Land use typology and livelihood sources in the Maasai Mara wildlife dispersal area, Narok County, Kenya

Abstract

The study sought to establish the relationship between the Maasai indigenous peoples’ land use types and livelihood sources in the Maasai Mara wildlife dispersal area, in Narok County, Kenya. A total of 404 survey questionnaires were administered to the study respondents in Ololulunga, Mara and Osupuko Wards. The study hypothesis was that land uses have an effect livelihood sources and livelihoods in the study area. Interviews and observations supplemented data collection from study sites. The study respondents were randomly selected using cluster sampling. Livelihood assets such as crops and livestock were shown. With regard to livelihood sources, livestock rearing, basic commodities and petty business was dominant, accounting for 62.4% of the respondents. Analysis of variation of land use and livelihood sources found that pastoralism was not a significant land use type across the three study areas. Simple subsistence farming, livestock ranching and mixed (crop and livestock) farming were significant (P<0.05) amongst the three study areas.  Further Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients for land use types and livelihood strategies was computed using SPSS statistical tests. The test findings show that agro-pastoralism positively correlated with the farming (0.814). Subsistence land use strongly, negatively correlates with farming (-0.997). This finding implies that pastoralism as land use and livelihood source in Maasai Mara’s dry season grazing land is shifting. The results point to a transition among the Maasai IPs, from traditional homogenous pastoralism activities, to a diversified combination of crop and livestock livelihoods, most notably agro-pastoralism. A trend of adopting farm and field and, off-farm livelihood strategies have implications on the security of Maasai IPs territories when pastoralism is no longer tenable. It is recommended that policy initiatives promote broader natural environment protection by regulating farming expansion and conserving livelihood sources that support Maasai IP livelihood and wildlife dispersal areas.