The Tanzanian government intends to redraw the boundaries of the Loliondo Game Controlled
Area (GCA). This wildlife-protected area is located in northern Tanzania and is adjacent
to the eastern boarder of the Serengeti National Park. The implementation of the proposed
boundaries of this GCA would result in massive land losses for several villages located
in the area. This thesis aims to analyze the socio-ecological impacts of the establishment of
the new Loliondo GCA on the pastoral community Ololosokwan, which would lose more than
half of its village area due to the new GCA. For this purpose, the socio-ecological indicator
“Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production” (HANPP) is applied. This indicator allows
the analysis of land use by measuring the appropriation of Net Primary Production
(NPP) through harvest and land conversion by humans. Therefore, a scenario approach was
chosen in order to quantify the aboveground HANPP (i.e. aHANPP) of Ololosokwan at the
status quo i.e. before the implementation of the new GCA boundaries and hypothetically and
based on ceteris paribus assumptions on the reduced village area. In addition, an assessment
of the maximal exploitability of the pastures of Ololosokwan was carried out. The approach in
this thesis considered the inter- and intra-annual dynamics of biomass productivity in order to
account for specific constraints of the land use system in Ololosokwan. An analysis of qualitative
interviews was also conducted in order to give insights into consequences of the establishment
of the new Loliondo GCA on the investigated village which cannot be obtained
through the HANPP indicator. The database for this thesis was collected over the course of
three months of fieldwork in Tanzania and in particular Ololosokwan during 2012.
The aHANPP analysis showed that the inhabitants of Ololosokwan currently appropriate 34%
of the potentially available biomass within their village. Biomass is mainly appropriated by
grazing livestock. The aHANPP would hypothetically grow to 59% if the new GCA is established.
During a year with less productivity, due to unfavorable climatic conditions, the
aHANPP would slightly increase. The assessment of the maximal exploitability of the pastures
of Ololosokwan showed that there is already no significant potential to further increase
their exploitation at present. In addition, it was shown that traditional range management
methods such as seasonal mobility have started to erode. Since the inhabitants of
Ololosokwan mainly appropriate biomass through pastoralism, this indicates that the
aHANPP of the village cannot be increased considerably within the predominant land use
system. However, if the new Loliondo GCA is established it is not at all feasible to maintain
the current land use practice, even if the reduced pastures are exploited to a maximum. In fact,
should the new boundaries be implemented, it was estimated that the currently kept livestock
herd would reduce, already within a good year, by 26% to 45% with the higher figure being
more likely. These estimates could not account for the fact that the implementation of the new
GCA would result in the complete loss of the dry season grazing area of the village, which
actually used to sustain the livestock during this season. In any case, the estimated livestock
loss alone would already cause such a decline of the animal per capita ratio, that pastoralism
could no longer play a dominant part of the livelihood strategy of Ololosokwan anymore.
It has been shown that the current land use system of Ololosokwan is already under pressure.
Thus, it is likely that the system will face a tipping point in the future. However, this will be
exacerbated if Ololosokwan would loss more than half of its village area. If the new Loliondo
GCA is implemented ad hoc, as has been attempted in the past, the Maasai of Ololosokwan
will not have the chance to develop and implement adaptive strategies for their current land
use and livelihood strategy. This thesis suggests the further examination of the idea of implementing
a community-based tourism approach instead of a GCA alongside the eastern boarder
of the Serengeti. This could be a first step in combining nature conservation and local communities’
livelihood instead of separating them.