The Serengeti is alive
Serengeti and Bernhard Grzimek are still synonymous for many people - after all, the African savannah was always the creative focus of the nature conservationist and filmmaker. We owe the success of the park to him and his ideal heirs - despite all the problems.
This nature established his reputation, was an affair of the heart and part of his destiny, and it became his final resting place: The Serengeti made Bernhard Grzimek - the wildlife filmmaker, scientist and zoo director from Frankfurt - world famous. However, the shooting of the award-winning documentary "Serengeti Shall Not Die" also cost his son Michael his life in 1959. Both father and son were buried on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. In all the years between the start of research and filming in the Serengeti in 1957 and his death in 1987, this African savannah was a central concern for Bernhard Grzimek and the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), which he headed for a long time.
That today over a million wildebeest and several hundred thousand zebra, antelope and gazelle can roam the grasslands almost undisturbed, again accompanied by more than 2000 elephants and hunted by he althy populations of lion, hyena and leopard certainly a credit to these efforts. Almost fifty years ago the situation around the Serengeti was completely different: there were almost no elephants left in the region, they had already been exterminated by poachers for their ivory at the end of the 19th century. Wildebeest populations were less than a quarter of today's numbers, and big game hunting was ubiquitous. And the Tanzanian government was considering fencing off Ngorongoro Crater National Park, near the Serengeti, to channel migration of animal herds.
Conflicts over water as a risk
It was only the counts and observations of the Grzimeks that showed that the mammals' trajectories run in different directions than expected, which led to a rethinking of the responsible politicians and the concept of an ultimately comprehensive protected area system and management was launched. That is why the Serengeti is one of the great success stories in African nature conservation today and is considered one of the best national parks in the world. Nevertheless, there are still risks and dangers for the continued existence of the ecosystem and its species-rich fauna, as Markus Borner, project manager of the FZS in Africa, emphasizes.
The conservationists are particularly worried about the north of the national park and the adjacent areas in Kenya, where the Mara River provides the only reliable source of drinking water for the huge wildebeest and zebra populations during the annual dry season. Every year from August to October at the height of the dry season, the ungulates migrate from the south-west of the protected area to the Maasai Mara region, where the last rains that have fallen in the higher elevations of the adjacent mountains flow to Lake Victoria. Only when the rainy season begins in November do the large herds return to the plains of the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater to give birth to their young. According to Borner, should this vital resource dry up, according to model calculations, depending on the length of a drought, the wildebeest population could collapse to a maximum of 200,000 animals - and thus fewer than at the time of Grzimek's counts: "They fall into a predatory hole from which they would not come out without active intervention as there would be too many lions and hyenas for a recovery."
The Mara River is under pressure from several sides. In parts of its catchment area in the area of the Mau escarpment, the forests were cut down extensively and their water retention capacity was thereby destroyed. Larger fluctuations in the discharge are already occurring, whereas the river used to flow more evenly. "The wildebeest then fall into a predatory hole from which they could no longer get out without active intervention"
(Markurs Borner) The abstraction of water for large-scale, mechanized agriculture in the Loita Plains in Kenya, where wheat fields have to be supplied with water, is also important. If deforestation and cultivation continue to increase as forecast, the Mara could carry less water into the Serengeti in the future than is needed there.
Also looming in the background is the Ewaso Ng'iro Hydroelectric Project, which Kenya plans to solve its chronic energy problems in the capital, Nairobi, by connecting the Mara River system to the Ewaso Ng'iro (South) and generating electricity along the way shall be. The water would eventually flow into Lake Natron in the east instead of Lake Victoria in the west as has been the case up to now - with unforeseen consequences for all ecosystems affected. So far, however, the project only exists on paper, as Borner emphasizes, and it has met with strong resistance from both the local population and the Tanzanian government. However, it has not been finally shelved, so that the ecologists want and need to intensify their cross-border cooperation in the future in order to perhaps finally prevent a resubmission. Instead, an international agreement is to regulate water use in the Mara region.
Poaching currently not a threat
Another long-standing problem seems to be under control: poaching in the park no longer poses a threat to the animals and, like in the adjacent protected areas, is a long way from the bloody 1970s and 1980s. At that time, financial problems of the state forced the game wardens to reduce their patrols and surveillance, so that illegal hunters could move almost undisturbed in the protected area. At the same time, high prices for ivory and rhinoceros horns stimulated the relentless pursuit of the pachyderms, of which only few survived: around 500 elephants and fewer than two dozen black rhinos. It was only when control of the park was tightened again from 1988 and the trade in ivory was banned that this type of privateering succumbed again. The population of the proboscidea then recovered significantly, but fewer than a hundred rhinos still dwell in the Serengeti ecosystem - and are under quasi-personal surveillance almost 24/7.
According to research by Borner along with other scientists led by Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington in Seattle, the resumption of ten to twenty patrols per day - compared to sixty per year as in the mid-1980s - is directly related to the Decrease in poaching. "Anti-poaching measures are effective in protected areas"
(Ray Hilborn) Since 1993, the extent has been so low that the buffalo and elephant populations have increased significantly: "Anti-poaching measures are effective in protected areas," summarizes Hilborn briefly.
Hunting for meat, on the other hand, is still latent, but according to Markus Borner, it is not primarily "poaching in pots" for local consumption, but rather serves commercial purposes. The game, mostly killed with snares, is sold as "bushmeat" in the immediate and wider area. According to the national park, up to 40,000 wildebeest fall victim to this hunt every year – in addition to zebras, antelopes and many an unfortunate predator that falls into the trap – which the population can just about cope with.
Conservation is therefore increasingly relying on so-called Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) outside the fixed park boundaries. In addition to preserving the traditional hiking trails of the herds of the local population, they should provide an additional and, above all, higher income than conventional agriculture. Because the animals "belong" to nobody, so many poach, as Borner notes. With the WMA, however, local people have the opportunity to use nature profitably by attracting quality tourism. Instead of only 400 dollars per square kilometer as with agriculture and animal husbandry, up to 600 dollars can be generated in this way. The local population would then have a real interest in protecting "their" game. At the same time, the conservationists hope that this concept will reduce uncontrolled immigration to the park borders and thus the corresponding ecological pressure, since the old settlers are now increasingly resisting this: At times, the number of residents grew at nine percent a year, three times as fast as the national average.
Tourism an opportunity for people and animals
In general, conservationists like Markus Borner have high hopes for tourism as a vital aid in protecting the Serengeti ecosystem and its biodiversity. Tourism is already one of the biggest foreign exchange earners in the country, with direct income going straight to the park itself, which can use it to constantly invest in its infrastructure or rangers. Tours to the Serengeti are so popular that the sanctuary cannot even cater to everyone who is interested. At this point, the WMA come into play again, which can and should skim off this surplus - also financially, because the income should go directly to the participating villages wherever possible.
But you have to watch out and direct the flow of tourists, the Frankfurt zoologist interjects. Just like it already works well organized in the Serengeti. The opposite example is the nearby Ngorongoro Crater, where there are too many beds and at times up to 500 cars romp around the 120 square kilometers of the protected area: "It's less of an ecological problem because the wildlife is getting used to it. Cheetahs, for example, now hunt at midday, when tourists rest. However, the experience value for the visitors decreases."
And since tourism at least legitimizes the WMA and helps fund conservation, the Serengeti's wellbeing depends on its continued existence, not allowing it to collapse for whatever reason. In order to prevent financial worries, the establishment of a Serengeti Trust is one of the top priorities for FZS and its local partners. "But nature will always be important to us"
(Bernhard Grzimek) The fund should one day secure the park and its surrounding areas when money from outside is tight - so that a quote from Bernhard Grzimek will remain valid in the future: "Not today or tomorrow, but in three, four generations, many people will be glad someone cared about animals Most of the goals that people suffer and die for are so fleeting. But nature will always be important to us."
