Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
markedly in the past ten years. Community-based tourism has also created
substantial benefits for conservation of the Serengeti ecosystem. However,
tourism has been beset with constant conflicts characterized by a lack of central or
district support for community ventures.The externally-imposed hunting conces-
sion has been a constant source of conflict for villages and tour operators, and
prevents use by tourists of much of the Loliondo area for several months each
year. Another conflict emerged from the government effort, supported heavily by
international conservation organizations, to have the area declared a Wildlife
Management Area (WMA), which would have removed much of the control over
tourism ventures from village governments (Nelson and Ole Makko, 2005;
Nelson, 2007). Despite the empirical success of the Loliondo ventures from a
developmental and environmental perspective, there has been very limited
support for community-based tourism in the area from policy makers or district
administrators since the late 1990s.
Community-based Tourism in Tarangire-Simanjiro
To the south-east of the Serengeti system, below the Gregory Rift Valley escarp-
ment, the Tarangire-Simanjiro ecosystem comprises another vast savannah and
grassland mosaic where migratory wildlife moves across a landscape of about
35,000km 2 . Two core areas used by migratory wildebeest, zebra and antelopes are
the dry season habitat along the Tarangire River in Tarangire National Park, and
the wet season calving grounds on the Simanjiro plains. Unlike the Serengeti,
though, the vast majority of land in this ecosystem (over 80 per cent), including
the Simanjiro plains, lies outside formal protected areas on community and
private lands (Borner, 1985).
As in Loliondo, community lands in the Tarangire-Simanjiro system were
among the first areas where community-based tourism ventures were initiated in
the early 1990s. Unlike Loliondo, though, this area has much better infrastructure
and relatively easy accessibility; Arusha, the urban centre of the safari industry, is
only a couple of hours away, and a tarmac road runs between Tarangire and Lake
Manyara National Parks. A range of tourist camps and lodges now encircle the
northern end of Tarangire National Park, closest to this road.
As in Loliondo, tourism ventures on community lands have created signifi-
cant local revenue flows and led to land being set aside for wildlife. In an
ecosystem where wildlife is so heavily dependent on village lands, the latter
outcome is particularly important. Lolkisale village, for example, is situated along
the north-eastern border of Tarangire National Park. The village has set aside
about 20,000ha of land for several small tourism lodges, in an area heavily used by
elephants and buffalo during the wet season. As tourism enterprises have
expanded in this area, substantial areas have reverted from commercial farming
back to wildlife habitat.
However, several factors have undermined the generation of local economic
benefits from tourism around Tarangire. First, not all tourism ventures have been
developed through the model of contractual agreements between village councils
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