The influence of westernization on water resources use and conservation among the Maasai people of Kenya

Abstract

Maasai cattle herders of East Africa have adapted to and lived in water-scarce environments for centuries. Prior to the arrival of European ­settlers in Kenya in the early 1900s, the Maasai occupied large tracts of land in the expansive Rift Valley highlands and the savannah grasslands extending from Lake Rudolf (now Lake Turkana) to Lorochi Plateau in northern Tanzania. However, after more than a century of colonisation and loss of land, they currently live in the savannah grasslands of the Loita plains of southern Kenya and areas adjacent to the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania. Water scarcity in the region has been worsened by the ever-increasing human population coupled with environmental degradation.