LONGIDO

All our villages in Longido district are being targeted by 2 separate soil carbon projects:

The Longido and Monduli Rangelands Carbon Project (LMRCP) by Soils for the Future Tanzania Ltd (SftFTZ) funded by Volkswagen ClimatePartners, targeting Longido and some parts of Monduli and

The Resilient Tarangire Ecosystem Project (RTEP) by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) targeting Longido, Monduli, and Simanjiro districts.

The ambition of these projects is to put the whole of Longido, under soil carbon deals. We anticipate that if validated, these projects will drastically change how grazing is organised and how we the Maasai share natural resources, ultimately threatening our culture, livelihoods and food security.

For more information on our carbon work in Longido, please check our carbon page.

Land grabbing plan

Successes

The $150 million World Bank (WB) Land Tenure Improvement Project (LTIP, 2022-2027) implemented by the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development was initially targeting Longido district. According to the WB, this project supports the issuance of one million Certificates of Right of Occupancy (CROs), 500,000 Certificates of Customary Right of Occupancy (CCROs) and one million Residential Licenses (RLs). In Longido, the project was supposed to support pastoralists’ land tenure security through communal grazing areas under communal CCROs. While this project was intended to undertake village land-use planning with the good intention of improving tenure security, it was diverted to meet the interests of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (NRT) by converting pastoralists' grazing land into Game Control Areas and Game Reserves.

The agenda proposed by the Ministries of Land and NRT for approval of the new land-use plan was refuted unanimously early 2024 by the Longido District Council and Maasai pastoralists. MISA called on the World Bank to support us by ensuring that the funding programme a) supports the Indigenous conservation model rather than fortress conservation and b) does not lead to more displacement and forced evictions from our territories.

Community meeting, 2023. Credits: MISA

A Tanzania Wildlife Authority (TAWA) advertisement reads “Africa’s Premier hunting destination” and depicts elephants and lions. Credit: MISA.

In late February 2024, plans by the Tanzanian Government to further alienate Maasailandleaked to the public from an undisclosed source. The Government intends to alienate more than 70% of all Maasai districts comprising Ngorongoro, Longido, Monduli, Simanjiro and Kiteto District. In fact, it will privatise land by creating 16 hunting blocks in the form of Game. Reserve and Game Controlled Areas. It is anticipated that this plan will impact over 390,000 people across over 90 villages, amounting to 15,856 sq. km. This plan targets areas that are predominantly occupied by our community. In Longido alone, 26 villages are targeted, potentially impacting 85,899 people.