Pastoralists' Perception and Attitude on Invasion of Dichrostachys cinerea (sickle bush) in the Grazing Lands of Monduli District, Tanzania

This study aimed to assess Maasai pastoralists’ perception and attitude towards the spread and impacts of sickle bush (Dichrostachys cinerea) in their grazing lands. The study was conducted in three villages of Monduli district involving 156 randomly sampled households. Thirteen (13) purposively selected key informants (based on their merits) were interviewed and participant observation was also used in data collection. Quantitative data were analyzed by the SPSS software version 20, while qualitative ones were subjected to content analysis. Findings revealed that the current extent of the sickle bush has increased, with over 70% of the respondents proving this. About 82% of respondents revealed that the bush was present in their villages for a long time, although its invading effects have increased. Major reasons for this invasion were reported to include climate change and overgrazing. Furthermore, sickle bush was reported to take over the grazing lands. The bush is perceived as destructive by the Maasai community because it depletes the amount of forage for livestock grazing. It also provides suitable habitats for predators such as lions and enhances conflicts with livestock and humans.


Introduction
Livestock keepers in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa depend on natural rangelands for grazing (Baars, 2002;de Glanville et al., 2009).The same is true for the people of Monduli district, who are mostly Maasai herders and depend on the existing pastures in the grazing lands (Homewood et al., 2006).According to the TPP (Tanzania Partnership Program) report1 of 2019, 79% of people in Monduli are livestock keepers who directly depend on natural pastures.The presence of healthy rangelands is, therefore, key for sustainable livestock production.Any change that affects the pastures and grazing land affects livestock herders directly (Mutandwa and Mupangwa, 2007).Healthy rangelands are characterized by a high proportion of herbaceous plants with a reduced proportion of woody plant species (Ward, 2005).The increased abundance of woody plant species in the rangelands degrades these lands, hence, reducing their potential for grazing (Tefera et al., 2007) and affecting negatively the livestock production (Bonaudo et al., 2014).
Recently, there has been Dichrostachys cinerea (sickle bush) taking over the grazing lands in the Monduli district (TNC, 2021).Vegetation surveys on this bush have been done elsewhere, including Ethiopia (Bussa and Shibru 2020), Zimbabwe (Mudzengi et al., 2014) and South Africa (Randle et al., 2018); but the surveys alone are not enough since primary information from rangeland custodians (usually herder communities) is very helpful when improvement of the grazing lands is required (Reed et al., 2011).Many a times, researchers and development policies have not been keen to consider the experience and aspirations of pastoralists in improving grazing lands.This has led to many development interventions to fail (Galvin et al., 2001) Combining local knowledge and scientific measurements in rangelands can be very helpful in solving the problems that pastoralists are facing (Ayana and Oba 2008).According to Oba and Kaitira (2006), pastoralists are recognized for having sufficient knowledge of plant species that existed in the past.People also have knowledge about the changes occurring in their grazing lands, such as the increase in grazing pressure, invasion by invasive plants, bush take over, and climate change.They even know more palatable plants for livestock in their grazing lands.Thus, investigating pastoralists' perception and attitude will greatly contribute to the improvement of grazing lands ensuring sustainable livelihoods of the Maasai pastoralists in the study area.This study aimed at assessing pastoralist's perception and attitude on the invasion of sickle bush in the Maasai lands of Monduli district.Specifically, the study has the following objectives: (i) Assessing the perception and attitude of pastoralists on extent and distribution of sickle bush; (ii) Assessing the perception and attitude of pastoralists on impacts and alternative uses of sickle bush.

The Study Area
This study was conducted in the Monduli district in the Arusha region located in the north-eastern part of Tanzania having a latitude of 3°20′S and longitude of 36°15′E.The average annual rainfall of the district is below 600 mm per year.The majority of inhabitants of the Monduli district (97%) belong to the Maasai tribe (Kimaro et al., 2017), which is an Indigenous ethnic group of the Arusha region.Maasai are livestock-herding people (Homewood et al., 2006), and approximately 80% of people in this district earn their living by keeping livestock.The study involved three pastoral villages, Naitolia, Mswakini juu, and Mswakini chini, all located within the Kwakuchinja wildlife corridor separating the Manyara National Park and Tarangire National Park.Emelia Edwin Mguluka, Anthony Zozimus Sangeda, & Sharadhuli Iddi Kimera The research design adopted was a cross-sectional survey in which data were collected at a single point in time, combining two approaches that were qualitative and quantitative in nature.A qualitative method was based on open-ended questions exploring the perceptions and attitudes of participants on the invasion of sickle bush, while the quantitative method consisted of close-ended questions, such as demographic data and years spent in the study area.Data on perception and attitude towards the sickle bush invasion in Monduli district was collected between January and March 2023 using structured questionnaires that were prepared using a Kobo toolbox2 and pre-tested.The questionnaire data was supplemented by information collected from key informants using a questionnaire with open-ended questions.The selection of key informants was purposively done in each village.It included the village leaders, rangeland monitors, land planning leaders, religious leaders and pastoralists with big herds (Laigwanan); a total of 13 key informants were involved during this study.Further to key informants, participant observations were done to complement the two methods during the field survey.These methods were adopted because rapid assessment interviews with pastoralists were not much expensive and provided reliable information on rangeland trends (Jones et al., 2008).The questionnaires had open-ended and close-ended questions.During data entry, coding was done for open-ended questions.At the time of data collection, the respondents were contacted face to face by using the Kiswahili language with a local Maasai translator for respondents who were not conversant with the Kiswahili language.

Sampling and Sample Size
The sample size for the household survey was 156 households.The estimation of this sample size was inspired by the work of Theodory and Yamat (2014) and Kima et al. (2015).This was 10% of the household population in these three villages.The decision to adopt this sample size was due to its proven effectiveness in similar research content, its compatibility with the study objectives and the nature of the study area.The sample sizes from each village were as follows: Naitolia (n=45), Mswakini chini (n=61), and Mswakini juu (n=50).From each household, a single person (in most cases, head of the household) was interviewed.The villages were sampled purposively due to the presence of sickle bush, while the households were randomly selected for the questionnaire survey.

Data Analysis
The collected data from the household survey were downloaded from Saver; cleaned, coded in Microsoft Excel ® spreadsheet and exported to Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 for analysis.Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, means, and percentages were employed.Information collected from key informants was analyzed by filtering the discussion points to get the content in every particular context (content analysis).Most of these data were used to triangulate information generated through questionnaire surveys.

Demographic Information of the Surveyed Population
The average total family size of the studied households was eight (8) persons.The age of respondents in all villages varied between 18 and 86 with an average age of 41 years.The respondents were 50.6% females and 49.4% males.The high rate of female respondents is attributed to their availability at homesteads during data collection.This is because most Maasai women are housekeepers who, most of the time, remain at home, while different age groups of men are out for different activities related to herding (Omolo, 2010;Ongoro and Ogara, 2011;Admasu et al. 2010).About 89.7% of all the surveyed respondents were married, 5.8% were single, and 4.5% were widows.The education level of the respondents (Figure 2) shows a higher level of illiteracy among females compared to the males.About 39.2% of females have no access to formal education compared to 20.8% of males.male(%) Emelia Edwin Mguluka, Anthony Zozimus Sangeda, & Sharadhuli Iddi Kimera to tertiary education.The higher level of illiteracy among females in Maasai societies was also reported by Bobadoye et al. (2016).This tendency is associated with less access to information hindering their decision-making ability (Dong et al., 2007).According to Berger (2003), less education also affects the contribution of women in rangeland resources management.The latter may lead to long-term impacts on the society's well-being.Furthermore, illiteracy has been reported to increase the risk of poverty (Sulla and Zikhali, 2018).

Source of Income of the Surveyed Population
Results revealed about 99.4% of the surveyed respondents were the owners of livestock and only 0.6% did not own any livestock.The main economic activity for all the respondents was livestock keeping with 93.6% of the respondents depending on livestock keeping and small-scale farming as their source of income, while 5.1% were doing livestock keeping only (Figure 3).Homewood et al. (2006), Mubezi (2011) and Theodory and Yamat (2014).The majority of the respondents reported a continuous reduction of forage for their animals.They further reported that the reduction of forage has led to a considerable death of animals, especially during prolonged dry seasons.One of the key informants from Naitolia village (58 years) was recorded saying, "I lost almost thirty cattle during the previous dry season; I have only three cattle now, few goats and sheep, which are not enough to cover my family's economic and social demands".This scarcity of forage has even forced most of the pastoralists to start engaging in crop farming, which was not a tradition in the past years.However, the returns from crop farming were reported to be low due to poor land conditions not favouring arable farming.The same was also reported by Chimonyo et al. (2000) and Gyde et al. (2007) who proved the unsuitability of rangelands for crop farming.

Condition of the Grazing Lands in the Study Area
During this study, different tools were used to assess the perception of the community on the grazing land condition, including the vegetation type.About 78.8% of the respondents reported that, previously, their grazing lands were dominated by

Livestock keeping alone
Other activities Livestock keeping and small scale crop farming Emelia Edwin Mguluka, Anthony Zozimus Sangeda, & Sharadhuli Iddi Kimera edible herbaceous plant species.And, 94.9% of the respondents said that herbaceous plants were mostly preferred by livestock (see Table 1).The dominant plants that were said to exist in the past included Themeda triandra (Ol-kujita onyokie), Cynodon dactlyon (Ol-Murua) and Cencrus sps (O-sankash and Ol-o-gor oingok).
These key forage species have decreased tremendously, and are no longer available as proved through personal observation.It was also confirmed by one of the key informants (65 years old) in Mswakini chini village, "We used to roof our houses with Themeda triandra (red oat grass) and Hyparrhenia rufa (giant thatching grass) that were plenty, but now they are found nowhere in our grazing lands".Observation has also proved the presence of sickle bush and some other undesirable plant species dominating the grazing lands of these villages (Figure 4).This change in species composition has also been reported by Tokozwayo et al. (2018) where the pastoralists revealed that they have been noticing the replacement of palatable plants with bushes due to overgrazing.These changes in plant composition and structure have made livestock keepers in Monduli District alter the types of livestock, from more cattle to more goats, as reported by 90.4% of the respondents.It is revealed that they regarded goats as the best option because goats can browse woody plants.Goats are browsers and, therefore, easily adapt to climate change and have lower nutritional demands compared to cattle.This fact has also been reported elsewhere by Peacock (2005), Aziz (2010) and Marchant (2016).Economically, this phenomenon actually leads to a decline in herders' livelihoods, since the economic returns from goats are smaller compared to larger animals like cattle (Dovie et al., 2006).Furthermore, keeping more than one species of livestock (diversification) is a safe way of combating economic risks caused by climate change (Dovie et al., 2006).Traditionally, Maasai pastoralists consider cattle herds as their live banks (ATM machines), which is their means of savings (Kassahun et al., 2008;Quinlan et al., 2016).So, the forced reduction of cattle due to invasion of sickle bush challenges cultural traditions also, because in Maasai societies, cattle hold a greater significance than goats (Quinlan et al., 2016).Cattle have many other social and cultural functions in the pastoral society, in addition to economic value.This change in livestock portfolio has also been reported by Abule (2008) and Yassin (2019), who investigated the impacts of bush invasion in Ethiopia where pastoralists shifted from rearing more cattle to more camels and goats.Pastoralists reported different challenges grouped into four major categories, including livestock diseases, bush invasion, shortage of forage, livestock theft, predation by wild animals, and shortage of water.Among these, a shortage of forage was frequently reported by 24% respondents (Table 2).The reasons for the forage shortage were claimed to be caused by the effects of climate change, invasion by bushes, mainly sickle bush (Dichrostachys cinerea), and an increase in the population of people and livestock.This is in agreement with what was reported by Opiyo (2014).The less frequently reported challenge was livestock theft (6%), where most of the respondents revealed that there was enough security in the villages.The Maasai community of the study area names this bush plant as Endundulu or Ndundulu in the Maasai language.About 82% of the respondents said that the bush was present in their localities a long time ago.However, 13% claimed to have started hearing about it recently, and the remaining 5% have no idea (Figure 5).Those who claimed it to be new in their place said that it comes from neighbouring Tarangire National Park and Manyara Ranch.These results suggest that the plant is native to this place, as also reported by Orwa et al. (2009).
Figure 5: Sickle bush Evolution in the Study Area Though the invading effects of this plant have been increasing recently, about 78.8% of the respondents reported this plant as continuously increasing in extent.Reasons for the increase include the effects of climate change, overgrazing and other unknown factors (Figure 6).Some of the reported factors are in agreement with the findings by Yusuf et al. (2011), who reported the factors, like climate change, fire suppression, overgrazing, and changes in land use practices, as prime causes for bush invasion.The rapid increase may be due to the rapid reproduction of this plant through seeds and lateral roots.This was noted by one of the key informants (58 years old) who was quoted saying, "This plant produces a lot of roots that develop into new plants." According to Orwa et al. (2009) and Mudzengi et al. (2014), these plants tend to have a lot of lateral roots, which are capable of undergoing prolific reproduction from the root suckers.Participant observation also confirmed the presence of many lateral roots extending from a single plant.More observation revealed that this plant has mainly invaded in Naitolia's grazing lands, particularly in Engusero, in the Randillen area within the grazing lands of Mswakini juu village, in some parts of Mswakini chini's grazing land and inside Manyara ranch nearby these villages.

Communities' Attitude towards the Presence of Sickle Bush in the Study Area
Table 4 shows the attitude of the respondents towards the presence of sickle bush in the grazing lands of their respective villages.A large proportion showed a negative attitude towards this plant (52% of the female respondents and 66% of males).When comparing the attitude among females and males, most females had a positive attitude (48%) than males (26%).This was due to the claimed use of sickle bush as a source of firewood and as an ingredient for washing gourds by women.This difference in attitude may be due to less exposure of women to grazing activity and less exposure of men to domestic activities (Tulu & Dawa, 2010), such as firewood fetching.According to Rudman et al. (2007), expressed attitudes are a result of encountered events.

Perception towards the Importance and Utilization of Sickle Bush in the Study Area
Most of the surveyed respondents (59%) said that this plant is not important in their grazing lands (Table 5).The reasons for it being 'not important' were grouped into three categories which were: (i) Hiding wild animals, (ii) Affecting herbaceous pasture production, (iii) Difficult penetration of both animals and humans (Figure 7).These impacts caused by this plant are similar to what was reported by Dalle et al. (2006) when researching the impacts of this woody plants on pastoralists.The majority of those who claimed it to be 'important' said that they used the plant as a source of firewood for domestic cooking.
Figure 7: Reasons for sickle bush not being Important Many responses on the uses of the bush were given and grouped into six categories as shown in figure 8.Among these responses, the source of fuel was frequently reported (33.33%) followed by no use (24.2%).Respondents claimed this bush to be useless 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Hiding wild animals
Affecting pasture growth Difficult penetration because the advantages provided, such as firewood, are also provided by other useful plants in the area.The negative impacts it brings are huge compared to the advantages.For instance, one key informant (37 years old) from Mswakini juu village claimed that there are so many plants which give out better fuel and nutritious fodder than sickle bush.Maasai herders suggested several mechanisms to manage the bush.About 58% recommended slashing and uprooting the plant to kill the roots.Other respondents thought prescribed burning could be better as the bush has invaded a larger area of grazing land; this has also been suggested in the study by Oluwole & Sikhalazo (2008).According to Belayneh & Tessema (2017), the use of fire is the best way of preventing open grasslands from bush invasion than managing bushes in grasslands.
Since the bush is edible by browsers, others recommended to increase the number of goats and reducing cattle.Other studies have suggested the alternative use of sickle bush as a medicinal plant (Martínez and Estévez, 2020), as it has been reported to cure malaria, diabetes and diarrhoea, and to help the childbirth (  Jaganathan, 2021).Further studies are important to ensure effective use of it as a medicinal plant and mechanical de-bushing (Shikangalah & Mapani, 2020).

Conclusions and Recommendations
The results have shown that the sickle bush is a native plant that has currently been increasing in extent in the studied villages.This increase in extent has been attributed to climate change, overgrazing, and other unknown factors.Takeover by the bush has created several problems for Maasai pastoralists, including reduction of forage production and, subsequently, economic and social well-being.The invasion by sickle bush has forced pastoralists to change the type of animals to keep, from more cattle to more goats, due to changes in plant species composition.Economically, this change may cause a decline in herders' livelihoods because the economic returns from goats are shorter compared to cattle.Moreover, cattle have more social and cultural functions in pastoral society compared to goats.The bushes also hide predator animals, which kill the livestock and threaten people's safety.Generally, this bush is negatively perceived by pastoralists; and integrated management to reduce the bush on their grazing lands is inevitable.Hence, the management may be facilitated by further research on its ecology and interaction with other plants in the grazing lands.
Interventions involving pastoral communities are very important and urgent to aid the restoration of these grazing lands.Moreover, proper grazing practices are important in the villages to avoid further takeover by this plant in non-invaded areas.

Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the TPP (Tanzania Partnership Program) for their financial support, and the local leaders and pastoralists of Mswakini juu, Mswakini chini and Naitolia villages for their participation in this study.We also thank all our research assistants/enumerators who assisted in data collection.
of the respondents was taken under this study before the face-to-face interviews and interactions.
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Competing Interests/Conflict of Interest Author(s) has/have no competing financial, professional, or personal interests from other parties or in publishing this manuscript.There is no conflict of interest with the publisher or the editorial team or the reviewers.

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Figure 1 :
Figure 1: The map showing the location of the study villages 2.2 Research Design and Data Collection

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Education level of the respondentsResults also show that 41.8% of females received primary education compared to 59.7% of males.Surprisingly, none of the surveyed population of females have access

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Economic activities of the respondents This shows that the Maasai community of Monduli district is livestock-dependent, similar to what has been reported byHomewood et al. (2006),Mubezi (2011) andTheodory and Yamat (2014).The majority of the respondents reported a continuous reduction of forage for their animals.They further reported that the reduction of forage has led to a considerable death of animals, especially during prolonged dry seasons.One of the key informants from Naitolia village (58 years) was recorded

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Pictorial representation of sickle bush in the grazing land of Mswakini Juu and Naitolia villages, Monduli, Tanzania.Photographs were taken in February, 2023 (Photo credit: E. Mguluka)

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: Factors for an increasing extent of the sickle bush in the study area 3.6 Perception on Extent and Distribution of Sickle BushAbout 78.8% of the respondents revealed that the current extent of the sickle bush is larger compared to the previous 10-20 years as shown in table3.It means that the bush has been increasing similar to reported case by The Nature Conservancy (TNC, 2021).

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: Pictorial representation of sickle bush in the grazing land of the Mswakini juu village, Monduli district, Tanzania.Photograph was taken in February, 2023 (Photo credit: P. Laizer).

Figure 8 :
Figure 8: Local uses of sickle bush in the study area

Table 1 :
Pasture availability compared to 10-20 years ago and the type of plants that were mostly available and preferred in the grazing lands

Table 2 :
Challenges faced by pastoralists in the grazing area 3.5 Sickle Bush Evolution in the Study Area

Table 3 :
Current extent of the sickle bush (Dichrostachys cinerea) compared to 10-20 table 3. It means that the bush has been increasing similar to reported case by The Nature Conservancy (TNC, 2021).

Table 4 :
The attitude towards the presence of sickle bush in the grazing lands

Table 5 :
Importance of sickle bush in the grazing lands Subramaniam &