Tourism, conservation, and development among the Maasai of Ngorongoro District, Tanzania: Implications for political ecology and sustainable livelihoods

This dissertation provides a descriptive analysis of community conservation initiatives in Loliondo Division and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The research was undertaken as a 13-month long field study from May 2000 until June 2001. The dissertation examines the growing role of tourism in conservation and development projects in Ngorongoro District, a part of the Serengeti ecosystem. This research also analyzes the role of tourism in local livelihoods and the social impacts of safari tourism.; Political Ecology was employed as the theoretical framework to examine actor dynamics and power relations in specific cases involving tourism, conservation, and development in Ngorongoro District. Three case studies were examined in the Loliondo division. First is the newly proposed Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), a new category of protected area in Tanzania focused on critical wildlife habitat outside of national parks, game reserves, and conservation areas. In the chapter on Loliondo, the dissertation also examines the Tanzania Cattle Product (TCP) case and the Otterlo Business Corporation case since they have had a significant impact on tourism, conservation, and development in the region.; In the section on Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), the dissertation examines two community oriented tourism programs—(1) the cultural bomas or models of Maasai homesteads built specifically for tourism purposes, and (2) Maasai walking guides, a community program in which young Maasai men take tourists on trekking safaris.; The study concludes that tourism has the potential to contribute to local livelihoods as part of community conservation programs. However, there are several limitations of tourism work, including negative social impacts, lack of access to tourism work, dependency on tour operators, and overall volatility of the market. Due to these weaknesses, the dissertation argues that development projects should not promote tourism work unless it is supplemented by other livelihood options such as agriculture. This dissertation contributes to political ecology studies within anthropology, the anthropology of tourism, critical development studies, and to ethnographic information on the Maasai of East Africa. It also contributes to the evidence of a global trend toward diversification of pastoral livelihoods.