| Global day planned to halt Serengeti project | Send to a friend |
| Saturday, 05 March 2011 11:05 |
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The Serengeti ecosystem (the Serengeti National Park and the Masai Mara Reserve in Kenya) is in imminent danger of being lost. A plan by the Tanzanian government will cut a commercial highway through the Serengeti that will bring thousands of trucks a day through a wilderness area critical to the great migration. It will mean the end of the Serengeti as we know it. Holding a special Serengeti Day will focus world attention to this crisis. It will also help bring the facts to the people of Tanzania, who have not been told the truth about this highway. What is being planned so far for the day? Many countries around the world have their own organizers who are coordinating activities and helping to publicize the issue. People will be hosting awareness parties, doing letter and postcard writing campaigns, walking to raise funds and awareness, and even bringing this into the schools with a special curriculum. The most immediate issue facing the Serengeti is a road plan that would cut the park in half. How will this impact the wildlife? The proposed road will be a major commercial route that cuts across a narrow stretch of the Park near the border with Kenya. It goes through a wilderness zone critical to the annual migration of 1.3 million wildebeest and 0.7 million zebras, antelope, and other wildlife. This will involve extracting a strip of land from the Park itself, resulting in both the fragmentation of the ecosystem and the removal of the Serengeti National Park from the list of UN World Heritage Sites. The government’s own estimates are that by 2015, there will be 800 vehicles a day, or about 300,000 a year. These will mostly be trucks carrying freight between the Lake Victoria region and eastern Tanzania. Their numbers will steadily grow. By 2016, over a million vehicles will have crossed the Serengeti. By 2035, the volume will rise to 3,000 a day, a million vehicles a year! Experts say these traffic estimates are also underestimated as projections were made on the basis of reduced traffic flow during rainy season. Experts have recently published a sophisticated model simulating the impact of the highway on the migration. But now with the projected traffic numbers, only common sense is required. The migration will not only move across the highway twice a year, wildlife actually resides in the area for weeks and months on end. Ultimately, though, its not traffic per se, but expanding agriculture and settlement that will unravel it all. Do you think Tanzania’s tourism industry will benefit from the road? This road will have a devastating effect on tourism, both in the short term and long term as the ecosystem collapses. A survey was done last year among tourism companies that send travellers to Tanzania. The results were clear – building the highway would cause a precipitous drop in tourism. Why? In part because the Serengeti would be damaged goods, no longer protected and respected by the government. But there would also be a backlash of protest. In fact, many tour companies predicted that there would be a call for an international boycott of tourism to Tanzania. Why do you think the government is pushing ahead with the road in face of so much criticism? This is the big question. The fact that the President Jakaya Kikwete has recently refused funds from the World Bank for a southern route around the Serengeti, which would actually benefit more people, means that there’s something we don’t understand. It appears that there are interests being served besides those of the Tanzanian people. How do Tanzanians feel about the road plan? Many Tanzanians do not know about it. Or if they know anything, they have only heard the government’s version. The President presents this simply as a dirt road, not a highway. And the government has dismissed opponents as “green activists,” even though this includes the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. People certainly do not know what the economic consequences will be, especially for the 60,000 people who directly or indirectly are employed because of tourism. (mongabay.com) Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
Comments
One typo I noticed upon reading this article a second time is that the reports I have seen are that 600,000 Tanzanians are employed in the tourism industry, not 60,000. That is a significant difference.
This would make rural roads in Loliondo District and Serengeti District be among those which might be beneficiaries.
Commercial Highways are an important component in bringind progress and development; but when you destroy Nature's Wonder and irreplaceable phenomena; the cost could be too high!
STOP THE SERENGETI HIGHWAY, Please reconsider your decision, Government of the United Republic of Tanzania!
Bipin Vishani - Dar es Salaam
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