Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
Indigenous peoples and wild animals share one of earth's great wonders

Sooner or later all discussions of national parks must lead to this place. Serengeti’s prodigious animal life, native peoples, vast area and varied topography create a variety that’s unmatched by any park on earth. This is the place almost everybody thinks of when the words “African national park” come to mind. 

The park lies on a high plateau in northern Tanzania that contains grassy plains, acacia tree savannahs, woods and mountains. The area extends west almost to Lake Victoria. It would probably be enough that Serengeti, established in 1951 (its protected status goes back to 1929), is the greatest preserve of plains animal species on earth.  

The list is almost overwhelming: wildebeest, zebras, lions, elephants, giraffes, hyenas, leopards, cheetahs, hippopotamus, buffalo, eland, reedbucks and jackals live, prosper and die in wild, unfettered surroundings. There are 500 species of birds, including flocks of flamingos that turn the sky into a mile-long cloud of swirling pink when they take off.

It is the chance to see such abundant life in its natural surroundings that draws so many visitors here. But the strength of the park is more than its extravagant gifts of nature. Two excellent insights lie behind its organization. First, Serengeti, whose name in Masai means “endless plains,” has been laid out to accommodate the migration of the wildebeest, the homely grazing animal whose 2-to-3-million-member herd plays the starring role in the park.  

To give the great herd its space, Tanzania has bracketed Serengeti with other reserves: Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Lolindo Game Controlled Area, Maswa Game Reserve, Maasai-Mara National Reserve (in neighboring Kenya) and Ikorongo-Grumeti Game Controlled Area. Their combined area, almost 9 million acres (13,700 square miles), is enough to accommodate Maryland and Rhode Island. 

The surrounding reserves not only offer a buffer to Serengeti’s wildlife, they allow the government of Tanzania to try to accommodate four indigenous tribes whose livelihoods depend on being able to use the greater Serengeti area for farming, grazing and hunting. The tribes, the Masai, Iraqw, Kuria and Hadzebe, are distinct ethnic and cultural groups, sometimes hostile to one another. 

The most famous are the Masai, the tall, lanky cattle herders noted for their unusually robust resistance to the attractions of modern life and ability to keep their young people from drifting off to sample the westernized life in Nairobi or Dar es Salaam. Most Masai still subsist primarily on blood and milk from their cattle (they do not eat meat, therefore never kill their animals). There is a growing number of exceptions, though: Over the past generation, some Masai have taken up agriculture, grain eating and even meat eating and trading their cattle for goods. 

Another tribe, the Kuria, although they have many traditions similar to the Masai, consider the Masai to be enemies. As agriculturalists, the Kuria have historically endured raids by Masai warriors called the Moran.* In recent years, though, as the Tanzanian government has exerted its authority in the region, the enmity between the two tribes has quieted down. 

The lifestyle of the Hadzabe, a nomadic hunting tribe, is guaranteed by the Tanzanian constitution. But pressure from agricultural tribes, who resent the Hadzabe’s presence on their lands, as well as the destruction of hunting habitats by farmers, are making it a rough go for this 2,000-member tribe.  

The Iraqw, descended from Ethiopians, are farmers with a traditional hostility toward the Masai. They’re noted for a distinctive style of house building, in which they dig out an underground area then cover it with a roof that is level with the ground. Enemies cannot detect the dwellings.  

* The Moran are young Masai men between the ages of 18 and 30 who are made to live away from the tribe’s villages until they are ready to marry. Masai culture reasons – accurately – that unmarried men are a great source of social tension and potential violence and are, thus, best handled from a distance. To occupy themselves, the Moran guard the tribe’s far-flung cattle. In earlier years, they engaged in raids to assert Masai sway over pastoral lands, capture booty and pass the time.  

Some useful URLs: 

http://www.wcmc.org.uk/protected_areas/data/wh/serenget.html
http://www.tanzania-web.com/parks/serenget.htm
http://www.serengeti.org/

– Patrick Totty