Odes to Roads: Killer Road in the Serengeti?

Editor’s note: Although this important road issue is far from home, it has potential effects to wildlife that are as familiar as our own backyard.

**UPDATE: We received an email the day after posting this article that the road through the Serengeti has tabled! Read our blog post about it here. 

Imagine being in the east African savannah. You’d feel the ground trembling, but no earthquake here. In the distance you’d start to see what is making your feet shake: wildebeests, thousands of them, the herd stretching a dark earth brown as far as you can see, and as they come closer you start to smell their raw rich animal smell. If you waited for all of them to pass, you’d be there for days. It is the wildebeest migration.

Each year, more than a million wildebeests, along with hundreds of thousands of gazelles and zebras, move through the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem of Tanzania and Kenya, following the rains. Some call it the last great migration on earth, as an individual wildebeest may cover more than 1,300 miles, more than the distance all the way down the west coast of the U.S., from Seattle to San Diego.

But a literal roadblock may inalterably change not only this phenomenal migration, but the entire Serengeti ecosystem as well, for the wildebeest define the ecosystem and drive its dynamics.

The problem is a proposed major road the Tanzanian government is preparing to build through the northern part of the park, through a designated wilderness area, through the migration route.

Road-RIPorter readers are familiar with the problems of roads, and they are as similar on public land roads in Oregon, California, Alabama or Florida as they are in the Serengeti thousands of miles away. Roads allow the spread of invasive weeds; roads slump in wetter seasons, dumping tons of sediment into streams, harming fisheries and dirtying drinking water.

But in the case of the Serengeti (and certainly a serious impact in the U.S. and other parts of the world) the biggest problem is  that roads fragment habitat and disrupt animal movements. Many animals are reluctant to cross roads, even those with little traffic. And when there is a lot of traffic, the lives of both animals and humans are at risk.

More common mitigation usually involves fencing the road, or building overpasses, or tunnels for wildlife. But in the Serengeti fencing the road might keep the wildebeest off the road, but would also block them from what they are after north of the road: water (the lands south of the proposed road have become dry). Tens of thousands of animals would die of hunger and thirst, and many would become tangled in the fence. In this case, tunnels and overpasses may be economically prohibitive, but beside that, wildebeest are particularly sensitive to disturbance: they already avoid areas frequented by poachers, and are alarmed by cars.

The proposed road, says the Tanzanian government and some villagers along the way, is for cheaper goods, for connecting outlying villages whose  residents now drive on bone-crunching gravel tracks, and for a better chance of someday getting electricity and cellphone service. And the Maasai — who have been evicted from their lands for the sake of conservation before, and where fertile grasslands nearby are mostly reserved for the wild animals — are struggling, with young men now being drawn to the towns to try to hustle any work they can find.

It is true, “good” roads are an important part of economic development, and one challenge of conservationists worldwide is balancing the needs of humans today while protecting the resources of tomorrow.

But, interestingly, this particular road situation is not a case of humans versus wildlife. There is an alternative: a road to the south of the park that would connect five times more people, and cost less to build. It would also be easier, since the landscape there is flatter. And, significantly, it would not affect the animal migrations.

The northern route has been proposed at least twice before, and roundly rejected on environmental grounds before.

And so, why now?

There are recent investigations linking the northern route to — surprise! — commercial development and resource extraction. In 2011 the President of Tanzania announced intentions to move forward with a soda ash factory on the shores of Lake Natron, which lies along the path of the northern route through the Serengeti. But the Lake is critical breeding grounds for 2.5 million endangered Lesser Flamingoes. Such a factory was stopped in 2008 after studies showed it would disrupt breeding. But the government vows to go ahead.

But that’s not all: a new harbour is proposed at Mwambani Bay, which would then be the terminus of the northern commercial route that would run through the Serengeti. The new port would “extend” the port of Dar es Salaam, notoriously congested, but some say just poorly managed with crippling government bureaucracy. However, Mwambani Bay is the location of Coelacanth Marine Park. The park protects coelacanth, a living fossil, and one of the rarest and most protected fish in the world.

Last, the always alluring prospect of gold has reared its glittering head. Between the boundaries of the Serengeti National Park and Lake Victoria to the northwest are buried riches waiting to be unearthed. Tanzania is already Africa’s third largest producer of gold, and global mining giants have  their eye on more—were it not for the absence of a highway, supporting heavy vehicles and the constant movement of workers and machinery. Transport to the “new” port, through the migration route, would be inevitable.

Scientists say the ecological damage is hard to predict but potentially enormous. During the annual migration, the wildebeest produce more than 800,000 pounds of dung — per day — which nourishes the grasslands. If the highway fragments that migration and makes the wildebeest turn back, “the whole ecosystem could crash,” said Bernard Kissui, a research scientist for the African Wildlife Foundation.

The economic engine could crash too. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Serengeti depend on tourism for a living. And the Serengeti is like a giant ATM for Tanzania, attracting more than 100,000 visitors each year, producing millions of dollars in park fees and helping drive Tanzania’s billion-dollar safari business, an economic pillar.

Grassroots groups have been mobilizing around the world, circulating petitions, gaining the support of leading scientists, trying to pressure the Tanzania government to reconsider. The government of Germany has even stepped in, offering to help fund the alternative route.

But to date, the Tanzanian government is holding firm, and appears ready to build. Officials say the original (northern) route through the Park is better, and that construction will start soon. The Serengeti is the reference for other wildlife migrations around the world — along with the caribou migration across the “American Serengeti.” We can work and hope that the Serengeti will remain, now and for all time, a Tanzanian and world icon of unfettered wildlife movement.

Learn more at www.savetheserengeti.org.

Much of the information above came from the following sources:

“Serengeti Road Plan Offers Prospects and Fears” by Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, October 30, 2010.

“The Corridor of Destruction- From the Coast to the Lake” by Wolfgang Thome (blog post, on May 1, 2011.

“Road Kill in the Serengeti?” by Olivia Judson, The New York Times, June 15,
2010