Land Use Change in The East African Savanna: A Case Study Of Northern Tanzania

该项目支持来自科罗拉多州立大学的一组人类学家和生态学家的研究，研究坦桑尼亚土著人民在国家和地方政府经济和环境政策的大范围内继续成功推行其传统经济制度的程度。 研究地点是恩戈罗恩戈罗保护区，这是马赛人居住的生物多样性保护区。 研究人员将比较保护区内的部落经济生活与生活在保护政策限制较少的邻近地区的可比人群的生活。 该项目将研究马赛人经济困难的原因，确定这些困难与保护政策相对于区域环境和经济模式的关系，并评估今后如何改变保护政策、发展干预措施和当地土地使用，以改善人民的状况，同时保持生态系统的完整性。 方法将包括定性参与观察和访谈，定量调查和土地利用分析。 这项研究很重要，因为世界各地的传统人士往往认为保护政策与他们自己的经济福祉背道而驰。 通过明确地比较同一个人的经济状况，一个群体生活在保护政策的重压之下，另一个群体相对没有保护政策，但都受到区域和国家经济和社会政治限制，该项目将促进我们对保护政策的具体影响的理解。 由此产生的信息将对必须在世界其他地区面对类似问题的保护和发展规划者产生极大的兴趣。

This project supports the research of a team of anthropologists and ecologists from Colorado State University studying the degree to which indigenous peoples in Tanzania can continue to successfully pursue their traditional economic systems within the larger context of state and local government economic and environmental policies. The site of the research is the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a biodiversity conservation site inhabited by the Maasai people. The researchers will compare the tribal economic life within the Conservation Area with the life of comparable people living in an adjacent district where conservation policies are less restrictive. The project will examine the causes of the Maasai's economic difficulties, determine the extent to which they are related to conservation policies versus regional environmental and economic patterns, and assess how conservation policies, development interventions and local land use might be altered in the future to improve the people's situation while still maintaining ecosystem integrity. Methods will include qualitative participant observation and interviewing with quantitative surveys and land use analysis. This research is important because traditional people the world over often believe that conservation policies are antithetical to their own economic well-being. By explicitly comparing the economic situation of the same people, one group living under the weight of conservation policies and the other relatively free of them, but both subject to regional and national economic and socio-political constraints, the project will advance our understanding of the specific effects of conservation policies. The resulting information will be of great interest to conservation and development planners who must confront similar issues in other parts of the world.