give reason to explain why the massal community lost their grazing land?
Answers
1. The lives of the African pastoralists have changed drastically in the Colonial and postcolonial phases. In the 19th Century the European powers were fighting for colonies. The occupied several regions which were divided by multiple International borders between British Kenya and German Tanganyika.
2. In 1885, Maasais land were divided between the British and the Germans. The Maasai community was pushed into a small area in South Kenya and North Tanzania which considerably reduced their grazing lands.
3. From the late 19th century, The British colonial rulers promoted cultivation on pasture lands. The movement of herders were restricted in the settlements. The Maasais therefore lost their grazing areas.
4.The Maasais were forced to live in a dry area where there was a little water and poor pasture. They could not graze their herds in such areas.
5. The British converted many forest into game reserves like the Masai Mara, Serengeti national park and Samburu National Park. This led to fall in pasture lands.
6. The Masai community was not left with many Pasture tracts as a result their livestock declined and their economic condition became worse.
In the late nineteenth century, in what would be knowns as the ‘scramble for Africa’, European imperial powers slicing up the region into different colonies with little to no regard about the local sentiments. In 1885, the land of the Maasai, Maasailand, was cut into half with an international boundary between British Kenya and German Tanzania. As a result, the best grazing lands were reserved for white settlers with Maasai being pushed into a small area in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania.
Large areas of grazing land were also turned into game reserves like the Maasai Mara and Samburu National Park in Kenya and Serengeti Park in Tanzania. Pastoralists were not allowed to enter these reserves; they could neither hunt animals nor graze their herds in these areas.