Land Use Planning for Resilient Pastoral Rangelands: Greater Serengeti Mara Ecosystem

Greater Serengeti Mara Ecosystem (GSME) encompasses large protected areas of savanna with iconic wildlife surrounded by pastoralists and farms. GSME is facing severe pressure from human-induced changes due to rapid increase in population and climate variability. We undertook surveys with local communities to understand the potential impacts of these changes on wildlife and livelihoods of communities. We visited eight villages in Kenya and Tanzania and discussed with local communities and leaders, park management on drivers of change, and wishes for future development. To facilitate the conversation, we developed posters with four scenarios as a basis for discussions and a board game for simulation of everyday life for people living close to the protected park areas. The board game served both as a platform for discussing livelihood strategies and evaluating consequences of choices for the players and as a tool for us to record the players\u27 behavior. The game was played with a group of four men and a group of four women in each village and with one group of four policy-makers and one group of park managers from both countries. In general, women were more successful in the game by being more strategic and collaborative than the 8 groups of men and thereby obtaining better scores. The poorest group of players were the policy-makers from both Tanzania and Kenya. The poster and board game results were used to build future scenarios based on Bayesian Belief Network