History of Serengeti National Park
History of Serengeti National Park
History of Serengeti National Park : The Serengeti has a long and complex history and through years, it has gone through numerous challenging periods.
About Serengeti –
How Was Serengeti Formed?
The area known today as Serengeti National Park was originally formed million years ago, mostly through violent volcanic activity, Aeons of winds, rains and ravages of time have sculptured further, providing expansive, flat, open grasslands and rolling hills, vast plains and gentle valleys, dense woodlands and riverine forests, and tall mountains and steep volcano craters, with each ecosystem having its own climate.
A steady rainfall has enabled numerous rivers to flow freely carving their way through this varied landscape before spilling into the many great lakes that the region is famous for, while offering life to the surrounding flora and fauna that have made this place their home.
The ecologically diverse landscape has allowed vast variety of wildlife to thrive here, each species evolving over the millennia to meet the demands of this ever-changing ecosystem.
Colonisation & Serengeti’s Decline in the 19th Century
The abundant wildlife in the modern day Northern Tanzania and Kenya was first recorded in western civilization by the early explorers and missionaries of the late 19th Century. The Maasai, a nomadic pastoralist tribe which had migrated with their cattle from the north, however they had already been living there for over 200 years. Awed by the natural wealth and vastness of their newly found homeland, they named it “Siringet” (The place where the land goes on forever).
The fertile, volcanic mineral rich – soil and healthy supply of fresh water provided an abundance of grazing land for their cattle, ensuring a prosperous habitation for the Maasai, keep them in their age-old semi-nomadic lifestyles within the Serengeti.
But when the paths of the Maasai crossed with the colonial powers of Europe – The British and Germans during their scramble for Africa during the late 19th Century, their density and that of the wildlife in the “Siringet”, was to change forever.
Their courage and spears were no match for the soldiers, guns and the courtrooms of the western colonials. From then on the fate of the Maasai was sealed as they slowly began to lose their grazing lands to European settlers.
By 1911, through several treaties they had quite controversially signed, they had lost two thirds of their lands and were forced to move to less fertile parts of modern day Kenya and Tanzania.
During the 1880s, drought, cholera and a smallpox epidemic took a serious toll on the Maasai people, where an estimated two thirds of the population perished to these diseases. At the same time a rinderpest plague swept through their cattle, wiping out most of their wealth and sole possessions. The once proud, fearsome and prosperous Maasai had suddenly been reduced to near starvation and extermination.
The rinderpest disease also had a huge impact on the landscape, the animals and the entire ecosystem. Not being restricted to cattle, it spread like wildlife through various animals including wildebeests and buffalo herds among others within the Serengeti reducing their numbers to extinction too.
The sudden decrease in the cattle and other grazers drastically transformed parts of the landscape from grasslands to thorn bush, forcing animals to migrate to other areas in order to survive. This abrupt change of the landscape also created ideal conditions for tsetse fly to thrive, contributing to its rapid spread to the rest of the continent causing more mayhem everywhere along its path.
It took close to 90 years of serious conservation measures by various organisations before the wildebeest and buffalo populations could recover.
Photo of lions hunting in Serengeti.
Hunting and Introduction of Conservation in the 20th Century
When the outside world heard of the abundant game in Serengeti, professional hunters started to flock to the Serengeti from 1913 onwards, sending courageous tales of hunting huge dangerous animals and man-eating beasts back to Europe and America.
This brought even more adventure seeking hunters to the Serengeti, making a serious dent in the local wildlife stocks in a very short span of time. Tusks and skins were constantly being shipped out of Mombasa to all corners of the world.
It was only when lions, which had once been so abundant that they were regarded as vermin, had suddenly become scarce, a growing awareness to protect this “Natural Wonder” began to rise.
Photo of Elephant in Serengeti
By the end of the First World War (World War 1), the mainland of the then – called Tanganyika and the Zanzibar Archipelago had become a British mandate after being under German administration since 1891. In 1930 a small area consisting of 2,286 square kilometres was declared a game reserve in the south-eastern region, although it took another seven years before hunting was totally banned.
Still, it had to wait until 1940 to be granted full protection when the Serengeti National Park Board of Trustees was formed to administer the park. They do so to this day.
In late years, the boundaries of the Serengeti were extended several times to offer more protection to the wildlife, but that was not to be without controversy, as it restricted movements of the Maasai people who lived within these boundaries.
More land for the wildelife meant less land for grazing and agriculture, creating huge problems for the growing Maasai and the population of other tribes, which only sought to preserve their simple traditional lifestyles. This problem persist to this day with many Maasai elders claiming that animals have been treated better than humans.
Photo of Ngorongoro Crater
In 1959, the northern boundaries of the Serengeti National Park were extended to the Kenyan border, while the Ngorongoro Conservation Area was removed, in a compromise to allow the Maasai to live and graze their cattle in Ngorongoro Area but outside of the Serengeti.
During the 1960s, more areas were added to the park notably the Maswa Game Reserve in the south and a small section north of the Grumeti River along the Western Corridor. A further strip, known as the Lamai Wedge between the Mara River and the newly established Maasai Mara National Reserve, was added to the Serengeti ensuring an uninterrupted passage for the migratory wildebeest herds to reach the greener pastures of the Loita Plains in Southern Kenya.
Photo of the local Maasai People
Modern Day Serengeti
Today the Serengeti National Park stretches over just under 15,000 square kilometres and is under the management of the Tanzania National Parks Authority and is declared UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Poaching however, still poses a huge threat to the overall health status of the Serengeti and despite the efforts of the authorities, it is estimated that nearly a quarter of a million animals are lost to poachers each year. Rhinos, elephants and buffaloes have borne most of the brunt of the rhino horn, ivory, bush meat, and trophy hunting trade, not only in the Serengeti but in many other parks across the continent.
And so the struggle to preserve this paradise seems likely to continue well into the future, while we remain hopeful that nature will win once again.
Photo of wildlife in Serenget
