Each year, one of the most magnificent spectacles in nature takes place in the African Serengeti, when 1.5 million wildebeest, zebras and other ungulates migrate in search of food and water. Scientists say that Serengeti migration, the greatest remaining mass movement of animals on the planet, is critical to the survival of what remains an ecosystem that has lost over 50 percent of its area to human encroachment since the early 1900s.
But many now fear that the Serengeti migration — and the fate of the ecosystem with it — are in grave danger, due to a new road project planned by the Tanzanian government. The proposed two-lane highway, which would link the Tanzanian coast to Lake Victoria and Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, would cut through 50 kilometers of Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. According to a recent opinion piece in Nature, signed by more than two dozen prominent scientists and conservationists, the road would block the massive movement of animals, and cause an environmental disaster of devastating proportions.
“Evidence from other ecosystems demonstrates that migratory species are likely to decline precipitously, causing the Serengeti ecosystem to collapse, and even flip from being a carbon sink into a major source of atmospheric carbon dioxide,” the scientists wrote in their article, which urged the Tanzanian government to reroute the highway to the south.
But in the face of international criticism and pleas, Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete is sticking to a campaign promise that he made in 2005 to complete the $480 million project. The project’s political supporters say the highway, which would be built starting in 2012, is essential for the economic development of impoverished Tanzania. According to the CIA Factbook, the nation of 41 million ranks in the bottom 10 percent of the world’s nations in per capita income.
In a July interview with The Citizen, a Tanzanian news web site, Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Shamsa Mwangunga dismissed scientists’ and conservationists’ worries, saying that a 10-year-old government study showed that construction the road would not harm the migration.
“Those criticizing the road construction know nothing about what we’ve planned,” Mwangunga said, adding that “we’re all keen to preserve our natural resources.”
The Nature article’s authors, however, contend that the road’s location inevitably will destroy the Serengeti migration. Once the road is built, they point out, the area within 50 meters on either side of the road will no longer be under the jurisdiction of national park officials, who will then be helpless to protect the animals from collisions with trucks. “No overpass could be wide enough or long enough for 1.5 million wildebeest and zebras,” they wrote.
In other parks where similar roads have been built, such as Etosha National Park in Namibia and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in Botswana, ecosystems have collapsed as a result, the scientists and conservationists warn. They say that simulations suggest that if access to the Mara River in Kenya is blocked by the road, the wildebeest population will drop drastically, from the present 1.3 million to fewer than 300,000.
That, in turn, could cause the increasingly fragile fabric of the Serengeti to unravel. Wildebeest play a crucial role in the cyclical regeneration of the Serengeti ecosystem. They eat vegetation, enabling new plants to grow, and leave behind dung that is rich natural fertilizer. In addition, they provide a source of food for predators such as lions.
Still, opponents of the road cling to hope that it can be averted. Some believe that President Kikwete is now belatedly following up on his five-year-old campaign promise primarily because of the recently-held Tanzanian election. Now that the vote is in, some believe the project again will go on the back-burner.
Last time around, “it was forgotten, only to be remembered when another election nears,” a July opinion piece in The Citizen observed.
Pressure from other countries may also help. An October article in Business Daily Africa reported that the Kenyan government has been attempting to talk Tanzania into diverting the road, and that a compromise might be imminent. But the publication also reported that President Kikwete is still insisting, at least publicly, that construction will go on as planned. “All precautions have been taken to make sure that the wildlife is not affected,” he was quoted as saying.
