Give reasons to explain why the Maasai community lost their grazing lands.

Before colonial times, Maasailand stretched over a vast area from north Kenya to the steppes of northern Tanzania. The Maasai community lost their grazing lands due to following reasons:

1. In the late nineteenth century, European imperial powers scrambled for territorial possessions in Africa, slicing up the region into different colonies. In 1885, Maasailand was cut into half with an international boundary between British Kenya and German Tanganyika. Subsequently, the best grazing lands were gradually taken over for white settlement and the Maasai were pushed into a small area in south Kenya and north Tanzania.
2. Maasai were confined to an arid zone with uncertain rainfall and poor pastures which were further exploited.
3. From the late nineteenth century, the British colonial government in east Africa also encouraged local peasant communities to expand cultivation. As cultivation expanded, pasturelands were turned into cultivated fields.
4. Large areas of grazing land were also turned into game reserves like the Maasai Mara and Samburu National Park in Kenya and Serengeti Park in Tanzania.