering for safety; elephants encounter children walking to school or grazing cattle in the bush and they all run back home; negative stories spread in villages that elephants kill people, destroy water pans and boreholes; villagers call each other about the elephants and fear grips the village; parents start to escort their children to school; women fear going out in the bush to collect firewood and movements in the village restricted; No going out of the villages from 6:00pm to 6:00 am. When thirsty and hungry elephants enter the village looking for water and food, they meet stiff resistance from villagers who blow whistles, bells, bang metals, motorbike hooting, use powerful flashlights and light fires around their homes, water pans and boreholes to keep elephants away. However, elephants eventually get used to these tricks and they forcefully walk into water pans and boreholes to drink water.
Frequent encounters between villagers and elephants at these water points are dangerous because they are all competing for the same scarce resource. Complicating matters further, is the few boreholes available which are typically within 15 to 20 kilometres radius, and requires constant supply of diesel to run the generator which is a tall order for villagers. For the many villages without boreholes, they depend on water pans that are frequently destroyed by elephants while having a mud birth after drinking the water.
The conflict between villagers and elephants further escalates when elephants kill villagers because villagers also arm themselves and kill elephants in revenge. Tragically, current trends in the larger Kajiado County suggest escalating conflicts between villagers and elephants resulting in fatalities. In other villages where elephants arrived earlier, villagers have come out to protest the presence of elephants on their land, and in one tragic incident, four young Maasai men were shot dead by police during demonstrations in Masimba area in June 2022.
Devastating Droughts; Like elephants, villagers are also victims of devastating droughts having lost a big number of their livestock to the devastating drought, leaving many families poorer and destitute. For this reason, villagers cannot afford to buy diesel to pump underground water for their few remaining livestock and elephants. Therefore, villagers get angry at the elephants when they turn up at the borehole to drink the little water available for their livestock.
Devastating droughts currently kill more elephants than poaching and with limited sources of water in national parks, many elephants move into people’s territory looking for water and food. According to Kenya government statistics, Kenya lost 205 elephants to devastating droughts in 2022 alone. In July 2022 alone, Kenya lost 179 elephants because of droughts compared to nine poached in the same period. To put it into context, devastating droughts kill 20 times more elephants than poaching. Rivers, soils and grasslands have dried up, resulting in a barren and unyielding environment that elephants depend to get water and food.
Economic Factors
Lack of Compensation; Government statistics indicate that unpaid community claims of human/elephant conflicts are in excess of Ksh 5 billion spanning back 30 years and for the lucky ones who finally receive the compensation, it comes too little, too late. In the current fiscal year 2023/2024, the department responsible for compensating victims of human/wildlife conflicts was allocated Ksh 1.1 billion but no compensation has been done yet. The law provides that deaths caused by wildlife attract Ksh 5 million in compensation while injuries attract Ksh 3 million. While villagers view the current compensation process as highly bureaucratic, there are no clear signs to suggest that the government is working to improve the situation, and without a clear roadmap to solve these conflicts whenever they occur, villagers arm
themselves to kill the elephants in revenge to avoid the tedious and frustrating process that they have to follow to get compensation.
Lifestyle Factors
Pastoralism; The Maasai pastoralist way of life requires that villagers spend long hours in the bush with their livestock every day and largely depend on particular water points like boreholes and water pans for their domestic and livestock water requirements. Additionally, the Maasai walk long distances to rural schools, health and shopping centres and spend time visiting neighbours as required by their cultural norms. Encounters with elephants, and in some instances dangerous encounters, become inevitable under these circumstances.
Mitigating the Conflicts
AMLI has developed long-term measures to address community needs and aspirations in line with their cultural values and practices to mitigate the conflicts between the Maasai and elephants, promote full community involvement, participation and instil a sense of ownership.
Creating peace between the Maasai and elephants
Conflicts are resolved and animosity reduced by creating peace between the Maasai and elephants. AMLI is working with Maasai elders to seek a long-lasting solution to stop the conflict between villagers and elephants. Addressing the community grievances will ensure tangible benefits to the community and inspire them to donate their land to create community conservancies to allow them to formally manage the 70% of elephants outside national parks. A community-driven process that is owned and managed by the community, involves and respects their cultural values is key in creating peace between the Maasai and elephants. AMLI is organizing a peace declaration ceremony to bring the Maasai together to formally declare the peace. Maasai elders to create a peace committee with
representatives from each of the nine Maasai sections in the larger Kajiado Maasai County to coordinate and preside over the peace declaration ceremony. The peace declaration to be conducted according to the Maasai culture to instil a sense of ownership and promote sustainability. In normal cultural peace processes and procedures, a cow is given to one side to create peace. The peacemaker in the Maasai/elephant conflict is a ‘cow’, given by the Maasai to the elephants to create the peace. An elephant portrait to be drawn on the peacemaker {the cow} and received by the chief peace mediator on behalf of the elephants. AMLI to prepare a petition to be signed by people around the word to urge the United nations and Kenya government to recognize the peace declaration ceremony day and set up a fund to create an elephant economy to generate alternative income from elephant conservation.
20,000 rural Maasai children to come together to create a portrait in the shape of an elephant, photographed from an aerial-view in nature’s beautiful landscape. Maasai elders to pronounce the peace formally in this ceremony. The children will plant 20,000 trees at the portrait site to create a bush in the shape of an elephant and Maasai elders to perform their legendary rituals and powerful blessings to make the portrait site sacred and a permanent symbol of peace between the Maasai and elephants. The 20,000 children portrait is aimed at building a long-lasting elephant conservation legacy on the younger and future generations.
AMLI to organize an annual Maasai/elephant peace festival at the sacred portrait site to promote elephant conservation. The theme for the annual festival is ‘MEYEK OLENKAINA ILALA LENYENAK’, a famous Maasai proverb meaning ‘AN ELEPHANT NEVER
TIRES WITH IT’S TUSKS’ This is a rallying call for the Maasai, especially the younger generation never to tire in co-existing peacefully with elephants. To kick-start the festival, a Maasai/elephant forum involving elders, youth and women leaders to
be held to evaluate the benefits from elephant conservation to the community and identify emerging challenges that needs to be addressed. The highlight of the Maasai/elephant peace festival is the ‘Jumping for elephants’ competition’. Maasai warriors and girls to compete for the elephant champion title aimed at promoting elephant conservation among young people. The warrior and girl champions in each category will hold the title for one year until the next festival.
Providing enough water for elephants in designated areas
Frequent and dangerous encounters between villagers and elephants are minimized by providing water for elephants in separate locations away from community water points. This can be achieved by drilling more boreholes to provide underground water and building more water pans to harvest rain water during the rainy season and piping the water to designated areas for elephants away from community water points. Additional activities include; construction of elephant troughs away from the cattle troughs to separate villagers and elephants to minimize frequent encounters that cause conflicts; construction of elephant-proof fences around community boreholes to keep elephants away; providing diesel on a daily basis to pump underground water for villagers and elephants during devastating droughts; purchasing solar pumps to pump water when it is hot; regular maintenance and service to generators and full-time payment for borehole operators to ensure water is available for villagers during the day and elephants at night.
Creating an elephant economy
The Maasai have a very huge land resource which is largely used to support their pastoralists livestock economy. However, with the reality of the changing weather patterns, there is urgent need for the Maasai to diversify their economic base by embracing alternative income generation opportunities to supplement their dwindling livestock
economy. This can be achieved by creating community conservancies in the 1.2 million hectares of land currently available in the larger Kajiado Maasai County.
AMLI to train villagers to start eco-tourism activities like cultural festivals, cultural Manyattas, homestays, bird watching, game and indigenous knowledge walks, hiking, meat camps etc. to generate alternative income to villagers within the community conservancies. Revenue from conservation and cultural fees will support youth and women rangers to provide a 24-hour surveillance and security for the elephants within the community conservancies.
The elephant economy to support the full education of the 20,000 rural Maasai children creating the portrait, building lower primary schools including nurseries in villages to allow young children who cannot access far away primary schools to start school in time, support women and youth groups empowerment, restocking families that lost all their livestock to the devastating drought, primary health care in remote villages and planting trees in public areas like schools, markets, homes and water catchment areas.
Compensation
The compensation program is structured to involve villagers in respective villages to make it more effective and timely. In the event of rare occurrences of fatalities from elephants, the first person to be notified is the nearest conservancy ranger within the village who will quickly notify AMLI central command center and Kenya Wildlife Services {KWS} to carry out a field verification visit preferably on air. Compensation is done within one week after the fatality is reported. For injuries, the conservancy ranger responds immediately to ensure timely evacuation of the injured to the nearest health facility. Reporting, verification and evacuations is done in close collaboration with AMILI rangers on the ground, villagers, chiefs and Kenya Wildlife Services {KWS} experts.