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

1. Introduction Alalili is a traditional silvo-pastoral conservation system indigenous to Maasai communities through which certain portions of rangelands are conserved during the wet season for improved natural regeneration of vegetative biomass useful for grazing during dry seasons [1– 6]. Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) including traditional silvo-pastoral conservation systems, is important for promoting sustainable use of resources, supporting resilience, and preventing further damage to the natural world [7, 8]. This knowledge has been part of the co- evolutionary relationship with people, biodiversity, and the environment through enhanced carbon sequestration and storage, wildlife habitat, increasing livestock productivity, and strengthening rural livelihoods [6, 7]. Despite its vital role, this cultural component is missed in scientific studies, the absence of which may make it vanish in silence, jeopardizing biodiver- sity conservation and indigenous peoples’ livelihoods [9]. Alalili is one such traditional conser- vation system that is practiced by Maasai communities across East Africa to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable pasture management in rangelands [1, 4–6]. Having been practiced since the arrival of Maasai communities in East African rangeland around the 18th century [10–14], Alalili systems are currently regarded as useful traditional rangeland management initiatives [13, 15–17]. They are undertaken as alternative measures to alleviate the effects of declined pastoral mobility caused by land-use and land-cover changes (LULCC),

population increase, and climate change [5, 18, 19]. They can play important roles in the phase of global changes by promoting resilience in community livelihood and biodiversity conserva- tion which are significant economic dimensions for pastoral and agro-pastoral communities. They are useful fodder resources for both livestock and wildlife, potential pollinator conserva- tion areas, climate change mitigation sites through carbon sequestration, and nature-based res- toration solutions to degraded ecosystems [17, 20]. For instance, similar communal rangeland management systems, alternatively referred to as Maasai Olopololi, have been supportive of restoring the degraded grasslands during the regreening campaign of the Amboseli ecosystems in southern Kenya [21, 22]. They integrate human, livestock, and wildlife through the provi- sioning of useful habitats and breeding sites to thousands of organisms that depend on Alalili systems for their survival [11, 18]. They provide assurance to the endurance of wild space which maintains high levels of biodiversity while adding value to rangeland resilience over local climate change [15, 20, 23]. Having a close association with Alalili, the rangelands of northern Tanzania and southern parts of Kenya are significantly known to support millions of biota communities inclusive of the human population [5, 24, 25]. Community reliance on rangelands has been evident from the global, regional, and local perspectives whereby its average terrestrial landscape coverage is

approximated to be 47% globally, 36% in Asia, 30% in Africa, and 74% of the total land in Tan- zania [8, 25]. Although, recent studies report that rangelands are prone to global changes cou- pled with declined feed production, impacts of climate change, and loss of resistance as well as reduced sustainability [8, 26]. LULCC has led to intense environmental and socio-economic impacts that disrupt sustainable land use practices including rangelands leading to insufficient pastures [10, 27–31]. Pastoral communities adapted the traditional pasture conservation prac- tices as an alternative measure for restoring and strengthening the health of rangelands to sus- tain their productivity and livelihoods [1, 31–35]. In Asia particularly India, the system known as “sacred groves” is preserved for the purpose of social-cultural and religious practice [33, 36– 38]. In the Middle East on the other hand they practice imā as a reserved pasture, whereby trees and grazing lands are secured from indiscriminate harvest on a temporary or permanent basis [39]. In Africa, Kalo is a silvo-pastoral conservation system practiced by the Borana com- munities of Southern Ethiopia [40]. In Tanzania, Ngitili is practiced by Sukuma pastoralists, PLOS ONE Sustaining Alalili systems in rangelands of East Africa PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0303649 May 16, 2024 2 / 24 Funding: This work was funded by the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology through African Development Bank (AfDB) (Grant No: P-Z1-IA0-016), Higher Education

for Economic Transformation (HEET) project (Grant No: IDA68870) as well as the Rufford small research grants (Grant No: 37388-1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.