MSOMERA: Tanzania’s classic rural settlement in the offing
Experts from a diverse of disciplines have been deployed to transform the game-reserve turned village into haven for decades-long impoverished inhabitants of Ngorongoro Conservation Area situated north of the East African country.
MONDAY October 14, 2024
By Patty Magubira
The Tranquility News Reporter, Tanzania
The Tanzania government is heavily investing in Msomera Village in Handeni District, Tanga Region, in its voluntary relocation bid it has hatched for inhabitants of Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) north of the country.
Mostly dominated by Maasai semi-nomadic pastoralists, the NCA is also home to other ethnic groups, including Hadzabe – one of the Africa’s last hunter-gatherer ethnic groups, Datoga – an agro-pastoralist nomadic Nilotic speaking ethnic group, and Sonjo – a Bantu ethnic group also known as Batemi.
Tanzania though is literally renowned in East Africa for coming up with succinct blueprints that end up being analysed in Kenya and implemented in Uganda, this time the country appears to mean it.
Msomera is one out of three villages designated for the NCA inhabitants willing to relocate to other places to relieve the fragile landscape of multiple threats it is currently facing.
Other villages the government has earmarked for the first programme of its kind to be implemented in the country are Saunyi in Kilindi District, also in Tanga Region, and Kitwai B in Simanjiro District, Manyara Region.
The NCA inhabitants intending to relocate are, however, free to choose other places within the vast country with over 120 ethnic groups and mother tongues, all unified by Kiswahili.
Handeni District Commissioner Albert Msando confirmed that the government was putting up various infrastructure that would differentiate Msomera with other villages countrywide, if not across Africa.
He said experts from a diverse of disciplines had been deployed to Msomera to transform the 837-square-kilometre game reserve turned village into haven to the decades-long stressed NCA inhabitants.
“The government is planning to construct a $47,000 worth milk collection centre and a $185,180 worth modern livestock auction building,” he said.
The two facilities are also billed to boost the Handeni District Council’s receipts. The district council already is collecting about $741 from livestock auctioned every Friday, up from barely $148 it used to collect before the programme.
Msomera Village is, moreover, furnished with seven dips and a number of charco dams are being expanded, including one valued at $703,704 whose construction is at its final stages.
Five wells are supplying water across the village equipped with a health centre valued at $233,333, with a $55,600 worth of a mother and child clinic under construction at Mkababu area.
Also constructed at the village is a Class B police post, a two-in-one house for police officers’ families, two cellular phone service providers’ towers, and a post office.
“Construction of a third tower is in progress,” said the youthful lawyer turned District Commissioner, who lives within Msomera Village to closely follow up on implementation of the ambitious project, adding:
“The government also invested $4.9 million in supply of electricity village-wide.”
According to Gloria Bideberi, Senior Assistant Conservation Commissioner (Community Development) with the NCA Authority (NCAA), the goal of the programme is to improve livelihoods of the inhabitants, and protect their lives, livestock and the area with global biodiversity importance.
The survival of our wildlife is a matter of grave concern to all of us in Africa. These wild creatures amid the wild places they inhabit are not only important as a source of wonder and inspiration, but are an integral part of our natural resources and our future livelihood and well being. In accepting the trusteeship of our wildlife we solemnly declare that we will do everything in our power to make sure that our children’s grand-children will be able to enjoy this rich and precious inheritance.
The conservation of wildlife and wild places calls for specialist knowledge, trained manpower and money, and we look to other nations to co-operate with us in this important task – the success or failure of which not only affects the continent of Africa but the rest of the world as well,” Julius K. Nyerere, Arusha Manifesto, 1961.
“Over 5,500 households will be relocated to Msomera, Saunyi and Kitwai B villages, while 6,000 households will be relocated to other places the NCA inhabitants themselves will choose,” she explained, insisting that the programme was registering volunteers only.
She said the Tanzania government was prepared to look for other places for 11,500 other households, depending on the response of the inhabitants of the area to the programme.
“We will catch up with whatever pace of their response to the programme,” Bideberi vowed.
The programme has so far constructed over 5,000 houses with three bed rooms each, 2,500 at Msomera Village, 1,500 at Kitwai B Village, and 1,000 at Saunyi Village.
It has since in June 2022 relocated over 1,650 households, equivalent to 6.92 per cent, and about 9,910 people and over 40,400 livestock, equivalent to 9.83 per cent and 4.06 per cent, respectively.
About 1,480 of the relocated households went to Msomera Village and 178 to other places.
The National Bureau of Statistics census shows the NCA had 23,889 households, 100,793 people and 994,259 livestock in 2022.
A heated debate characterised by name calling ensued immediately after the programme was flagged off, with critics accusing the government of being inconsiderate to Maasai’s traditional way of life, alleging that it was trading their ancestral land to investors.
As a result, the programme carries out a household-to-household awareness campaign within the NCA on the goal of the voluntary relocation and benefits and motivation that come with it.
A household which is willing to relocate is registered in a database ready for the government’s Chief Valuer to deploy experts to carry out valuation of its property.
A family head is then shown benefits and motivation his household deserves to receive before he appends his signature, and the household is on the following day relocated to pave way for demolition of its property within the NCA.
“Natural vegetation has regenerated in vacated areas and wildlife animals are using them,” Senior Assistant Conservation Commissioner Bideberi noted.
Spanning vast expanses of highland plains, savannah and savannah woodland and forests, the multiple land use NCA established in 1959 is a delicate landscape with global importance for biodiversity.
The Maasai pastoralists and other ethnic groups coexist with a concentration of wildlife, including globally threatened species as well as the Great Wildebeest Migration on the north. The area also comprises the world’s largest caldera – Ngorongoro Crater.
Archaeological researchers operating in the area for about eight decades now found 3.6-million-year-old hominid footprints, implying that human evolution took place at the area about four million years ago.
The researchers link the fossilised footprints at Laetoli with evolution of hominin species in Olduvai Gorge, early form of Homo sapiens at Lake Ndutu, and the development of stone age and iron usage at Ngorongoro Crater.
In 1979, UNESCO inscribed the NCA as World Heritage Site; in 2010, as Man and Biosphere Reserve along with its northern neighbour – Serengeti National Park; and in 2016, as Ngorongoro Lengai UNESCO Global Geopark along with adjacent districts of Karatu and MonduliΩ
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The Tranquility News Reporter/Sub Editor, Tanzania
Patty Magubira is an experienced environmental and business editor whose career started at the Tanzania's state-owned newspaper - The Daily News. He is a man of perfection. Aided by his extensive training as a community forestry expert before joining Tanzania School of Journalism. Magubira had successfully held various key posts in newsrooms, giving him an unmatched connections in media fraternity. Having worked as a bureau chief in Arusha and Mwanza, he managed to build a team work, boosting sales to the highest level ever. He was then promoted to a sub-editor after completing a training in Nairobi, Kenya. His incredible experience, critical thinking and exposure are critical to the quality of any media outlet.
