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Ahead of Tanzania’s election, Maasai fight to stay put

In August, more than 40,000 people in Tanzania discovered an alarming change to their voter registration.

In the past, members of the Maasai community have always cast their ballots in their hometowns in the country’s north. For the local election in November, however, they had been assigned to a polling station hundreds of miles away.

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For years, Tanzania’s government has been trying to push Maasai pastoralists off their ancestral land to make way for conservation projects. But the community is fighting to stay put.

The decision sounded alarm bells among many Maasai, pastoralists who have repeatedly clashed with the Tanzanian government in recent years over their right to stay on their ancestral land in the Serengeti.

Since 2022, the Tanzanian government has relocated more than 9,600 Maasai from this corner of the country, often through forced evictions. It claims the Maasai’s presence threatened the conservation of the Serengeti’s world-famous, acacia-dotted landscapes. But watching that same land being carved up for safari parks and trophy-hunting reserves, Maasai and their supporters suspected less pure motives.

For many, the voter registration change was the final straw.

“It feels like they’re pushing us out,” explains Daudi Saning’o, a Maasai herder.

Soon, he joined thousands who poured into the streets, blocking safari vehicles and and wielding signs that read, “We will fight for our land until the end.”

On a chilly morning in mid-August, Daudi Saning’o set off as usual from his home on Tanzania’s Serengeti plain, his horned cattle lazily roaming alongside him. Their bells clanged softly. For as long as he could remember, tending to his herd here had been his life’s purpose, and a connection to his pastoral Maasai heritage.

“I love my livestock as much as I love my family,” says the 40-something father of seven.

Now, however, Mr. Saning’o’s way of life was under siege. Since 2022, the Tanzanian government had relocated more than 9,600 Maasai from this corner of the country. It claimed their presence threatened the conservation of the area’s world-famous, acacia-dotted landscapes. But watching that same land being carved up for safari parks and trophy-hunting reserves, Maasai and their supporters suspected less pure motives.

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For years, Tanzania’s government has been trying to push Maasai pastoralists off their ancestral land to make way for conservation projects. But the community is fighting to stay put.

And the pressure was still building. That morning, as Mr. Saning’o walked beside his cows, he got a call from a friend. The man told him to check his voter registration.

When he did, Mr. Saning’o discovered that for the local government elections on Nov. 27, he had not been assigned to vote in his own village, as he always had in the past. Instead, he had to cast his ballot in the town of Msomera, a seven-hour bus ride away.

Although Mr. Saning’o had never been there, the name was familiar. It was the location of the settlement the government had built for Maasai whom it had moved out of the Serengeti. Looking at his registration, Mr. Saning’o feared he would be next.

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