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New research shows that letting cattle graze in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya had almost no discernible positive or negative effect on the ecological well-being of the reserve. According to Bilal Butt, associate professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), this provides important context for land that welcomes tourists while excluding Indigenous farmers, sometimes violently. 

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by Butt and Wenjing Xu, who was a postdoctoral researcher at SEAS, and focused on measuring and quantifying the impact of the Maasai’s cattle grazing practices.

Butt says he hopes the findings of this study will help reshape how people think about who gets to use land and for what. 

“People always say the livestock are bad, but where is this idea coming from? It’s coming from research that doesn’t accurately understand how Indigenous people and their livestock interact with the landscape,” Butt said. “We wanted to do something that was based in their lived reality.”

Read the full press release on the Michigan News website.

Study: Rethinking livestock encroachment at a protected area boundary