Título: Maasai people
Seção: Influences from the outside world
Background: Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known local populations due to their residence near the many game parks of the African Great Lakes, and their distinctive customs and dress.The Maasai speak the Maa language (ol Maa), a member of the Nilo-Saharan family that is related to Dinka and Nuer languages. Some have become educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili and English.

Conteúdo: Maintaining a traditional pastoral lifestyle has become increasingly difficult due to outside influences of the modern world. Garrett Hardin's article, outlining the "tragedy of the commons", as well as Melville Herskovits' "cattle complex" helped to influence ecologists and policy makers about the harm Maasai pastoralists were causing to savannah rangelands. This concept was later proven false by anthropologists but is still deeply ingrained in the minds of ecologists and Tanzanian officials. This influenced British colonial policy makers in 1951 to remove all Maasai from the Serengeti National Park and relegate them to areas in and around the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). The plan for the NCA was to put Maasai interests above all else, but this promise was never met.The spread of HIV was rampant. Due to an increase in Maasai population, loss of cattle populations to disease, and lack of available rangelands because of new park boundaries and the incursion of settlements and farms by other tribes (this is also the chief reason for the decline in wildlife-habitat loss, with the second being poaching), the Maasai were forced to develop new ways of sustaining themselves. Many Maasai began to cultivate maize and other crops to get by, a practice that was culturally viewed negatively. Cultivation was first introduced to the Maasai by displaced WaArusha and WaMeru women who were married to Maasai men; subsequent generations practiced a mixed livelihood. To further complicate

user: What kind of influences from the outside world is the article pertaining to?

assistant: Maintaining a traditional pastoral lifestyle has become increasingly difficult due to outside influences of the modern world.

user: Has this been a positive thing for them or negative?

assistant: The plan for the NCA was to put Maasai interests above all else, but this promise was never met.The spread of HIV was rampant.

user: What problems are they having?

assistant: Due to an increase in Maasai population, loss of cattle populations to disease, and lack of available rangelands because of new park boundaries

user: Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?

assistant: The emerging forms of employment among the Maasai people include farming, business

user: What kind of lifestyle do they have?

assistant: the Maasai were forced to develop new ways of sustaining themselves.

user: What have they done to prevent bad influences from the outside world?

assistant: This influenced British colonial policy makers in 1951 to remove all Maasai from the Serengeti National Park

user: Why would they do that?

assistant: ). The plan for the NCA was to put Maasai interests above all else,

user: Are they causing problems that would make the policy makers treat them so badly?

assistant: The spread of HIV was rampant.

user: Is anyone doing anything to try to help them?

assistant: many projects have begun to help Maasai tribal leaders find ways to preserve their traditions while also balancing the education needs of their children for the modern world.