Tanzania’s Wildlife Riches

By Rod East

In both diversity of species and large populations, Tanzania’s wildlife resources are without parallel in today’s Africa. Outside the coastal zone, much of the country is thinly settled, and the interior retains extensive tracts of relatively undisturbed habitat, especially in the west and south.

Of legally gazetted conservation areas, fully protected national parks and game reserves cover more than 15% of the country. National parks are under the control of National Parks (TANAPA); game reserves are administered by the Wildlife Division. The total conservation estate, including partially protected lands such as Game Controlled Areas, extends over about 25% of Tanzania (see map).

Uncontrolled commercial poaching during the late 1970s and 1980s, when Tanzania experienced severe economic difficulties associated with its experiments with socialism, resulted in the loss of half its elephants and almost all its black rhino.  Tourism declined substantially with the closure of the border with Kenya from 1977 to 1984; tourist hunting was closed from 1973 to 1978, causing a marked decline in infrastructure and staff morale within the country’s protected areas.

Since the late 1980s, there has been substantial economic recovery, although 40% of Tanzanians live below the poverty line. A multi-party political system was adopted in 1992, and the country has adjusted to a market economy with a growing private sector.

The wildlife sector has been revitalized with substantial international assistance from Germany, USAID, the UK, Sweden and Norway, and NGOs such as the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) and many others. Crucial infrastructure has been rebuilt and effective anti-poaching operations have been re-established in most of the major parks and reserves.

Game-viewing Tourism
Game-viewing tourism generates more than US$100 million per annum, mostly from the northern circuit including Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara, Tarangire and Kilimanjaro. In contrast, the southern parks such as Ruaha, Katavi and Udzungwa, receive far fewer tourists; and the remote Katavi National Park receives only a few hundred. Apart from the northern Selous, the game reserves of western and southern Tanzania remain undeveloped for game-viewing tourism.

Tourist Hunting
Tanzania has long been noted for its superb trophy hunting, managed since 1988 by the Wildlife Division.  Hunting today generates more than US$30 million per year.  If you include travel, accommodation, etc., the figure is closer to US$80 million.

Hunting is conducted in numerous hunting blocks on three categories of land: game reserves, which are government-owned and have no legal settlements; game-controlled areas, where hunting rights are protected but activities such as settlement, cultivation and livestock herding are permitted;, and open or non-gazetted areas, which are mainly on village-owned lands.

Tourist hunting occurs throughout the country and is the dominant economic activity in the western and southern wildlife regions. These areas are remote and generally lack the spectacular game concentrations, pleasant climate, and open landscapes of northern Tanzania (Masailand). Because of their limited prospects for game-viewing tourism, hunting is likely to remain the best option for revenue generation from wildlife in the west and south.

But the industry faces significant problems. Benefits to rural communities in game-controlled and open areas are vital, as village communities  decide whether or not to settle and cultivate an area, utilize it for cattle, or lease it for hunting or game-viewing tourism. The development of village-based wildlife enterprises, like those in the buffer zones of the Selous Game Reserve and Ruaha National Park, is a key element of the country’s 1998 Wildlife Policy.

But the Wildlife Division’s current system of control has tended to exclude rural communities from decision-making for the allocation of concessions and quotas for hunting on their lands. As a result, some are openly antagonistic to central government hunting interests.

Tanzania’s wildlife estate can be divided into four regions:

Western Masailand
This fine game country extends from Serengeti National Park and its buffer zone eastwards to the Rift Valley. It contains acacia tree savannahs, treeless grasslands, and the plains and highland forests of Ngorongoro Conservation Area. There is an increasing prevalence of thornbush in the east towards the Rift Valley and the western foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The Serengeti’s migratory wildebeest population has been stable since the 1970s at 1.0 to 1.5 million animals, after a great increase due to the vaccination from rinderpest of the region’s cattle, and an increase in the food supply due to greater dry-season rainfall. It is rivalled only by the barren-ground caribou of the Canadian Arctic as the world’s largest wild ungulate population.

Since the 1980s, regular aerial surveys of wildlife populations show that the Serengeti supports Africa’s largest populations of zebra (200,000), gazelles (340,000 Thomson’s and 25,000 Grant’s), common eland (12,000) and topi (40,000), as well as major populations of giraffe (6,000), warthog (more than 10,000), buffalo (20,000), bohor reedbuck (10,000), common hartebeest (11,000), impala (70,000), lion (3,800), leopard (thousands), spotted hyena (9,000), and many of the smaller antelopes.

The survival of Africa’s last great plains-game ecosystem is the result of a combination of fortunate circumstances: its favourable climate and vegetation; Masai dominion over the region, which historically restricted settlement and cultivation to the vicinity of Lake Victoria; tsetse fly, which prevented the Masai from inhabiting the northern acacia savannahs; the aridity of the short-grass plains in the south-eastern Serengeti, which permits livestock to pasture only during the rainy season; its inaccessibility during European colonization; and the determination of conservationists to establish the Serengeti National Park.

Although the Serengeti’s wildlife populations are currently in good shape, losses from poaching by meat-hunters are much higher than in the 1960s due to large-scale immigration of people on the western and northern edges of the Serengeti. Attempts are being made to replace unregulated poaching with sustainable harvesting in the open areas adjoining Serengeti National Park through the creation of community wildlife management areas.

Revenue from tourist hunting contributes greatly to the conservation of the region’s wildlife. Hunting blocks on the borders of Serengeti National Park, such as Maswa and Loliondo, continue to produce Africa’s best-maned lions, and high quality buffalo and leopard trophies. A diverse array of plains game is also available on licence. Moving eastwards towards the Rift Valley, wildebeest and topi decline in abundance or disappear, while thornbush species such as fringe-eared oryx, lesser kudu and gerenuk appear in significant numbers.

Since 2002, the concessions for Grumeti and Ikorongo Game Reserves and an adjoining open area on the western border of Serengeti National Park have been held by Grumeti Reserves Ltd., owned by US billionaire Paul Tudor Jones. Since then, Grumeti Reserves has paid full trophy fees to the government despite not killing a single animal while increasing anti-poaching efforts. The reserves’ management has stated that trophy hunting may re-commence in future, when animal numbers are high enough to sustain it.

Eastern Masailand
This region extends eastwards from Tarangire National Park in the Rift Valley across the Simanjiro Plains through a series of game-controlled and open areas to Kitwai. Prior to 1900, the semi-arid acacia and baobab savannahs, open plains and thornbush of eastern Masailand supported large migratory populations of wildebeest, zebra and Thomson’s gazelle.

The amount of game that formerly inhabited this area is unknown, but it may have rivalled the current populations of the Serengeti. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the plains of eastern Masailand in northern Tanzania and adjacent Kenya were made famous by explorers, hunters and naturalists as the very essence of wild Africa.

But today, no great game concentrations remain east of the Rift Valley, and only a few remnant populations survive. Most of its wildlife was destroyed during the first half of the 20th century by the progressive loss of habitat and access to dry-season water supplies caused by the tremendous overstocking of livestock after the introduction of European methods of veterinary care.

By the 1970s, only three significant dry-season wildlife concentration areas remained, all in the Rift Valley: two in Tarangire National Park and the third to the north of Lake Manyara. About 25,000 wildebeest and 30,000 zebra concentrated within Tarangire during the dry season and migrated eastwards on to the Simanjiro Plains during the wet season.  But aerial counts indicate a dramatic and sudden decline in wildebeest – to less than 5,000 - because of uncontrolled bushmeat-hunting in the wet-season dispersal area. Other species that leave Tarangire during the wet season, such as fringe-eared oryx, Coke’s hartebeest, eland and zebra, have also declined.  Buffalo and elephant, which remain in thicker bush near the park boundary, have shown little change.

The accelerating conversion of the Simanjiro Plains to agriculture is an even greater threat to the region’s wildlife than meat-poaching. Loss of natural rangelands to agriculture is increasing throughout eastern Masailand as pressures mount from population growth, including migration from the Arusha region to surrounding lands.

Despite these developments, eastern Masailand still offers good trophy hunting for Grant’s gazelle and pockets of buffalo and plains game. It is still the best region for thornbush species like lesser kudu and gerenuk, which may have been favoured by the bush encroachment resulting from overgrazing by domestic livestock.

The West and South
A chain of important wildlife areas covers a vast region of western and southern Tanzania from Moyowosi-Kigosi to Ugalla, Katavi-Rukwa and Ruaha-Rungwa. These national parks and game reserves are linked by a series of contiguous game-controlled and open areas. Miombo woodlands dominate this region, with extensive floodplains and swamps in low-lying areas. Ruaha National Park and its adjoining game reserves include a portion of the Rift Valley with extensive acacia woodland and bushland.

The most numerous wildlife species include buffalo (the estimated population of 80,000 of the Katavi-Rukwa-Lukwati area is the second-largest in Africa), zebra, topi, Lichtenstein’s hartebeest, giraffe, elephant and hippo, as well as roan, sable, eland, warthog, bushbuck, bohor reedbuck, waterbuck, impala, lion, leopard and spotted hyena. The permanent swamps of Moyowosi Game Reserve contnain an estimated 2,000 sitatunga.
Human densities are low, and the pressures of encroachment of settlement and livestock have generally been correspondingly low. But pressures on Moyowosi Game Reserve increased dramatically in the late 1990s, with the establishment in the Kigoma region of camps for refugees from Rwanda and Burundi. This followed an invasion of refugees into the Kagera region of northwestern Tanzania that placed similar pressures on game reserves of Ibanda, Rumanyika, Burigi and Biharamulo. Although large numbers of refugees have returned home, others have yet to leave Tanzania. But since 1999, the German (GTZ)-funded Kagera Kigoma Game Reserves Rehabilitation Project has provided extensive support to these reserves.

The Katavi-Rukwa area in the south-west has historically had low human densities; but there is now a rapidly growing population, including an influx of pastoralists from Tabora and Shinyanga to the north with large herds of cattle. A (10,000 sq km) GTZ-funded programme has been initiated, and Katavi National Park was doubled in size in 1997 when the adjacent game reserves were gazetted from game-controlled areas.

In the Ruaha-Rungwa area in the south, one major concern is the drying up of the Great Ruaha River, which forms the eastern boundary of Ruaha National Park. The river ceased its dry season flow in 1993 because of water extraction for irrigation of crops upstream. Some standing water remains during the dry season in the western reaches of the river, but water-dependent buffalo and waterbuck have declined by more than 60%. Elephants also move away from the river in the dry season, and substantial numbers of hippos have died. The government promises to restore year-round flows to the river by 2010 through more efficient water management.

The hunting blocks of western and southern Tanzania are particularly important to the safari industry. Of note are East African sitatunga and lion (Moyowosi-Kigosi), and large Nile crocodile (Ugalla and Lake Rukwa). Rungwa, Kisigo, Muhesi and Usangu Game Reserves adjoining Ruaha National Park are among Tanzania’s finest hunting areas for lion and leopard, sable, roan and (the more difficult to find) greater kudu, as well as lesser kudu in the acacia thornbush (although they are more often hunted in Masailand).

The South-east
The Selous Game Reserve covers 43,000 sq km in south-eastern Tanzania. The area surrounding the game reserve also contains important wildlife habitat, much of it managed as part of the reserve’s buffer zone, giving a total area for the Selous ecosystem of more than 80,000 sq km. This is one of the largest savannah woodland wilderness areas remaining in Africa. Miombo woodland covers about 75% of the reserve, with terminalia savannah in the east and smaller areas of thicket and riverine forest.

Very heavy poaching during the 1970s and 1980s reduced elephant numbers here from more than 100,000 to less than 30,000. The German (GTZ)-funded Selous Conservation Programme commenced in 1988 and rapidly suppressed poaching, developed the infrastructure, etc., so that now this vast stretch of wilderness has a very good conservation status. Tourist hunting generates more than 90% of the reserve’s revenue, half of which is retained for investment, operating costs, and allowances and incentives for game scouts. The balance of the revenue comes from game-viewing tourism, restricted to the northern sector of the reserve.

Regular aerial surveys reveal generally stable or increasing wildlife populations. Elephant numbers have recovered to about 60,000 and  continue to increase. The populations of several other species are the largest remaining in Africa, e.g., hippo (60,000), buffalo (230,000), Lichtenstein’s hartebeest (20,000), Nyasa wildebeest (more than 50,000), lion (more than 4,000), and African wild dog (more than 1,000). There are also major populations of zebra, giraffe, bushbuck, eland, bohor reedbuck, waterbuck, sable, impala, warthog, leopard and spotted hyena. In this Denmark-sized stretch of Africa, there are abundant game populations, no settlement and no livestock (because of tsetse fly).

The hunting blocks of Selous Game Reserve and its surrounds are most noted for elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, and plains game, including Africa’s finest common eland. (In 2005, elephant poaching was reportedly increasing.)

The Selous is an outstanding example of the role sustainable safari hunting can play in wildlife conservation in Africa -  a counter to the animal rights groups that rail against it. Without the revenue that hunting tourism generates, this reserve and its wildlife would simply not exist.

But the reserve faces new challenges, such as a declining budget, potential pressures from increasing settlement to the west and north, the granting of prospecting licences for precious stones, and a proposed dam which would flood part of the northern Selous to create an improved water supply for Dar es Salaam.

German bilateral assistance is continuing for the development of the Selous-Niassa Corridor, extending from the south-western boundary of Selous Game Reserve to the Ruvuma River in the Niassa Game Reserve area on the Mozambique border. The corridor will enable wildlife movements to continue between these reserves through the establishment of a network of village wildlife management areas.

The floodplain grasslands of the Kilombero Game Controlled Areas to the west of the Selous support Africa’s largest population of puku, an antelope closely related to the kob of West and Central Africa. These areas are exposed to increasing encroachment of settlement and livestock, and bushmeat-hunting. Aerial surveys indicated a decline in the puku population from 53,000 in 1994 to 23,000 in 2002. Puku face an uncertain future unless part of the Kilombero Valley is upgraded to game reserve status.

The Future
Tanzania occupies less than 5% of the total land area of sub-Saharan Africa. Yet population estimates indicate that, in total, the country currently supports approximately 70-90% of Africa’s wildebeest, topi, Lichtenstein’s hartebeest and Thomson’s gazelle populations, about half of its zebra, savannah buffalo and puku, about one-third of the continent’s remaining hippo, fringe-eared oryx, lion and wild dog, and 20-25% of its elephant, giraffe, common eland, waterbuck, sable and Grant’s gazelle. Similar proportions probably apply to other species for which comparable data are not available.

These extraordinary figures underline Tanzania’s position as a unique jewel in Africa’s wildlife crown. The future protection and management of the country’s extensive wildlife estate depends on the generation of sufficient revenue from tourism and hunting to meet the needs of  government agencies, the private sector, and local village communities. There will also certainly be a continuing need for external support, as typified by the Selous Conservation Programme, USAID support to the anti-poaching efforts of the Wildlife Division and TANAPA, and long-term FZS support to the Serengeti.  There will certainly be some losses of wildlife and wild lands as the country’s human population continues to grow.  But Tanzania’s importance as a wildlife country will probably be even greater in 50 to 100 years’ time than it is today.