Question

Give reasons to explain why the Maasai community lost their grazing land

Answer 1

Hint: Maasai community is one of the African pastoralist communities. They live in semi-arid grasslands or arid deserts. They move from one place to another with their animals like goat, cattle, sheep and donkey. European powers took this place as an opportunity to expand more.

Complete answer:Maasai cattle herders were from east Africa. There were 300,000 herders from Southern Kenya and another 1,50,000 from Tanzania. They had a vast area which was later taken by European imperial powers and the Maasai community lost their grazing land.
The reasons were:
A. In the late 19th century, European powers came to Africa for territorial expansion and divided the region into different colonies.
B. In 1885, Maasailand was divided in two with an international boundary between British Kenya and German Tanzania.
C. The best grazing land was taken for Whites and Maasai had to go for small areas in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They lost about 60% of their pre-colonial land which led to the confinement to an arid zone with uncertain rainfall.
D. British even turned grazing land into game reserves where pastoralists were not allowed to enter, hunt and to graze animals.
E. Severe droughts too shrank the grazing lands.

Note: In 1930, an enquiry showed that Maasai in Kenya had 7,20,000 cattle, 8,20,000 sheep and 1,70,000 donkeys and in just two years of severe drought, 1933 and 1934, around half of the cattle in Maasai reserve died.