Privatisation brings new prosperity to the wilds of the Masai Mara

Kenyan tribe faced ruin after terrorism took away the tourist dollars they depended on. Pietro Veronese reports

The world's favourite Africans are in big trouble. For years, the Masai of Kenya drew tourists like nowhere else on the continent. It was not just the extraordinary wildlife, the people themselves were extraordinary, tall and noble-looking, in red robes, maintaining a seemingly perfect balance between their cattle-rearing and the immense reserve of wildlife in the midst of which they lived.

In fact, the Masai struggled to maintain that balance as human and cattle populations soared and the wildlife population fell. Tourism revenues just about made it work. Then came the blow from which the Masai have yet to recover: terrorism.

The first hit was the bombing of the American embassy in 1998. Next came the British and American advisories, warning tourists to stay away, and the cancellation of flights. By some accounts, tourist numbers are down one third on the figures before Kenya found itself in the terrorist's viewfinder.

With no money for repairs, the infrastructure became chaotic; ill-paid rangers turned a blind eye to increasingly bold poachers. And the debate around the fires of the tents of the Masai farmers led to a grim conclusion: either we find a way to draw benefit from the tourist takings, or else we throw everything we have into farming and to hell with the lions, elephants, and other marvels from the pages of National Geographic.

But from one part of the enormous area, the private property of the Masai has emerged a solution. It is privatisation. And it has been successful, increasing tourist revenues hugely and distributing the bulk of the proceeds to the tribe with transparent accounting, repair of roads, more pay for rangers and a dramatic drop in poaching. Now other parts of the great plain that sprawls between Kenya and Tanzania are preparing to follow the Masai method.

The Masai Mara is amazing. Site of the annual migration of a million wildebeest, home to 200,000 zebra, 350,000 gazelles, lions, leopards, giraffes and thousands of other species, this is a paradise of pastureland, valleys, rivers and gentle mountains. But the Masai are in deep trouble, menaced by a murderous combination of development, post-11 September alarms, greed and carelessness. Growing population pressure and the related increase in the number of cattle have made the vital equilibrium between humans and wild animals fragile.

The Masai's need for pasture land grows ever larger, the consequent threat to the habitat of the wildlife ever greater. Competition for land, especially in the so-called "dispersal areas", or buffer zones, on the outskirts of the reserve, into which the wild herds roam at will, has increased dramatically. In the past 10 years, the amount of wildlife in these areas has plummeted more than 40 per cent, victim to poaching, population growth and overgrazing.

That the situation is not already far worse is thanks to wildlife tourism. The added wealth brought by visitors from all over the world helped the Masai understand their tens of thousands of acres of virgin soil is a treasure not a wasteland. Then terrorism arrived and, suddenly the flow of tourist dollars seemed to vanish.

The solution was in a zone of Masai Mara called the Triangle of Mara. For a couple of years, the owners of the land have entrusted its management to a private, non-profit society, the Mara Conservancy. The conservancy decided which part of the triangle should be pasture and which left to the wild animals. They have kept open books, giving full account to the Masai of every shilling in and out of the triangle.

The results have been extraordinary. Good new roads have been built, rangers given pay increases to motivate them to tackle poaching. And there has been a sizeable increase in the wildlife. Brian Heath, head of the consortium that manages the conservancy, said: "There are no secrets. Things work because the owners reinvest their profits. Our 36 per cent share of the gate revenue is spent on the management of the park. This doesn't happen in any other part of the Mara."

The Mara Triangle is now an island of happiness in what has become a plain of discontent. The Masai chiefs of the surrounding areas come to observe. The first to follow the example will probably be the inhabitants of Lemek and Koyiaki, 150,000 hectares in the far north of the reserve, with a population of 20,000 in Koyiaki alone. A final decision is still to be made.

Conservationists see a new alliance emerging in the area, combining the wisdom of the Masai and their respect for their environment with advanced practical and administrative knowledge. Public provision is the only solution for obtaining services such as education and health which they do not have the means to buy. But for tourism, private is better.