Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Deleated Masai Mara thread?

here's the text of the deleted post:

This appeared in today's Telegraph newspaper

Property sharks benefit from Masai land grab
By Mike Pflanz in Olare Orok
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 17/08/2007

Kenya's Masai Mara game park faces a disastrous surge in tourism after a government decision to give away land around its borders.

Unscrupulous investors looking to sidestep a freeze on new hotels inside the reserve have rushed to offer new Masai landowners a relative fortune of up to £12,000 each for their 150-acre plots.

At least 23 new tented camps and larger lodges have been built or are under construction immediately outside the park, to add to 40 or more already there.

The result will be a surge in tourism as the number of hotel beds jumps by a third, from 1,500 to an estimated 1,900.

The knock-on effect of another 300 to 400 tourists a day in the 600 sq mile reserve would be catastrophic, with greater harassment of wildlife, track erosion and pollution, conservationists warn.

At one Mara river crossing point yesterday, where migrating wildebeest risk hungry crocodiles as they try to reach fresh pasture, 56 vans filled with camera-toting tourists lined both banks.

"That does really spoil the moment," said Katherine Maunder, 32, a fashion designer from Oxford on a honeymoon safari with her husband, Marcus, 34.

This fresh threat to the reserve follows approval from Kenya's lands ministry to subdivide vast common ranches where the Masai have grazed their cattle for generations into tens of thousands of individual plots. These will be handed to every adult Masai tribesman who registers.

Aside from the new camps, several of the new land-owners have fenced their land to plant wheat or barley, blocking wild-life migration paths.

Kenya's authorities have long been concerned about congestion in the park and uncontrolled construction on its boundaries.

Tourism officials tried to impose a moratorium on new lodges while they calculate the exact "carrying capacity" of the reserve, as The Daily Telegraph reported in January.

But senior figures claim it is proving "counter-productive" as camps spring up regardless, many without proper approval.

What is needed, according to hoteliers and conservationists, is a new approach to managing the Masai Mara.

Small-scale camps outside the reserve with no more than one tent per 700 acres of wilderness should pay rent to the new Masai landowners.

"This will create protected areas for wildlife, prevent mass tourism, and generate a fair income for the Masai communities who own the land," said Jake Grieves-Cook, chairman of the Kenya tourist board.

Two projects have already been established. A group of 156 Masai have joined their plots together to create the sprawling Olare Orok conservancy, 10 minutes north of the gates to the Mara reserve.

Three small camps, including one run by Mr Grieves-Cook, pay £70 monthly rent to each of the Masai, who promise not to graze cows there, build villages or chop wood.

"They are sending their children to school - even their daughters," said Sammy Ole Mpusia, 32, who helped set up the Ol Kinyei conservancy. "There are health dispensaries: -people who cannot pay hospital bills are being helped."

Other tribesmen are queuing up to join. "People who have sold their plots are finding that their lives are not good," said Jackson Ole Sayialel, 23, who guides tourists at a 20-bed eco-lodge under the pioneering land-lease scheme.

"They are wasting their money on alcohol, and in a few years they will have nothing themselves and nothing for their children's future."

Mara marvels

• On the plains 170 miles south-west of Nairobi, the Masai Mara was created as a 200 sq mile game reserve in 1947, and expanded to 600 sq miles in 1968

• It is part of the 15,500 sq mile Serengeti ecosystem, which lies largely in neighbouring Tanzania

• It is home to 2.5 million herbivores including zebra, hartebeest, topi, elephant, buffalo, gazelle and a small population of black rhino

• Predatory cats include lion, leopard and cheetah. BBC's Big Cat Diary is mostly filmed there

• It is known for the annual July to September migration, when 1.3 million wildebeest, 350,000 Thompson's gazelle and 200,000 zebra move north from Tanzania for fresh pasture

• More than 450 species of birds, with 57 different birds of prey, have been spotted

• It is visited by up to 2,500 tourists a day in peak season, each paying £20 a day entrance fees

• There are more than 40 permanent lodges and hotels - plus dozens of temporary tented camps during the busiest times

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/mai...eamasai117.xml