Contested Land in Loliondo: The Eastern Border of the Serengeti National Park Between Conservation, Hunting Tourism, and Pastoralism

Abstract

This case study analyzes a land conflict in Loliondo, an area adjacent to the eastern border of the Serengeti National Park in northern Tanzania. The pastoralists of the area and a Dubai-based hunting company are competing over a strip of land of ~135,000 ha alongside the Serengeti. At the same time, the Tanzanian government claims the land in order to conserve the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem. The government intends to allocate the strip of land solely for nature conservation and hunting by excluding pastoralism. This chapter argues that the competition between the pastoralists and the hunting company is one over land-based ecosystem services. The intention of the government to allocate the contested strip of land to nature conservation and hunting only has fostered the competition, which has evolved into a conflict. It is shown that pastoralists are able to derive specific provisioning ecosystem services from the contested land also during the dry season. This makes the area most valuable for the food security of the pastoralists of the area, which will be destabilized by the current policies of the government.