Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the village was able to contest - legally and politically - its claims over the land
sold to CCA after that land was allegedly acquired through dubious and improper
means. This strong capacity for advocating its land and resource rights has been
essential to the development and maintenance of the village's tourism revenues
during the past decade (Nelson and Ole Makko, 2005). Just as importantly, the
village has demonstrated a relatively open and transparent decision-making
process in relation to tourism planning and the use of revenues. Particularly
notable has been the strong role of the village assembly in demanding accounta-
bility from the village council and effectively performing its oversight functions to
ensure decisions are made in the broader community's interests.
10
For example,
the village assembly has in the past demanded special audits be performed on the
village council's financial records. As more investors seek land in Loliondo
adjacent to Serengeti National Park for tourism campsites, a range of new devel-
opments have been proposed in Ololosokwan, including another contested land
allocation dating from a title granted by the village more than 20 years ago.
Recently, stemming from debate over contractual negotiations with the owner of
this disputed property and concerns about the transparency of village council
deliberations, the village assembly in Ololosokwan successfully demanded the
removal of the entire village council and a new council election (S. Ole Makko,
pers comm.). While this may reveal some level of internal conflict over tourism
development in the village, it also illustrates the high level of engagement, aware-
ness and assertiveness of the overall community and its ability to hold village
leadership accountable for decisions.
The socioeconomic benefits generated by tourism in Ololsokwan and other
villages in Loliondo have motivated significant investments in conservation on the
part of the communities. In addition to the CCA concession in Ololosokwan,
much of the traditional dry season livestock grazing areas which run along the
villages' border with Serengeti National Park are now formally set aside for
tourism and wildlife, mixed with seasonal livestock grazing, and these land uses
are enforced through village by-laws. The area remains high quality wildlife
habitat. For example, recently wild dogs, which went extinct in the Serengeti
ecosystem in 1994 following a rabies outbreak, have re-colonized at least two
villages in Loliondo.Tourism revenues are an important incentive for the pastoral-
ist communities to accept and value the presence of these predators (Masenga
and Mentzel, 2006), which seem to prefer Loliondo's community lands to
Serengeti National Park itself, possibly because of the abundance of lions in the
latter.
11
The link between conservation and community tourism revenues in
Loliondo is thus fairly well established, and is particularly important given the
overlap of the local tourism concessions with the Serengeti wildebeest herds'
migration routes.
Two key points emerge from Loliondo's experiences with community-based
tourism during the past 15 years. First, the villages there have come perhaps the
closest of anywhere in Tanzania to translating the potential of tourism as a devel-
opment and conservation tool into reality. Tourism in Loliondo has created
tangible economic benefits for villages, and these benefits have increased
Search WWH ::
Custom Search