Policies issues for enhancing pastoralists’ resilience to climate variability versus reality in Longido district Tanzania

Christopher Mahonge, Angelo Mwilawa¹, Moses Ngendello¹ and Abel Mtambuki²

Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro Tanzania
cmahonge@gmail.com
¹ Tanzania Livestock Research Institute (TALIRI) - Mabuki, Mwanza Tanzania
² Tanzania Livestock Research Institute (TALIRI) - West Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Abstract

Pastoralists in Longido district experience effects of climate change and variability, which compromise their livelihoods. We reviewed the existing policies for issues aimed at enhancing pastoralists’ resilience and compared these with the field reality. The study was governed by policy analysis and governance approaches.

 

 The results indicated 1) the theoretical existence of pastoralists’ relevant issues in various national policies but the issues were generally not practically realized, 2) the lack of operational policies, that is, non-customization of high level policies to the realities of the field. Coping strategies undertaken by pastoralists included long distance travel searching favorable environments where pasture and water resources could be accessed especially during critical dry seasons. We recommend that there is a need for concerted efforts to ensure that policy issues for enhancing pastoralists’ resilience are put into practice.  

Key words: coping strategies, drought, feed scarcity, livestock keepers, rules

Introduction

Pastoralism is an important contributor to GDP of Tanzania contributing 14 percent (Tenga et al 2008). The sector also employs a good number of Tanzanians including livestock keepers/agro-pastoralists, processors and vendors of livestock products at micro and macro scales. However, the sector is faced with a number of challenges including impacts from climate change and variability operationalised in terms of decline of rainfall and water scarcity translating into drought hence the lack of pasture/livestock feeds.

 

Climate change adversity is a reality and its effects are far reaching. As a result, animal feeds for livestock have deteriorated, and hence production of animal products such as milk and meat is compromised, and herd mortality has increased (Ayanda et al 2013), just to mention a few. Apart from climate change, empirical and scholarly evidences exist, which show that pastoralists have been pressured by other stressors. One of such stressors is land use conflicts. Shao (2008), among the analysts of conflicts entailing pastoralists and peasants, associates the existence of these conflicts with broader complications and ambiguity in the national governance and policy frameworks. This scholar conclusively attribute the lack of democratic and inclusive involvement in decision making platforms as escalators of conflicts between pastoralists and peasants, and, argues that, in order to reach long lasting solutions there is a need of placing the conflicts between these sectors within the broader policy frameworks instead of treating them in the form of pastoralist-peasant divide. Shao therefore conceives pastoralists-peasants conflict phenomenon as a result of ill-devised policies meaning that the policies may catalyze instead of reducing conflicts. Empirical evidences also indicate that the policy-based displacement of pastoralists from the land they had been using for many years as being among the factors causing conflicts (Lane and Pretty 1990).

 

While pastoralists have been coping with harsh ecological situations by, for example, shifting from one place to another, the common practice among African pastoralists, the transforming political and socio-economic settings along with unfavorably fluctuating climate render the coping strategies difficult to operationalize. Encroachments of pastoral land and livestock routes have been reported, for example, in various areas of Africa including Sahelian and Eastern Africa. Such encroachment of pastoral resources and infrastructures has concurrently occurred with the negative perception (even among the state actors) over this livelihood system in favour of crops production, in the name of promoting and ensuring food security. In-fact pastoralism has been labeled backward, irrational and considered environmentally destructive by policy makers (Phillips 2007). However, for some countries the deterioration of livestock sector, such as through escalated death of livestock during critical drought seasons, has triggered reform of policies towards enabling herd mobility especially during critical pasture and water shortage times. 

 

Researchers project the collapse of pastoral systems if policy options will not be designed to ensure availability of pasture and creation of refuge pastoral and water sites during critical seasons, which seem to pervade spatially and temporally. Along this prediction, is the projection that, in the future, pastoralists will think about more diversification of their herds and integration of other livelihood activities though the dry nature of the environment inhabited by pastoralists will force them to move to more humid areas. This will exacerbate conflicts between pastoralists and other people who will have already settled in those areas (Hesse and Cotula 2006). Hesse and Cotula therefore call for policy options at various levels including local, national and global to enhance the resilience of pastoralists in the wake of climate change because the problem is large to be addressed by one level, and global efforts are required because capacities of poor developing countries are limited.

 

Policy biasness has been reported to have taken a precedence wherein pastoralism has been ranked lower or even not considered in the decision making regarding land alienation. Empirical research evidences show that as a result of such negative perception on the pastoral sectors, areas that have traditionally been used for pastoralism have been allocated to other non-pastoral uses including declaration as national parks or game reserves and alienation for commercial crop production activities thereby denying access of pastoralists to watering points and grazing areas. Evidences exists that government, research and non-governmental institutions in the past have paid more, if not sole, attention to crops faming (Phillip 2007). These biased policy practices have been occurring despite the fact that pastoralism has been contributing significantly to the national economies. Because of biased policies, evidences have been reported of the declined livestock numbers and productivity, increased famine among pastoralists, and increased land degradation because of the enforced concentration into small land areas following the alienation of rangelands for non-pastoral use, which has made it impossible practicing rotational grazing styles. As a result, some scholars have urged policy makers to consider integrating pastoralists’ concerns into development policies agenda as a way of enhancing pastoral resilience (Elias and Abdi 2010). 

 

Mobility tendencies have been among the issues that have been opposed by various government authorities in Africa. For example, in Tanzania, such tendencies have been associated with various problems including escalation of diseases, conflicts among pastoralists and other natural resource appropriators, degradation of natural resources, and deterioration of herd performance in terms of decreased weight due to long distance movements among others (URT 2012). The issue of attributing environmental degradation to nomadic pastoralism, nonetheless, has been opposed by some (e.g. Little et al 2001; Moritz 2008) who instead consider mobility tendencies as a way of using the natural resources in a sustainable way. Furthermore, in terms of vulnerability, research evidence exists which indicates that sedentary livestock management systems are more risky in comparison with mobile livestock management systems (Kabede et al 2011).

 

In the wake of enforcing pastoralists’ compliance with sedentary livestock management systems, arguably, in order to avoid social conflicts between pastoralists and other land users, to address environmental degradation, and to improve pastoralists’ livelihood, the government of Tanzania has been mainstreaming various policy strategies in different relevant national policies but less is known how such policy strategies are faring in practice. This paper therefore contributes towards this end.  The following questions are answered in this article:

 

1.      What policy issues/strategies exist in the livestock related policies that can enhance the resilience of pastoralists in the light of climate change and variability?

2.      How do the practices at Longido district compare with the identified policy issues?

 

Description of the study area

 

The study was conducted in Engikaret village situated in Longido district. Longido district located in the Northern Tanzania is bordered by Namanga district which is found on the Tanzania-Kenya border. The area is attractive for tourism and one can see a number of tour guides with tourists frequently visiting the area and by virtue of its location close to Tanzania-Kenya border, it receives tourists by roadway through Kenya and by airway through Kilimanjaro Airport. As such, pressure on land for tourist investments and related projects is high in the area.

 

Longido district (including Engikaret village) is predominantly inhabited by the Maasai pastoralists. These traditionally keep large numbers of livestock especially cows, goats and sheep. Therefore, the economy of the district depends almost solely on livestock. However, the district experiences recurrent erratic climate change which is more critical to the availability of pasture and water for livestock. There is, as such, a high demand for water and pasture especially during dry seasons which results into severe competition not only among the livestock but also between the livestock and wildlife.

 

Longido district is among the district in which the government of Tanzania has established community-based wildlife conservation in the form of Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs). Engikaret village is one of the villages in which pilot WMA activities are carried out. In order to incentivize the locals to participate actively in wildlife conservation and in-turn reduce the cost of wildlife management by the government, local people have been persuaded through presumption that benefits accrued from the management activities will be shared wherein a proportion of revenues will be retained back to the local community.

 

Methodology

 

We used policy analysis and governance approaches. First, we reviewed policies, strategies and Acts for issues relevant for enhancing the resilience of pastoralists to climate change and other constraints. The reviewed policy tools were Rural Development Strategy (RDS) of 2001, Grazing Land and Animal Feed Resources Act number 13 of 2010, National Environmental Policy of 1997, National Livestock Policy of 2006, National Tourism Policy of 1999, National Wildlife Policy of 1998, Land Use Planning Act number 6 of 2007, National Water Policy, and National Land Policy of 1997. The aim was to know how these rules of the game influence and can be used to enhance the resilience of pastoralists in terms of improved access to pastoral resources such as water and pasture in the context of climate change and other stressors.

 

Second, a field research was conducted. During this stage different actors representing various institutions such as environmental committee, water committee, land conflict mediating committee, and land use planning committee, and also representing different gender dimensions (youth, elderly, men and women), and village government leaders, livestock technical person and clan elders were integrated into focus group discussions. This is the governance approach because of representation of various actors and institutions in the village. Also, key informants namely the Executive Directors, District Livestock and Fisheries Development Officer (DLFDO) and the District Land, Natural Resources and Environmental Officer (DNREO) were interviewed on operational and strategic issues affecting the resilience of pastoralists such as land use planning, climate variability, tourism and wildlife management, and pastoral infrastructural development.  

 

Focus group discussions and key informant interviews at community level, among others, aimed at determining how pastoralists’ relevant  issues identified in the national policies were faring at the practice level of the community. 

 

While policy analysis was used to analyze the information contained in the national policies, the data collected through focus group discussions and key informants interviews were analyzed using content and thematic analyzes procedures. This involved categorization of key themes and concepts into meaningful strings of text and logical organization of the textual information. Then tables were used to relate the information contained in the policies with the practice.

Results and discussion

Policies and pastoralists’ relevant issues

 

Policy environments are important as guidelines upon which the goals and practice for ensuring pastoralists’ resilience to climate change and variability and other socio-economic stressors can be compared and directed. Selected policies (Table 1) were reviewed to identify issues/strategies relevant for enhancing pastoralists’ resilience.

 

Based on Table 1, some policy issues overlap from one policy to another; For example, drought is highlighted in the national livestock policy, national water policy, national environmental policy, and the rural development strategy. Therefore, such issues are recognized as common aspects by the different policies. Other issues that are cross-cutting in various policies include water (in National Livestock Policy, National Water Policy, National Land Policy, and Rural Development Strategy), conflicts (in National Livestock Policy, National Water Policy, National Land Policy, National Environmental Policy, and Rural Development Strategy) and fodder/pasture (in National Livestock Policy, National Land Policy, National Environmental Policy, and Rural Development Strategy).  However, some issues, regardless of their being crucial, have been covered in few of the reviewed policies including issuance of certificate of recognition over land (only by National Land Policy), awareness raising (only by National Land Policy), entrepreneurship skills to pastoralists (only by National Land Policy). In the forthcoming sections, relevant issues for enhancing the resilience of pastoralists highlighted in various policies are analyzed.

 

Rural Development Strategy (2001)

 

Rural Development Strategy (RDS) underscores that Tanzania has not been able to utilize a big potential in the development of the livestock sector and that pastoralists have been marginalized in various policies and strategies of the country especially in terms of support services, and have been left to deal with their problems on their own. This strategy commends pastoralists for being able to utilize the harsh and marginal environments because they possess good skills and have sophisticated political organization. However, like many other policies and strategies in Tanzania, this strategy has not ceased throwing blame upon pastoralism. While rationalizing critical reasons for pastoralists’ shift from one place to another (coping with the challenges of climate change, erratic rainfalls and drought), the strategy condemns pastoralism as bringing more harm than good to the livestock and the environment. Also, pastoralism is condemned for spreading diseases from one place to another and for causing conflicts with settled agro-pastoralists and crops farmers. As such, the strategy views, as a solution, improvement of infrastructure such as water and pasture, which are a source of their mobility tendencies, within the permanent areas of pastoralists and ensure improvement, management and maintenance of these infrastructures.

 

National Land Policy (1997)

 

Section 7.3 of Land Policy of 1997 recognizes the importance of rangelands for livestock development in Tanzania. It highlights on social, environmental and land use conflicts surrounding the rangelands in Tanzania and that these conflicts are, among other causes, due to encroachment and haphazard alienation of pastoral land for large scale farming. Policy statements made include ensuring tenure security of rangelands through, for example, gazetting of rangeland to protect it from encroachment; issuance of certificate for recognition of common property rights, pastoral land inclusive; restoring pastoral lands that had been abandoned or underutilized; and ensuring that after a certain lease period the land that was formerly under pastoral use should be restored to the original use. These policy statements though have not mentioned specifically the aspect of drought or any other climate-based stress, are crucial because efforts for enhancing the resilience of pastoralists against climate perturbation cannot take place elsewhere except on land.

 

Also under section 7.3 subsection 7.3.1 the issue of free movement of pastoralists and their livestock from one place to another is viewed as causing land ownership and land use conflicts between pastoralists and settled communities as well as  degradation of land in areas where the livestock track. As a move towards addressing these challenges, statements declared through the National Land Policy of 1997 include prohibiting nomadic tendencies, encouraging supply of water and livestock infrastructures such as cattle dips, encouraging regulated transhumantic movement of livestock, regulating cattle movement through coordinated planning including provision of stock routes, and awareness raising through educating pastoralists on the rationale for sustainable land use and management. Based on these statements, it appears that there are some plans to create and enhance the resilience of pastoralists against climate-based stresses including water scarcity/drought.

 

Rangelands in Tanzania have been taken as lands reserved for other emerging needs on land. For example, when human population increases or when investors need land to practice large scale farming or when wildlife interests are planned for expansion, there has been a tendency of alienating rangelands thus resulting into conflicts between pastoralists and other land resource users. Aware of this problem, Land Policy of 1997 strategizes (section 7.3) to ensure that security of pastoral land/rangeland is guaranteed by using various mechanisms including: gazetting pastoral land, provision of certificate of common property regimes, restoration and optimal utilization of neglected or underutilized land, and putting parcel of pastoral land initially used for other purposes back to pastoral use.

 

Land Policy similarly realizes another issue that has relevancy for the resilience and sustainability of pastoralism, that of growth of towns and urban centres which pose the need for physical structures for the growing population and consequently result in the alienation of pastoral land. The policy emphasizes, as one of its strategy, on ensuring that communal use of land resources is protected even in the expansion of town and urban authorities 

 

National Water Policy (2002)

 

According to National Water Policy (NAWAPO) of 2002 climate related barriers include water scarcity for livestock while inadequacy of grazing land is a policy related attribute. As a result of these issues, livestock have been forced to migrate from one place to another, thus causing water and land based conflicts between pastoralists and other water and land resource users.  Similarly, NAWAPO unravels that large concentration of livestock within inadequate land and around scarce water resources had resulted into degradation of these resources. NAWAPO also highlights on the lack of consideration of water for livestock in rural water supply designs. Among its policy statements, NAWAPO suggests for construction of dams, charcos and water wells for livestock as well as integrating the aspect of water for livestock in rural water supply designs where feasible while concurrently identifying and prioritizing grazing areas with scarcity of water in the water supply services.

 

The National Water Policy also recognizes drought as the problem that faces livestock sector and thus reduces food security. In order to reduce this problem, the policy states, drought-monitoring and mitigating plans need to be prepared in collaboration with other stakeholders including Tanzania Meteorological Agency.

 

National Environmental Policy (1997)

 

While the National Environmental policy (NEP) of 1997 underscores mutual interactions among multiple interests, it proposes to sustain mechanisms for resolving conflicts among these influences on land such as protection of wildlife, forest conservation, and pastoralism and agriculture though such mechanisms have not been mentioned as to their nature and ownership modalities.

 

The NEP regards the development of livestock sector in Tanzania as having a direct link with sustainable use of environment. Policy questions/issues emphasized include use of environmental friendly methods to control tsetse flies. Also, this policy recognizes the importance of improving and conserving grazing areas and preserving feed resources by planting fodder crops and establishing fodder banks. In keeping with the improvement of grazing areas, the NEP suggests for protection and restoration of grazing areas as well as practicing rotational grazing. This implies that large grazing areas are required so that to enable sustainable use of grazing areas.

 

 

Another way of improving animal feeds is by ensuring long term availability of pasture throughout the year. On this aspect, and from theoretical point of perspective, Environmental Policy of 1997 needs to be commended for considering mechanisms for improving and conserving grazing land as well as preservation of feed resources through, for example, planting fodder crops, establishing fodder bank and ensuring stall feeding. Myriad of ways are highlighted in the policy as strategies to assist with availability of pasture including rotational grazing, and restoration and protection of grazing land among the ways to address mobility tendencies through provision of alternative ways for accessing forage.

 

From the tourist perspective, the environmental policy of 1998 serves as the pro-community advocate.  While emphasizing on ensuring tourist projects are not approved unless environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been conducted, it recognizes the role of the local people for the sustainability of tourism resources (tourist attractions). Therefore, it regards the local people as primary stakeholders that must be involved in the sharing of benefits accrued from tourist activities so that to motivate them to participate actively in conservation of these resources. Along the same livelihood-environment inclination, the environmental policy is actually antagonistic with development activities which result in degradation of wildlife resources while, on the other hand, it advocates for the community by contending that its participation should not be limited to conservation of wildlife resources but also in sharing revenues earned from investment on wildlife resources.

 

Grazing Land and Animal Feed Resource Act (2010)

 

Grazing Land and Animal Feed Resource Act (GLAFA) 13 of 2010 is one of the legal tools which directly focus on grazing land. Part III of the Act identifies legal tools that together with GLAFA collaborate in governing the management of grazing land which are Village Land Act of 1999 and Land Use Planning Act of 2007. It states that demarcation of grazing land should be operationalised in keeping with land and land use planning laws. GLAFA also authorizes the village government authority to allocate land for grazing livestock in the area under its jurisdiction as well as putting strategies in place to ensure the security of the grazing land vis-à-vis pressure from other land uses including wildlife protection, mining and agriculture (crops farming).

 

As such, GLAFA recognizes that the treasure of the pastoralists is the grazing land. The security of this treasure cannot be guaranteed without having a legal tool for directing and protecting its demarcation. Among the crucial issues argued in this rule of the game is on how demarcation of grazing land has to be effected, supportive laws, and actors at the village level entrusted with the authority to operationalise the provision of this service, and legal constraints for ensuring that interests of the grazing land (pastoralists communities) are not compromised by others such as those related to wildlife protection, agriculture and mining, among others. 

 

National Tourism Policy (1999)

 

National Tourism Policy  (NTP) (section 3.3.12) contends that the government’s move is towards implementing community-based conservation projects so that local people perceive point of departure and balance between the need to maximize economic benefits from tourism and decrease in productivity that may occur by strict control of the problem wildlife. This seems to be vivid evidence that interests of pastoralists within the WMAs are of secondary importance as the intention of these regimes, impliedly, is to make pastoralists aware of the value of the wildlife. NTP also highlights on incentives as important attributes to motivate participation of local people (including pastoralists) in conservation of wildlife resources also as a way of compensating the loss people experience from wildlife based property destruction (section 3.3.12 of national tourism policy). Among the strategies the tourism policy advocates for is the provision of problem wildlife as part of hunting quota especially for the people that incur great loss due to wildlife. Such the opportunity may be used to benefit local people around or within the wildlife resources in terms of using the revenues from resident hunting to improve livestock infrastructure.

 

NTP has pro-poor strategies. Section 5.9 of the policy attempts to bring local people into tourism industry by arguing that, tourists’ projects which should be prioritized should be those which, among others, create benefits to the local people. To enforce this pro-local people concern, among its strategies, the policy advocates for signing agreements whereby projects have to clearly show how the local people will benefit and how potential conflicts will be addressed. Demanding explicit inclusion of provisions on agreements mechanisms and ways of resolving conflicts in advance is a justifiable indicator of the policy’s knowledge that tourist areas have had experienced conflicts between investors and the local people because the latter have been marginalized in the allocation of benefits. A participatory approach is also advocated in the tourist policy (section 5.9) arguing that many tourist attractions are found within rural areas (within or around the local communities) and that the attractions have livelihood and religious value. At least, theoretically, the policy identifies that local communities have crucial interests within these areas; therefore, even the revenues accrued from tourist investment in the areas have to be shared with local communities. But also the policy puts forward that the participation of local communities in these areas in the tourist investment activities in one way or another is imperative.

 

However, tourists’ opportunities can hardly be accessed by pastoralists if deliberate strategies are inexistent to ensure that such opportunity reach the target people. The National Tourism Policy realizes the existence of policy provisions for resident hunting opportunities, but these opportunities have been benefiting urban residents rather than the rural ones despite the latter being custodians of tourist resources and attractions. As such, the policy advocates for strategies in terms of: creating partnership involving the local communities, allowing resident hunting that directly benefits the local communities through wildlife management areas (WMAs) in place where such activities are implemented, allowing the local people to conduct hunting  in WMAs under the community-based conservation programmes which aim at bringing development to the communities living within or close to wildlife areas, and facilitating establishment of community based conservation programmes to enable long-term ownership of the use of tourist resources in those areas, as well as involving the local communities in the sharing of revenues accrued in such areas.

 

National Livestock Policy (2006)

 

National Livestock Policy of 2006 (NALIPO) is conscious about erratic changes in pasture and water which are sources of disasters to pastoralists. As such, the policy in section 3.5.1 includes strategies that advocate for taking early precautions to face potential disasters. These strategies can be categorized as resource based, climate based, organizational, infrastructural, adaptive and institutional. Among these mechanisms are: installation of early warning systems for the livestock, conservation of forages for use during the critical dry seasons, identification and inventorisation of the existing resources in the rangelands, and organization and strengthening of pastoralists.

 

NALIPO (Section 3.7) also recognizes climate related constraints as including tsetse flies infestation, low productivity of natural pastures, and recurrent drought that trigger pastoralists’ movements from one place to another as well as overstocking as, among others, a mechanism to enable faster recovery after critical drought strikes. However, the Policy also states that pastoralists keep large herds of livestock because of prestigious and socio-cultural reasons. Policy related issues include lack of entrepreneurship skills, expansion of wildlife and crops farming over grazing areas, inadequate watering points, lack of early warning systems, lack of alternative investment opportunities in rural areas, and inadequate market infrastructure.

 

Among the strategies suggested in this policy entail ensuring the use of land based on its carrying capacity, promoting rangeland improvement practices, encouraging pastoralists to adopt proper livestock husbandry practices, increasing watering points for the livestock, providing pastoralists with entrepreneurship skills, as well as monitoring and controlling movement of livestock from one point to another. These proposed solutions are aimed at combating environmental degradation, and reducing social conflicts and spread of diseases from one place to another.

 

National Wildlife Policy (1998)

 

If natural resources are available but do not benefit people around those resources, such resources become meaningless to the people. These benefits could take different forms which of course consequently can be measured in terms of enhancing or reducing income and food security for the people living within and/or around the tourists’ resources. The National Wildlife Policy of 1998 recognizes the local people benefits’ issue and advocates for strategies that allow tourist hunting (section 2.4.2) and resident hunting (section 2.4.3). Residents are allowed to hunt in open areas and game controlled areas (GCAs) which are not under tourist hunting.  However, the policy contends, the local people have been marginalized from this opportunity while they reside in areas where tourists resources (attractions) are found and have been participating in one or another way in their management. This policy can, therefore, be translated as a pro-poor tool which highlights deliberate strategies towards ensuring that local people benefit from resident hunting. The policy (section 3.2.2) advocates for the necessity of existence of schemes which benefit local people directly.

 

Among the ways of reducing conflicts between wildlife and other interests such as livestock management is through establishment of Wildlife Management Areas whereby local people including pastoralists are integrated in such management regimes. According to the national wildlife policy of 1998 this is among the ways of making the wildlife sector compete successfully with other sectors and a way of reducing conflicts because multiple land uses will co-exist and be co-managed by the local people, pastoralists inclusive. The policy further contends that it is through this community-based approach that the awareness of the communities about the value of the wildlife will be enhanced. On the basis of this assertion, it implies that WMAs, as the name indicates, are principally intended to serve the interests of the wildlife rather than those of the people around or within the WMAs as it appears such inhabitants are integrated just by design as the way of winning their involvement in the conservation of the wildlife resources but not really for enhancing their resiliencies.

 

Policy implementation at the Engikaret village

 

The status of the implementation of identified policy issues relevant for enhancing the resilience of pastoralists in the wake of climate variability (Table 1) was investigated at Engikaret village. The issues related to livestock infrastructures, conflicts between wildlife and livestock interests, animal feeds and property security, adequate pasture, and benefits from participating into wildlife management. Table 2 shows a comparison of policy strategies and the reality in Engikaret village in Longido district. Based on Table 2, it indicates that what the high level (national) policies advocate for enhancing the resilience of pastoralists in the light of climate change and other stressors, is not actually materializing in Longido district.  In the forthcoming sections specific practice-based issues are discussed in details.

 

 Livestock infrastructures

 

Among the cries of pastoralists in Engikaret village include the lack of livestock infrastructures. Although there was an on-going process of preparing village land use plan wherein, among the efforts, the village planning authority has allocated land uses not only for the livestock in general but also specific uses for calves and kids, the large concern is the lack of livestock infrastructures such as sources of water and pastures. This contradicts the requirements by national livestock policy 2006, national land policy of 1997, national environmental policy of 1997, and rural development strategy of 2001. This situation is even exacerbated by competition for pastoral resources between the livestock and the wildlife which renders these resources scarcer during dry seasons. Although pastoralists try some small scale strategies such as excavating small dams for providing livestock with water, the wildlife also use the same resources. Therefore, the strategy demanding pastoralists to remain in permanent areas will not become successful when there are no alternative ways for access to pastoral resources especially during critical dry seasons. For example, in years 2008 to 2010 because of severe drought pastoralists moved with their livestock up to Kiteto and Manyara districts.

 

In Engikaret village the issue of improvement of pasture has not yet taken an important position. Pastoralists during focus group discussion manifested their feelings perceiving livestock sector/pastoralism as the neglected one in comparison with other sectors whose programmes have been frequently enforced even at the village level. For example, one youth openly remarked that educational technocrats from the district frequently visit their village monitoring various issues but for livestock sector, it is the villagers who usually go to seek for technocratic advices and support at the district office. Despite the presence of a veterinary officer at the ward level, focus group discussants argued, he does not have adequate working tools and facilities and therefore the livestock problems are not dealt with effectively. As such, on this regard, there is a mismatch between policy statements and the reality at the operational level.