A lion is sited along a make shift road leading to the Ngorongoro crater in Arusha Region.
Located 180 km from Tanzania's northern safari hub of Arusha, the
sanctuary was established as a multiple land-use area, designated to
promote the conservation of natural resources, safeguard the interests
of NCA indigenous residents and promote tourism.
But in recent years, NCA is overwhelmed with a number of challenges
including human population pressure as well as limited pastures and
water for wildlife and livestock.
Lagweni Ole Moleimetu, one of the Maasai elders in the wilderness
of Ngorongoro, recounts that in the past pastures and water were never a
challenge in NCA, but now things are getting worse.
"Now there are lots of challenges, one being food security as we're
not allowed to grow anything in this area. So we're relying on milk and
meat from our cattle. At some point Ngorongoro Conservation Area
Authority (NCAA) provide us with maize," says the 73-year-old.
Living in Enduleni village, the old man says in 1960s the cattle
had plenty of water from rivers and streams, but today there's no water
available.
The elder blames Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) and
the government for allowing construction of new more lodges on the rim
of Ngorongoro, which have been posing a serious threat to the country's
tourism industry.
Ole Moleimetu says the new development has been jeopardising the
survival of the world's sixth largest unbroken caldera, noting that
water sources which pour water into the caldera have been drying off as
hotels and lodges pump water for their own use, leaving little water
flowing into the crater.
"As indigenous people in this area, we're very concerned with what
is going on in the NCAA," he says, calling on NCAA and other
stakeholders to stop new development in the area.
Patrice Mattay, one of the ecologists in the area, admits that
people are increasing in number, but the area remained the same hence
posing a possible human-wildlife conflict in the area.
"Our worry is about the fact that wildlife will miss out their
potential areas for food and water as Maasai cattle also need areas for
grazing," he says, adding that there is close relationship between human
and wildlife, as all depend on the area for survival.
He says the increasing number of people in the area also increases
availability of social services in the area, which again causes a
challenge to the well-being of the wildlife.
Mattay says that the establishment of human settlement in the
conserved area adds more threat to the survival of the area, as some
people have started shunning away from their traditional houses and
embarked into brick mortar and iron corrugated sheet roofed houses.
"These kinds of modern housing are against conservation,” he says.
NCAA's community development manager Justice Mumba also says the
conservation area is overwhelmed with the increasing number of people
living in the area.
He is of the view that the issue of human development and wildlife
conservation need to be addressed for survival of the World Heritage
site.
Bruno Kawasange, one of the NCAA's senior officials, admits that in
1960s when the wildlife sanctuary was gazetted as conservation area,
there were 3,000 people in the area, but now the number shoot up to
70,000.
"To us, this is an indicator that we're overwhelmed and something needs to be done," he says.
According to Kawasange, there are plans of relocating some people into other areas where there are spaces to save the area.
"We went up to Handeni to look for such land to relocate some of
these people who are in the NCA, though our challenge is that we need to
put all the required infrastructures before relocating these people in
the area," he said, adding that those who are to be relocated need to
have reliable supply of clean and safe water, schools, hospitals and
other social amenities.
One of the strategies is to reduce the number of cattle by
introducing the artificial insemination (AI) in the area as many people
in the area still have traditional cattle that need large space for
grazing.
"There are reasonable number of people who have started benefiting
out of the new approach, which has changed completely their livelihoods,
as a local cow in Maasai land produces around 2 liters of milk per day,
but after AI, a breaded cow may produce up to 20 liters a day. NCAA
also purchases and distributes quality breeding bulls to progressive
pastoralists," the official says.
Kawasange says over 100 quality breeding bulls (Sahiwal and Boran),
20 bucks and 20 rams have been provided to progressive livestock
keepers.
For the past five years since the project started, there have been
improvement programme through artificial insemination, purchase and
distribution of quality breeding bulls to progressive pastoralists, he
says.
The official says over 1,000 cows have been artificially inseminated, but not all did conceive.
NCAA is also working on encouraging Maasai living in the area to
get into beekeeping venture, which has proved to be an effective tool
towards addressing poverty in the area.
"We came to learn that this area is very potential for beekeeping
as its honey is the best in the world as no farming is done in the area,
so its honey is free from any kinds of chemicals, " says David Ole
Kaisoy, the NCAA beekeeping expert.
"We have partnered with the French-speaking Island of Reunion, who
have experience in modern beekeeping and our people here are adopting
the technology," he says.
Koisoy says Maasai in the wilderness of Ngorongoro had been active
in beekeeping but mainly on traditional scale but after learning of the
trade's potential they now intend to run their honey producing
activities commercially.
Ngorongoro has paleontological and archaeological sites of Olduvai
Gorge, Laetoli site, Lake Ndutu site and the Nasera Rock Shelter.
The variety and richness of the fossil remains, including those of
early hominids, has made it one of the major areas in the world for
research on the human evolution.
The area is now attracting more than 700,000 tourists annually and generating an average 32 million U.S. dollars in revenue.
In 2009, UNESCO raised a "red flag" against Ngorongoro Conservation
Area, threatening to remove it from the list of the World Heritage
sites, due to what was described as "ecological deterioration" in the
territory.
Ngorongoro is a home to some 25,000 large animals, mostly
ungulates, alongside the highest density of mammalian predators in
Africa, including the densest population of lion. It also harbors a
range of endangered species, such as the Black Rhino, Wild Hunting Dog
and Golden Cat and 500 species of birds.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
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