For the indigenous pastoralists Maasai of northern Tanzania, access and control of land (and the pasture and water on it) signifies life in its entirety. Land sustains their livestock which is their main livelihood and a central symbol of their social and cultural identity. Additionally land holds and safeguards their sacred sites and herbs of medicinal and spiritual significance. These resources affect and shape their lives at personal and community levels.
For these communities, climate change mainly translates to longer and more frequent droughts and pasture and water scarcity, which threaten their livelihoods, food security, and traditional way of life. Pastoralist women, youth, and people living with disabilities are especially vulnerable, facing structural barriers that make it harder to respond to crises.
As an organization led by and that focuses on the needs of Indigenous pastoralist women, the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) has witnessed the profound effects of climate change on the women and communities we serve. For nearly a decade, we have committed to empowering Indigenous women, girls and communities across northern Tanzania’s Ngorongoro, Monduli, Longido and Simanjiro districts to combat climate change. Our primary strategy involves facilitating
the development of inclusive, participatory and collective plans for climate change adaptation and resilience initiatives. We have achieved this through co-creating collective and contextually appropriate Climate Action Plans (CAPs), which harness and document the traditional ecological wisdom of these Indigenous communities on environment protection and climate change adaptation.
The process of developing these collective and participatory CAPs involves three distinct but interrelated steps as follows:
Step 1: Community sensitization about climate change and its effects on the environment, natural resources and household livelihoods. This sensitization is conducted by staff, trained community champions and regional and district government officials, mainly from the community development, land administration and environment departments.
Step 2: Collective and participatory (involving men, women, youth and other vulnerable groups) identification and assessment of climate change with the local community using the Pamoja Voices Climate Resilience Planning Toolkit. This toolkit was jointly developed by PWC, other like-minded and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and has been immensely instrumental in ensuring the CAPs development process centers the meaningful participation of women, men and youth and climate debates and plans capture and take into consideration their unique needs and priorities.
Step 3: Development of collective Climate Action Plans (CAPs) that detail the community’s actions to protect the environment and adapt to climate change. Actions include tree planting/ reforestation, protecting water sources, rangelands/pasture land restoration, digging wells for water access, and income diversification. Immediately after the development of the CAPs, a gender-equitable coordination committee is established (members are elected from the village assembly) to spearhead the coordination and implementation of the CAPs.
Step 4: Together with the gender-equitable coordination committee, community leaders and champions, advocacy towards the adoption of the CAPs in Village/Ward Development Committees (WDC) and District Government master and annual plans and budgets is conducted to ensure the effective resourcing and implementation of the CAPs.
In Leremeta village, located in Longido District, hundreds of households and their livestock have been forced to relocate to the highlands due to consecutive years of low rainfall, leading to pasture and water scarcity. This migration primarily involves young and middle-aged men moving with the livestock to temporary settlements, leaving women behind to care for children, the elderly, and weak livestock unable to travel long distances.
In December 2023, the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) organized inclusive community meetings involving women, men, youth, traditional leaders, and local government representatives from sub-villages to district levels. Together, they developed actionable plans to mitigate and adapt to climate change adversities in 10 villages across Longido District, including Leremeta.
In this village, water and pasture scarcity were identified as key effects of climate change, resulting in malnourishment and death of livestock; livelihood disruption; food and nutritional insecurity; more breakouts of zoonoses, water-, food- and vector-borne diseases; and increased human-wildlife conflicts. Community sensitization on climate change, land restoration, water source protection, investment in alternative livestock feeds, rainwater harvesting, sustainable land use plans, and investment in disease and climate-resilient livestock and crop breeds as well as adoption of sustainable and profitable livestock management practices were identified as key actions to enhance community resilience. The community, local government, PWC, and other like-minded organizations were identified as key stakeholders to monitor and support the implementation of these plans over the next 10 years.
After the development of these plans, the village assembly elected a gender-equitable committee comprising community representatives to champion Leremeta village’s Climate Action Plans (CAPs). A pivotal achievement of this committee, in collaboration with similar structures from nine other villages benefiting from the initiative, is the approval and integration of the CAPs into the Longido District Council’s 10-year Climate Change Master Plan which ensures that the CAPs are receive budgetary allocations from the government and will be prioritised by other stakeholders including CSOs with aligned priorities working in the district. For the year financial year 2024/2025, the Longido district Council has committed approximately $ 12,000 for the implementation of these CAPs. This ensures the continuation of these initiatives beyond the project-based grants typically relied upon by the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC), which are often limited, rigid, and time-constrained
Alongside the residents of these ten villages—Leremeta, Magazine, Loondolowo, Gilai-Meirugoi, Olopolosek, Ranchi, Mairowa, Kiserian, Engikaret, and Tingatinga—the PWC team celebrates this significant milestone. It stands as a testament to our collaborative endeavours with the community and government to enhance accountability, deepen, and scale up locally-driven interventions for climate change adaptation and resilience building.
In addition to facilitating the development of and advocating for public funding for CAPs, PWC also implements initiatives around rangeland/ pastureland land restoration through the cultivation of indigenous grass and establishment of grass seed banks, construction of simply energy-efficient cooking stoves, installation of domestic rainwater harvesting systems, clean water access by drilling deep water boreholes, enhancing land tenure security for communities and women, and livelihood
diversification to empower indigenous pastoralist women and communities across northern Tanzania to respond to the challenges posed by climate change effectively.
In conclusion, we are proud that our climate change adaptation work continues to gain recognition. On December 4th, the PWC collective received the Local Adaptation Champions Award from the Global Centre on Adaptation during the COP 28 meeting in Dubai. The Award’s official press statement and video can be viewed here and here.