Arusha – The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority is investigating the deaths of 10 lions found in Ndutu, Endulen ward, as Maasai pastoralists raise concern that a reported temporary restriction on access to grazing areas could become part of a wider drive to move residents from the conservation area.
NCAA said in its September 19 public notice that the lions were found dead on September 18 and preliminary findings suggested they may have ingested poison. The authority said it had begun an expert investigation to establish the cause and identify those responsible.
That finding is preliminary, not a toxicology result. NCAA personnel said samples had been sent for laboratory analysis, two dead hyenas had also been found, and one ill lion was receiving treatment; they said neither the cause of the deaths nor responsibility had been conclusively established, according to reports.
NCAA officials also said the pride had killed a giraffe on September 16 and two donkeys the next morning before the lions fell ill. That chronology does not establish a retaliatory poisoning theory, as some have suggested, and no suspect, toxicology result or evidence linking the deaths to livestock owners had been made public by September 22.
Ngorongoro District Commissioner Wilson Sakulo told Land Dwellers that residents should stop taking livestock to Ndutu until the inquiry was completed. He said the purpose was precautionary: if poison had been used, allowing livestock into the area could expose them to the same risk.
READ MORE: Ngorongoro’s Mixed Land Use Model ‘No Longer Sustainable,’ Presidential Commission Finds
The reported instruction has become contentious because Ndutu and Oldupai are important dry-season grazing areas for some Endulen residents, according to a statement by the Maasai International Solidarity Alliance.
Dennis Oleshangai, a lawyer from the area, told Land Dwellers that a district commissioner lacked the legal authority to impose such a restriction, while community activist Kitende Gabriel called for NCAA and residents to share information and agree on a durable solution.
The actual written directive, its boundaries, duration and legal basis were not publicly available by September 22. NCAA’s lion-death notice does not announce a livestock restriction, and The Chanzo couldn’t find any published NCAA order or Gazette notice establishing a new Ndutu or Oldupai closure.
The law gives NCAA express power to restrict or control the introduction, grazing, watering and movement of livestock where necessary for conservation. However, it requires an order to follow specified publication or local-posting procedures. It also does not expressly give the same power to a district commissioner.
Whether the reported instruction is legally effective therefore depends on the instrument itself, including whether it was made by NCAA, issued under another law or backed by a valid delegation. The restriction could therefore not be treated as an established new policy until the document is produced.
The Maasai International Solidarity Alliance has condemned the lion deaths and called for a prompt, transparent, independent and participatory investigation. It said no public forensic results, suspects or evidence linked the lions’ deaths to pastoralists, and alleged that restrictions could be used to justify further limits on grazing and the government’s relocation programme.
Those claims have not been established by the investigation, and The Chanzo couldn’t locate any government or NCAA announcement that links the deaths to a new relocation measure. The alliance’s concern nonetheless arises in a policy dispute that predates the Ndutu incident.
Tanzania told UNESCO in May that two presidential commissions had concluded that Ngorongoro’s existing multiple-land-use model was unsustainable and recommended enhancing voluntary relocation, reviewing the NCA Act and improving community engagement. The government has maintained that relocation is voluntary and denied allegations of forced eviction or suspended services.
The full commission reports have not been publicly released, but the relocation commission, while presenting its findings to President Samia Suluhu Hassan in March, said that 1,678 of about 23,000 households, or 7.3 per cent, had moved at the time of its assessment and identified shortcomings in participation and incentive arrangements.
The World Heritage Committee has asked Tanzania not to decide to abandon the multiple-land-use model before full consultation and a joint UNESCO, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) mission.
READ MORE: Civil Society Groups Reject Ngorongoro Reports, Demand End to Relocations
United Nations human-rights mechanisms have separately recorded allegations of pressure on residents through restrictions on grazing, water and services, while Tanzania disputes those accounts.
Observers are asking whether any restriction will be clearly defined, time-limited, and grounded in science. They want the NCAA to determine what killed the lions without apportioning blame before the evidence is in — and they argue that publishing both the findings and the legal basis for access controls is essential to public confidence.
