ABSTRACT
The fifteen million people who live on transhumant stockbreeding are a gaping problem for the governments of sub-Saharan Africa. Settling them is seen as a way to get their hands on the livestock wealth, but attempts to accomplish this have failed. The governments and international agencies have intervened when the herders were hit by food crises especially when these crises were because of restrictions imposed on stock movements through established boundaries for grazing and tightened border controls between states. However, herders have poured into the camps without cattle; or they have tried to rebuild their herds by returning to the nomadic life. Between nomadism and settlement, there are many intermediate forms. Until the seventies the Tanzanian government promoted and financially supported a huge intervention in the area: the Masai Project. The movements of people and animals depend on the state of the pastures and availability of water.
