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

benefits to avoid its collapse in the community. In promoting this practice to the household level, models that aim at managing rangelands and pasture should integrate this ILK and the economic, social, and environmental dimensions that are mutually dependent on one another [6]. The areas of implementation priorities should be known private lands where members of the households can easily be embraced when managing their pastureland. Furthermore, spe- cies that are native and palatable to livestock should be restored in the degraded Alalili as an incentive in addition to formulation and implementation of community by-laws that support its sustainable intensification. 5. Conclusion Approaches that are developed for managing rangelands in northern Tanzania are not neces- sarily developed based on indigenous cultural heritage such as Alalili, risking their success and sustainability [89]. Recognizing the Alalili in such approaches minimizes the risk of misjudg- ing their importance by outweighing the benefits and values that come up with the inclusion of Alalili, resulting in the wide-community level adoption and dissemination [26]. In contrast to modern natural science outputs, the presented results have indicated that Maasai Alalili silvo-pastoral conservation systems are still in existence but their sustainability is highly at risk, especially in private land areas. The generated results could facilitate the inclusion of their practices into core pasture production and management areas, facilitating their reinforcement

into policy and practices. We encourage the extended use of our survey results in further assessing the biomass and other compliance practices in screening the best management prac- tices when implementing Alalili in the landscape level. However, their size seemed to be decreasing signaling their possible loss in the near future, thus necessitating on a temporal analysis to determine the degree of sustainability risk. The stakeholders and communities should be informed about emerging effects of LULCC, growing population and environmental pressures such as climate change that threaten the sustainability of traditional conservation practices including the Maasai Alalili systems. Though the primary concern of establishing Maasai Alalili systems was to preserve pastures during the hardship times of pasture availabil- ity, the pastoral communities in rangeland areas need to be informed about extended benefits of Alalili systems. Despite the role played by private Alalili systems to the livestock and wildlife, they are faced with a confounding threat to deteriorate compared to communal Alalili. Further loss of Alalili conservation systems will not only lower down availability of pasture resources, but will also discourage initiatives for restoration of degraded rangelands through recovery of vegetation. Based on our findings, initiatives aimed at improving Alalili systems conservation and management strategies need to be considered. We recommend further assessment of the existing Alalili systems management typologies fitting to utilization compliance and that they

should be made formal. Such results highlight the need for incorporation of ILK in grassland conservation and management policies allowing and instructing on the call for frequency and extent of Alalili practices as a management tool for both rangelands and their community resil- ience in East African rangelands. Supporting information S1 Appendix. Alalili compiled data. (XLSX) PLOS ONE Sustaining Alalili systems in rangelands of East Africa PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303649 May 16, 2024 19 / 24