Help Establish the Simanjiro Savory Hub!
Regenerating the World's Grasslands and Saving Maasai Livelihoods
Connecting our Land in Simanjiro, Tanzania to a Powerful Global Network
Life has not been easy for the Maasai of East Africa.
It has become increasingly challenging to continuing to practice a traditional pastoral lifestyle, raising livestock and caring for large extended families.
Climate change has led to years of drought and the Maasai of Tanzania have recently been told to relocate from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.
Many of you have asked what Terrawatu can do to assist in this situation. After months of research and exploration we are happy to share that we have found a solution.
Terrawatu's Founding Co-Director Lekoko Ole Sululu has had land in Simanjiro District for several years. Between Ngorongoro and Tarangire National Park, this area is ideal for livestock keeping combined with agriculture.
Sululu moved his cows to Simanjiro and started to farm on the land.
The drought was bad, so we installed a borehole with a solar pump so the cows didn’t die. His team there started selling water to their Maasai neighbours.
Sululu began encouraging his Maasai people to get some land in Simanjiro and move there as it is ideally located in and near ancestral lands.
Feeling like there was so much more that could be done on this land instead of scrambling to survive by haphazardly cobbling together traditional livestock keeping with farming and other businesses, Dr. Tanya re-connected with Allan Savory who she met at a TED talk audition in Johannesburg many years ago.
Savory Institute’s mission is to regenerate the world’s grasslands. Their vision is in complete alignment with Terrawatu’s: indigenous know-how integrated with cutting-edge science, working with both ways of knowing to create a resilient future.
Ole Sululu and his apprentice Edward travelled to Kenya in May 2024 to visit the Savory Hub there in the Maasai Mara.
They were so impressed with what they learned they implemented practices immediately back in Simanjiro.
The Maasai wives and mothers are so happy to have more milk to nourish themselves and their children.
Terrawatu applied to become a Savory Hub and has been accepted!
Sululu is building cottages on the land to start to prepare to become a Savory Hub and train his neighbours on holistic land management.
Starting in June 2025, Terrawatu has 18 months to train up Sululu and Edward and implement plan to become a full-fledged accredited Savory Hub.
Maasais from around the region will come and learn how to continue their pastoral lifestyle, scientifically-enhanced to create healthier livestock, farmland, grasslands, and communities.
To begin the training and accreditation process, we need $10,000 to pay for travel, activation, and launch activities.