Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti

Ngorongoro Crater, a cold, cloudy morning. A male ostrich displays to his consort, an elegant, balletic performance.  She indicates her approval, and they mate.

A lioness lies by the road, hidden from a nearby wildebeest herd by the slope of a drainage ditch.  She focuses on 3 animals that are drifting closer to her as they feed.

Their path changes subtly; decision time. If she waits, they may walk out of range, but if she charges, she risks missing them as they are still a good distance away.  In the end, hunger drives her to make the attempt, and the startled gnus run panic-stricken from her.

Her presence is now known to all, so she decides to move on, try pastures new.  She walks surprisingly fast.  It is warm, approaching mid-day, an indication of how hungry she is.  She spots a lone zebra out in the plain - single animals are easier to approach than herds, which have the benefit of lots of eyes all looking out for threats; alone, the zebra must rely on its own senses to survive. 

She starts her stalk along a small gulley.  The zebra, unaware of the danger, moves onto more open ground.  Suddenly he spots her approach and stares at her, snorting. She realises the game is up and moves off once more.

From a small rise, she spots a line of wildebeest on the move.  She moves fast to intercept them, getting into position in a grassy thicket close to their line of march.  The herd keeps coming – it seems that they must walk right over her.  There is a sudden tawny blur, wildebeest scattering in all directions.  When the dust settles, she is left standing there.  She has missed again.  Frustrated, she lies down in the grass and begins to groom.  It’s not as easy as it looks being King (Queen?) of the Jungle.

Kogakuria Kopje, north Serengeti.  A dead spider lying on the path.  A wasp, shiny blue-black, emerges from a small hole, looks at the spider then continues excavating once more, showering earth particles backwards, like a dog digging.  After a few minutes of energetic excavation, the wasp returns and drags the spider into the hole, which looks far too small.  Somehow the wasp manages.

The spider isn’t dead at all.  The wasp has paralysed it’s prey with a carefully placed sting; it will now lay a single egg on the spider – the grub will be provisioned with plenty of fresh food when it hatches, a neat solution to the problem of food storage.  Not a great outcome for the spider though…

 Mara River.  Thousands of wildebeest are pouring across the river, a great honking, bleating, mooing horde, driven by some ancient urge, the-grass-grows-greener...

Some young animals, having already crossed once, decide to cross back again.  It's the wrong move for one unfortunate - a large, scaly head slices through the water, easily overtaking him.  There is a brief swirl and the water closes over his head.
Video - Mara crossing

On the side of a road,  a magnificent Martial Eagle, feeding on an Egyptian Goose.  He has plucked his prey and eaten most of it - there's not much left but the webbed pink feet.  The eagle pants hard, from the heat and overeating.

Midday, north Serengeti.  It’s hot.  In a thick tangle of branches atop a nearby rock, we can just make out a patch of patterned fur, a resting leopard.  We wait. There is a rustle in the bush and a lithe shape emerges onto the rock nearby, followed by another.  With a mix of flirtatiousness and much snarling and apparent ill will, they mate in the typically perfunctory manner of large cats.
Video - Leopards mating

Within minutes, they mate again – and then again.  But the level of hostility doesn’t abate one jot.

  

Kogakuria, early morning.  We heard lions roaring as we set off, so we are trying to track them down.  We try one set of rocks, where we estimate the sound came from but no joy. Then Jairo spots them, distant specks.  They appear to be on the move.  Hunting?  But all have full bellies.  There is a fresh kill nearby and one small lioness has blood on her neck.

One by one, the ladies move off, until we are left with two adult males and the small lioness.  Suddenly, mayhem – the males attack the female, who defends herself ferociously, lashing out at them.  They circle her, looking of ran opening, as she crouches, ears laid back against her skull, snarling and spitting.  They move in again and she launches herself at them, a blur of whirling claws and teeth.

The males roar at the morning sky, then move off, leaving her to lick her wounds.
Video - Lion fight

Wildlife Corridors: the migrating herds need them more than ever

When Tarangire National Park was gazetted, back in 1970, few foresaw the looming population explosion, or the farms that would spring up in what were then, important wet-season dispersal areas for migrating herbivores.


That has now come to pass. Populations of migrants such as wildebeest and zebra have crashed, largely cut off from their ancestral calving grounds.

AWF (African Wildlife Foundation) recognised the need to protect important game corridors outside National Parks, in order to keep the old migration routes open. An important (if controversial) move was the purchase of Manyara Ranch, a 44,000-acre chunk of land occupying a central position in the vital Kwakuchinja Corridor, connecting Tarangire to the nearby Lake Manyara National Park.
http://www.awf.org/content/solution/detail/3505/

This is an attempt to achieve that holy grail of wildlife management – involving the local community in a sustainable conservation model, to the benefit of both people and wildlife. I wish them well. National Parks in Tanzania are, on the whole, in pretty good shape. Sure, there are inevitable issues, such as poaching. But I think most people are reasonably confident that, in 50 years or so, the parks will still be wildlife havens, providing enormous enjoyment to many visitors – and vital dollars to the national coffers. The future for wildlife outside the protected areas is much less certain.

There are similar projects afoot elsewhere in the region: north of the border, in Kenya, the Northern Rangelands Trust works closely with local communities, helping them to set up conservancies with fancy lodges so they can benefit from their wildlife resources. So far, NRT is involved in projects involving 15 communities, thereby helping to conserve hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in northern Kenya.
http://nrt-kenya.org/home.html

Here in Tanzania, high flying hedge fund manager and hunter / conservationist Paul Tudor Jones has been investing heavily in the Grumeti Game Reserve and Ikorongo Game Control Area, two degraded hunting blocks, lying just outside the western boundary of Serengeti National Park. The project has had its ups and downs but the proof of the pudding is in the eating: a few years ago, you would have been hard pushed to find much game in this area, so bad was the poaching. Now, it offers first-class viewing, with plenty of important species such as cats and elephant as well as hordes of plains game. Importantly, it now serves as an excellent buffer for the western Serengeti, which has historically suffered from massive poaching and wood cutting. And their conservation arm is leading the charge in the planned re-introduction of black rhino into the Serengeti ecosystem, to bolster the existing population.
http://www.lexdon.com/article/Grumeti_Reserves_and_Paul_Tudor/49004.html

What these projects have in common is the recognition that, outside the parks, successful conservation requires involving local communities and relies on the profit motive: I will protect that which benefits me. In other words, enlightened self-interest.

Contrast this with the situation elsewhere, in areas beyond park boundaries and lacking free spending conservation-minded billionaires: wildlife numbers are plummeting; the mechanisms and methods employed by wildlife authorities are, on the whole, outdated and simply not up to the task of conservation in the modern era. A lot of stick and not much carrot. And did I mention leaden bureaucracy?

Official policy has it that wildlife is a tremendous resource, a precious source of revenue, something to be cherished and nurtured – a blessing. The reality on the ground is somewhat messier: wild animals eat your crops and livestock; they are a threat to kids on their way to school, or women collecting firewood; and it is virtually impossible to make money from this ‘resource’, thanks to the convoluted and expensive bureaucratic procedures mentioned above. A neat example: a friend running a local NGO recently told me that the cost of creating a WMA (Wildlife Management Area) which is the legal process for Villages to regain control over their natural resources and develop commercial community toursim projects, could run up to a quarter of a million US dollars. Villages in rural Tanzania don’t HAVE that kind of money, which means that conservation can only happen in conjunction with large NGO’s with deep pockets.

Which means, once again, dependence on foreign aid…
What it really means is that wild animals are only really of any value dead, cut up into pieces and sold off to townies as bush meat.

So bring on the new private initiatives: if the game is to survive outside the parks, we will need this kind of approach.

Silale Swamp, Tarangire and the Northern Serengeti

Silale has been providing great elephant viewing of late. It's gorgeous - a vivid, emerald swathe in the monochrome world of the dry, sepia season. In the heat of the midday sun, herds of elephant head to the water to drink and cool off. If you time it right, you can get amazingly close views.

We managed it perfectly a couple of weeks ago, waiting patiently as a herd moved down. They stopped, indecisive when they saw us but then moved on, reassured - a swirl of huge, grey bodies around the car, almost touching us, enfolding our small group in their herd. A cathedral moment for all of us.

Yesterday, we were in the same situation but with a totally different outcome. As soon as the herd spotted us, the elephants milled around in agitation, heads and tails up and ears held out. The matriarch ran at us for a few paces, shook her great head and trumpeted her displeasure. Obviously, this herd has had bad experiences with people and cars. What a terrific display though!

Lots of action on the Mara River in the northern Serengeti as well, with many crossings going both ways. (Why some pundits still think of the Migration as a geographically precise, circular motion, only crossing into Kenya between Aug and Sept and crossing back in October and November, I do not know).

We watched with sick fascination as a large croc cruised up to the swimming animals, nuzzled a couple speculatively before grabbing one. It held tight for 20 minutes or so, until the struggling stopped.....and then just opened its fearsome jaws and let it go. The carcass drifted slowly down with the current - what a waste! I imagine the croc was full after weeks of fresh wildebeest served up on a watery platter at each crossing but could not resist the sight of all that easy meat. Someone will have reaped the benefits of this windfall further downstream.

Controversy over the new road across the Serengeti

By Jules Knocker


Economic livelihood or conservation - which should win out or can both co-exist in relative harmony? Right now, the impassioned debate is focussed around a new, proposed road that crosses the north of the Serengeti National Park and which has received the go-ahead from the government, despite strong protests from environmentalists and reported opposition from TANAPA.

First, what is at stake?

The initial moves to establishing a quick commercial connection between Arusha and Lake Victoria were included in the election manifesto but the issue only really came to public notice two or three years ago. The plan is a road which will run from Mto wa Mbu, via Lake Natron, up to Wasso and west to Klein’s Gate on the park border. From there, it will cross the narrowest part of the Serengeti to Tabora B Gate and onto Mugumu and the Lake region.

The road would increase trade and services to an area of North Tanzania that has seen minimal benefits from the general development and infrastructure improvements happening in other parts of the country. It will provide a quick link between Lake Victoria and Arusha, enabling both regions to benefit. The road would bring improved access to hospitals and schools; enable small business to set up, and already established ones to flourish, by reducing the cost of operating and transporting goods; offer employment opportunities where there were few before. It will, no doubt, eventually bring the advantages of the national grid and access to reliable and cheap internet down the line. The quality of the daily life of many of the inhabitants of the region would improve. Regions of Tanzania that have been somewhat isolated, in one way or another, from the more prosperous eastern side of the country will be more accessible. The appeal of the project is clear, especially in an election year.

The current access to the Lake is a murram road, caught in a continual degrading cycle of erosion and repair, that goes between Karatu, around the Ngorongoro Crater rim, down to Naabi at the boundary of the Serengeti, Seronera, Ikoma and off to the Lake. The route is longer, crosses two major wildlife sanctuaries and is more expensive for the transit traveller than the proposed route.

On the conservation side, either road is a devastating and nett loss to the ecosystems and the effective husbanding of world- renowned natural resources. I suspect the extent of the impact of the new road is not easily predictable in advance and many of the changes or losses may not become apparent for several years, when the damage is done and it is too late to reverse. Let us not also forget the threat to tourism revenues, which play such a crucial role in government income and the health of the economy as a whole. A degrading of the tourism experience will lead to a drop in visitor numbers, as they look for other still-pristine environments.

On the current road, tourists, game, rickety buses and overloaded trucks fight it out along the dusty, bumpy length to the detriment of all. Accidents are quite common, as are road kills and the visitors’ experience of driving along such a busy highway is seriously poor. The road is not designed to cope with such heavy traffic and its very existence is anathema to a quality tourism product.

The new route goes through the fragile eco-system of the volcanic plains west of Mtu wa Mbu, the green season pastures of the Tarangire/Manyara migration route and Lake Natron, a crucial nesting place for flamingos and subject of a recent battle over a proposed soda factory by TATA, supported by the government, which was opposed successfully by environmentalists. It then comes up onto the Loliondo plains, currently a Game Controlled Area and hunting block and into the Serengeti. Here, it crosses one of the lesser developed but very rich areas of the National Park: an area which is host to the spectacular draw of the wildebeest migration driving across the Mara River in the dry season and sustains the herds when the rich grass of the southern Serengeti plains have been exhausted with the end of the rains. The lyrical scenery hosts a multitude of wildlife all year round, not least rhino and oribi. It is a quiet and relatively undisturbed paradise, both for animals and for tourists. The new road will put all this at risk.

The concerns are numerous: the increased human development that will come along the length of the road in the areas outside the National Park, which are currently lightly populated, allowing a large number of game to live relatively freely will slowly push out the game; the disturbance to the wildlife patterns which many fear will have a negative impact on wildlife numbers in genreal throughout the eco-systems. (The Tarangire/Manyara/Gelai Migration route is already under serious threat from agricultural development and the restriction of wildlife corridors around the Tarangire and Manyara National Parks). How will the flamingos react at their nesting sites on Lake Natron? Will the Migration be placed under damaging stress and will it reduce their numbers and reduce their ability to find adequate pasture and water that takes them thousands of kilometers each year? The increased pollution; the increasingly easy access for poachers; the degrading of the tourism experience, which will put the current attraction of the Serengeti as a must-see destination under question; the road kills (as everyone appreciates it is unrealistic to either build effective wildlife tunnels or put the road on raised pylons). And perhaps something that is often overlooked – it is unlikely that all transit, commercial traffic will be forcibly diverted to the new road as for some, the trip will be much longer. We will then end up with not one, but two, busy, commercial and destructive highways crossing the Serengeti at different points.

The government has deemed the negative impact on the environment to be outweighed by the economic benefits, but there is a concern that the decision makers have a greater understanding of, and interest in, the commercial sector than they do in the environment. Perhaps they believe that the tourism revenue will continue to flow, regardless of the quality of the experience and the impact of the road. Perhaps they are less interested in the potential knock-on effects of putting several ecosystems at risk as these cannot be clearly quantified in advance. TANAPA have stated that the decision is no longer in their hands. Frankfurt Zoological Society opposes the plan, as does the Africa Wildlife Foundation (follow this link for the AWF position - http://www.awf.org/documents/Serengeti_Road_Position_Statement.pdf). Environmentalists are up in arms and have taken their fight global. Articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Sunday Times, The East African as well as the local papers.

So, people or wildlife? Who gets to make the choice and who gets to live with the consequences?

Or is there another alternative?

For many years, the proposed route for a commercial link to The Lake was very different from the current one.

South.

Skirting Ngorongoro and Maswa Game Reserve to the south of the Serengeti, through Shinyanga and joining up to the lake. It is longer, and therefore more expensive to build, but it does not cross protected areas, it does not put eco-systems at risk, it does not threaten unique wildlife events and it does cross miles and miles of deprived areas where the local populations have long missed out on the benefits given to others. Same economic arguments but just a different group of people and greater numbers of people that would benefit. They are in the same situation as those in the north but perhaps they have even fewer opportunities available to them. At least there are noticeable rewards to be had from tourism already operating in the northern Serengeti and Natron area for some of the local residents. Looks like a win-win situation to me.

Why has this alternative been ignored? Why are the voices so insistent on a compromised and compromising plan that puts much at risk?