Maasai knowledge – key to climate adaptation?

Maasai Knowledge – key to climate adaptation?

Can traditional cultures hold a key to climate adaptation? Of the 120-ish tribes in Tanzania, the Maasai peoples are an iconic representation of the diversity and wildness of Africa. These tall desert nomads are known for their distinctive colourful dress, polygamous customs and body modifications, but may also hold knowledge that may be a key to climate adaptation.

Maasai Village Life

The Maasai are particularly interactive with Tanzania’s booming ecotourism industry because of their unique culture but also of their proximity to many of the wildlife parks we visited while on Safari.

Kristy and the herd.

During our travels interacting with traditional cultures, like the Moken Sea Gypsies, I’ve often had mixed feelings about whether ecotourism to “traditional cultures” is of benefit or harm to those cultures. There’s an obvious direct benefit through selling wares, village visits or even begging. The harm of course is through the erosion of their traditional cultural practices, especially when tourist hotspots anchor a traditionally nomadic people like the Maasai or Sea Gypsies to a specific location to earn their living.

Jackson, our safari guide, is an perfect example of Maasai adaptation by being the first person of his village to obtain and university degree (he’s also an amazing birder and has helped researchers identify over 500 species of birds in the region). In our travels I asked him, “Do the Maasai benefit when tourists visit them?”

Jackson – Maasai Safari Guide

I wasn’t expecting his answer to involve the politics of climate change.

Jackson described that throughout Tanzania (except immediately near Kilimanjaro due to orographic rain) there is already a decrease in average rainfall and the viability of nomadic animal husbandry is decreasing. Basically, it is harder to grow animals with the increasing frequency of drought in the region.

While the Maasai also grow crops, wildlife park regulations prohibit growing of crops in conservation areas and wildlife parks – which is the point of a conservation area. These parks and conservation areas have been established in wildlife hotspots, but also overlap with Maasai nomadic ranges. So the Maasai people are left with a dwindling or prohibited means of sustenance. Not an easy place to be for a minimalist nomadic culture.

Enter adaptation.

Jackson was very positive about tourism and the Massai villages. “The Maasai must use their cultural resources to survive”, which is in fact, part of the Maasai cultural beliefs – “to survive with what they have”. Jackson described that “selling their culture” is a way for them to both maintain their culture, and provide for their families.

As these people face the challenges of global warming and globalization, the Maasai are adapting to sustain their culture with alternative means. Jackson was quick to point out that education is a big component, and because of his education, the mindset of his elders and his input as a Maasai leader is helping transition their way of thinking. That is, to use their culture as a means of sustenance.

I put a similar question to Taté, the village spokesperson that we visited in our safari video and his answer was fantastic. He said, “I love to learn and share my culture … I can’t travel, so I like to bring people to me to learn from them”. He went on to describe that when tourists visit him, “they become part of us and take our culture away to their culture”.

Maasai bartering

Taté’s statement demonstrates a willingness to foster cultural adaptation in the face of both climate change and globalization.

Use it or lose it?

Finally, the Maasai traditional knowledge including their survival skills to produce food in deserts and scrublands has been suggested as critical knowledge for adaptation as we enter a warmer global climate. These people have flourished in harsh, dry environments and it is this key to climate adaptation that could help future populations adjust to climate change. But more than the traditional knowledge alone, the Maasai cultural mindset to change with the times might really be the key to climate adaptation.

If we’ve learned anything from biological adaption, it is that those with the ability to best cope with change can forge a future for themselves.

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• Tagged: Africa, African Elephant, authentic, climate adaptation, Climate change, Education, Elephant, Galley Gal, Maasai, MountOcean, Pictures, Tanzania, traditional culture, Traditional knowledge, travel, Wildlife park