This cements the sense of ownership. Our only stipulation is that women must make up at least 50 percent of committee membership. These community committees then must reach consensus before they decide on any issue. We first developed this approach as part of our work to protect and study chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream National Park, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. We found that local communities were having an impact on the park on many levels.
For example, when food supplies ran low, local people would hunt some animals in the park for bush meat to consume or sell. They would clear-cut nearby hillside for firewood. In time, the hillsides would erode, washing away soil and, sometimes, whole sections of villages. To counter this, JGI developed an integrated community-based program that combined conservation, income creation, health, and education.
But local communities determined and controlled their own priorities. If, for example, a community reported that its most pressing needs were reducing infant mortality and childhood diseases, we'd supply training for midwives and introduce a simple regimen of childhood inoculations and medications. We link family planning, which helps women to control the size of their families, to these health programs.
The impact of this cannot be overemphasized. It frees women from a cycle of continual pregnancies, allowing them to provide greater care to their smaller families.
Over time, smaller families can reduce pressure on available farmland. Smaller families and increased income also mean that more children can go to school, because these families have enough funds to cover fees. With each success, trust grows. Sometimes we discover unsuspected links, such as one between sanitation and education.
For example, we observed that girls dropped out of school at the approach of puberty. Although there were latrines, they were unsanitary and provided no privacy. That simple step allowed girls to stay in school through the eighth grade. We also initiated microcredit programs that helped women start small-scale enterprises such as corn and millet grinding, gathering honey for sale, and starting commercial tree nurseries.
We incorporated rules that encouraged community-based responsibility for loan repayment, based on elements of an established loan strategy known as the Grameen Bank model.
As loans are repaid—on time and in full—additional loans are made available to others in the community. In terms of income, we helped establish tree nurseries for firewood and building materials. We encouraged farmers to choose [types] of coffee and palm oil that were well suited for local soils—and much more profitable for villagers. As incomes increased, people were able to purchase and raise poultry and pigs, relieving the pressure for bush meat.
All 37 villages surrounding the Gombe Stream National Park have been functioning well under this system for more than a decade. The program has improved the quality of life of village populations and changed how members of these communities view their relationship with the park.
In addition, thousands of acres of hills surrounding the park have been reforested, creating both a buffer zone for the park and income for the farmers.
We are extremely confident that the programs we developed in the microenvironment of the Gombe can be scaled up and applied across the greater Serengeti. Watch a video tribute to Jane Goodall. In the Serengeti, we will provide training for development agencies, Tanzanian government personnel, and non-governmental organizations. Villagers will be able to share the data derived from Esri's geospatial mapping, and they will benefit from JGI's health and education programs.
As in the Gombe, we will help farmers choose [types] of coffee, sorghum, and other crops that are better suited to local soil and moisture conditions; this will increase their food supply and their profits. Our experience tells us that local communities can become allies in preservation rather than adversaries once they experience direct benefits—in terms of income, education, and health—from a thriving and protected park.
More than [U. These funds can be used, in part, to sustain and preserve the park. The alliance among the Tanzanian government, international agencies, tourist companies, and the Tanzanian villagers who live on the borders of the park can serve to protect and nurture this unique treasure. The Serengeti is priceless. It is so important that it be there for our great-great-grandchildren—and their great-great-grandchildren—to enjoy, and to serve as a reminder of what the world was like before.
All rights reserved. It spans 12, square miles 30, square kilometers , according to NASA , giving rise to its name, which is derived from the Maasai language and means "endless plains. This region of Africa is located in north Tanzania and extends to southwestern Kenya. The Serengeti encompasses Serengeti National Park and a number of protected game reserves and conservation areas maintained by the governments of Tanzania and Kenya.
The region hosts the largest mammal migration in the world and is a popular destination for African safaris. The usually warm and dry climate is interrupted by two rainy seasons — March to May, and a shorter season in October and November. The Serengeti landscape can be divided into two regions defined by their dominant vegetation — woodland and grassland, according to Bridget Conneely, a wildlife ecologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland.
Woodlands, which are grassy areas dotted with trees, can then be broken down further by their dominant trees —Acacia woodlands and Terminalia woodlands. Grasslands include riverine, plains and derived grasslands or those grasslands that are only there because of repeated fires , Conneely said. The expansiveness of the Serengeti is interrupted by Ol Doinyo Lengai, the only active volcano in the area and the only volcano that still ejects carbonatite lavas that turn white when exposed to air. When it rains, the ash turns into a calcium-rich material that is as hard as cement.
The southeastern area lies in the shadow of the Ngorongoro highlands and is composed of shortgrass treeless plains, as this area does get rain. Some 43 miles 70 km west, acacia woodlands rise suddenly and extend west to Lake Victoria and north to the Loita Plains.
The landscape is dotted with a number of granite and gneiss outcroppings known as kopjes, which are large rocky formations that are the result of volcanic activity. The Simba Kopje Lion Kopje is a popular tourist stop. In the s, droughts and a rinderpest epidemic also known as cattle plague or steppe murrain took a serious toll on the animal population of the Serengeti, in particular the wildebeest.
By the mids the wildebeest and the buffalo populations had recovered. Overall, the Serengeti is a prime example of what biologists call an ecologically intact ecosystem.
The Serengeti looks largely like it did hundreds of years ago. The swift herbivores of the Serengeti in Africa today would outpace Anteosaurus. The swift herbivores of the Serengeti today would outpace Anteosaurus, Kammerer says, but perhaps the chase was on in a world where big plant-munchers moved like tortoises.
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