The Reserve is named for the local Maasai tribes,
whose land surrounds the Reserve area. The Maasai have
traditionally lived a “semi-nomadic pastoralist”
lifestyle (Walpole et al. 2003:x), moving every few years to find
new pasture land for their cattle. Their homes were traditionally
set up in bomas, groups of huts surrounding an enclosed
area in which cattle were housed (see aerial photo in Exhibit 1).
Each night, the families would bring their livestock into the
enclosure in order to prevent animal predation and cattle theft.
Bomas are typically abandoned and rebuilt every few years, after
they become uninhabitable (Lamprey and Reid
2004:1002).
Under English colonial control, Maasai grazing was
limited to certain areas and divided among different Maasai clans
(Pander 1995). Subsequently, group ranches were created, with
control over certain areas given to each clan. During the second
half of the 20th Century, acacia and other woodlands were burned to
limit tsetse fly habitat. Due to reduced disease risk and
additional grasslands, the Maasai grazing range shifted further
south, with substantial evidence of bomas in new areas closer to
the boundaries of MMNR (Lamprey and Reid
2004).
Over the last 15 years, the Government of Kenya
has pushed for subdivision of the group ranches into separate plots
over which individual families would maintain land tenure and legal
property rights (Seno and Shaw 2002). This subdivision would, of
course, limit nomadism by binding land owners to their particular
pieces of land.
Resource managers are particularly concerned about
MMNR and surroundings because of endangered species such as black
rhino and wild dogs, the former classified as “critically
endangered” by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). In
addition, other large carnivores are confronting local declines,
while woodlands (as noted above) are also severely limited ("Maasai
Mara National Reserve Ecological Management Plan, 2009-2019" 2009).
Recent research has found that, at present, Kenyan wildlife is not
preserved any better in protected areas than it is on other lands
(Western et al. 2009).
