Sustaining indigenous Maasai Alalili silvo-pastoral conservation systems for improved community livelihood and biodiversity conservation in East African rangelands

significant, the association between Alalili systems in the open areas and GCA was not signifi- cant (Table 4). Although Alalili systems in WMA depicted a higher livestock herd size com- pared to Alalili systems in the reference category GCA, the association was not significant (Table 4). 4. Discussion Indigenous local knowledge (ILK) and research around it has emerged as an important area of sustainability science, informing and supporting pressing challenges of our modern times. It provides information and data that can increase resilience, promote sustainable restoration and rewilding for transforming communities in landscapes towards more resilient, sustainable, and equitable futures [8, 75, 76]. Many rangeland areas harbor communities with different socio-cultural practices most of which are not documented [16]. Due to lack of recognition of these, rangelands and their indigenous socio-cultural practices are rarely going to survive the current anthropogenic threats. This study was able to distinctively characterize Maasai Alalili by land use types, separating private and communal ones into three size categories named small, medium, and large Alalili systems. The documentation of this which had not been reported in the previous studies [5, 12, 17] are potential tools for facilitating management ini- tiatives of the traditional fodder conservation systems. Through predicting the possible loss of Alalili systems, the majority of these being communal with reference made to private that van-

ished in non-protected land, their future practices may be prone to total loss and extinction. 4.1 Status of Alalili systems and the suggested changes across types On average this study identified and categorized more communal Alalili (82%) than private (18%) throughout the studied rangeland area predicting that this practice at the household level is being threatened by various drivers that may include land use and socio-cultural changes [12, 18, 25, 50]. Although, the Maasai pastoral communities in northern Tanzania are reported to practice communal ownership of rangelands as the dominant system [18, 44], this work suggests the historical evolvement of private Alalili systems that was not documented for many years as supported by recent works [17, 18, 77, 78]. This is further supported by a few surveyed old-aged private Alalili systems reported to historically exist since the past 40 to 70 years as informed by the rapporteur in the focused group discussion; Table 4. Summary statistics of generalized estimation equation (GEE) model explaining associations between explanatory variables and the number of livestock in the study area. Land use and type of Alalili were defined as factors whereby the baseline variables are GCA and communal Alalili respectively. Estimate Std. Error Wald Pr(>|W|) (Intercept) 551.37 182.96 9.080 0.0026 ** Area of Alalili 1.39 0.04 996.150 < 0.001*** Age of Alalili 1.18 2.82 0.180 0.6741 Type of Alalili Private -402.39 121.22 11.020 < 0.001*** Land use NCA -377.60 107.05 12.440 < 0.001***

Land use OA -142.09 86.79 2.680 0.1016 Land use WMA 223.69 206.25 1.180 0.2781 Significant codes: * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001. Abbreviation: GCA, Game Controlled Areas; NCA Ngorongoro Conservation Area; OA, Open Areas; WMA, Wildlife Management Area. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303649.t004 PLOS ONE Sustaining Alalili systems in rangelands of East Africa PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303649 May 16, 2024 16 / 24