Study Site #5 – Enduimet, Tanzania

Background

Enduimet is currently  creating a  Wildlife  Management  Area  (WMA)  under the sponsorship of  the  Tanzanian government,  which aspires  to bring  together diverse  ‘villages’  (the Tanzania equivalent to a large, rural municipality, roughly equivalent in size to a Kenyan Group Ranch). The Kisongo Maasai of this region (and most of the Tanzanian sites) are closely related to the Loitokitok Maasai of the Amboseli region, with whom they share close social ties (I-CAN’s co-PI Professor John Galaty once attended an age-grade ceremony attended by both sections). The WMA model combines government authority over the wildlife management and tourist industries, but this is largely administered through offices with locally hired rangers and officials. With land  held by  the state  but with villages  holding use-rights  and local jurisdiction,  the question  is how  this multi-layered form  of environmental  governance will  work.

I-CAN activities

A McGill PhD candidate, Victor Corey Wright, who is being supervised by J. Galaty, is currently writing his dissertation based research carried out at Enduimet,  in close  collaboration with our partner  organizations, including the  Tanzania  Natural  Resource  Forum  (TNRF) and the  Ujamaa  Community  Resource  Trust (UCRT). The NGO which he co-founded, Sauti Moja, has worked on community development in  the region for many years.