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PHOTOS: For Kenya’s Maasai, a new faith may undo age-old conservation traditions

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LOITA FOREST, Kenya — Wrapped in fingers of moss, where the spindly upper branches of giant trees tickle the clouds, a highland tropical forest conceals secret groves. These are where the local Maasai practice rites of passage and old religious beliefs that preserve this place. But as life, religions and the way people see land change in this remote corner of Kenya, some Maasai leaders, elders and environmentalists wonder whether tradition alone will be strong enough to protect the Loita Forest. The Loita Forest, also known as the Naimina Enkiyioo Forest, which means the Forest of the Lost Child, is named in memory of a young Maasai girl and the flock of sheep she was guarding.  As the tale goes, she vanished without trace when she ventured deep into this forest. Much of the valleys of the Loita hills are given over to small-scale, subsistence agriculture. Image by Stuart Butler. There’s no denying that Naimina Enkiyioo is a special place to get lost in. Although it’s an integral and important part of the greater Serengeti–Maasai Mara ecosystem, the landscape here is utterly different from that of the nearby grasslands and classic images of an East African safari. Deeply undulating, the valley floors are dotted with small Maasai villages, around which small-scale subsistence farming takes place. But otherwise, the bulging hills here, which reach elevations of up to 2,800 meters (9,200 feet), are covered in old-growth cloud forests dominated by giant cedar and podocarpus trees adorned with strangler vines and fluffy…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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