Storm over new by-laws to bar sale of curios in Maasai Mara lodges, hotels

Maasai women display beads, bangles and clubs to tourists visiting Amboseli National Park. [File, Standard]

A storm is brewing between hotel owners within the Maasai Mara ecosystem and the County Government of Narok over a proposal to ban the sale of curios in lodges, tented camps, and hotels.

According to Assembly Speaker David Ole Dikirr, the move is intended to empower women, improve sustainable development, and alleviate poverty.

Addressing a public baraza at Engos Nanyokie in Trana Mara South sub-county, Mr Dikirr said the proposed legislation would bar tourist establishments from selling bead products and traditional artifacts in their shops to tourists.

The proposal comes in the back of other laws implemented by the county government in an effort to improve the management of the Maasai Mara National Game Reserve that have tremendously changed the mode of operation for businesses.

Among the new legislation is the ban of the use of private vehicles for game drives by hotels inside the park and an order for all hotels to employ 70 percent of locals in their workforce.

Dikirr said the new regulations are meant to ensure that the local community benefits fully from the natural resources.

“The MCAs especially those from wards bordering the Maasai Mara game reserve and conservancies around it should table the motion on the floor of the house so that the selling of beadwork products to tourist businesses should be left solely to women traders at the entrances of the park, hotels curio shops and airstrips,” said Dikirr.

If the proposed law is put in place, no hotels, lodges, or tented camps would be allowed to sell the products to tourists.

It would enable Masai women to sell the products outside the park to improve their earnings.

This is the second attempt by the county government to deny the hotels the curio business in favour of locals.

In June 2020, attempts by the immediate former Governor Samuel Tunai hit a snug after the assembly failed to initiate the process to formulate the regulations.

Dikirr said Lolgorian ward representative Michael Ole Seme and his Siana Ward counterpart Moses Ole Sikona whose wards border the Maasai Mara have begun the process to formulate the law.

Governor Patrick Ole Ntutu who attended the meeting said the aim is geared towards empowering women from pastoral communities through community-based tourism to get them into commercial beadworks through the co-operative model of doing business.