SERENGETI SHALL NOT DIE!!!!!

Park Management, Conservation and Research - answers to the conflict between Man and Wildlife?
"What we must face, all of us - poachers, tourists, farmers, conservationists and pastoralists - is the difficult truth that the land does not go on forever."
In the early 1960's, the government tried to stop the wildebeest from moving into Ngorongoro with a long barbed wire fence. Peter Matthesian recalled the results in "The Tree Where Man Was Born." He quotes Myles Turner, Deputy Chief Game Warden of Serengeti National Park: '"They tried to interfere with what thousands of animals had done for thousands of years," Miles glared at the old fence line with satisfaction. "It's marvellous the way those animals smashed it flat. I use the fence posts for firewood now."'

Turner's departure from the park coincided with a severe nation-wide economic depression. The Serengeti National Park, like most of the other protected areas in the country, slipped into a decline. Ivory poaching decimated the elephant population until only a few hundred were left in the park, and the thriving rhino population dwindled to just two individuals. Park rangers went without bullets, boots, uniforms and often salaries.

But by the mid 1980's, the economy of both the park and the country improved. A massive infusion of donor money helped park authorities to rebuild crucial park infrastructure and reestablish the morale and effectiveness of the anti-poaching units. The 1989 worldwide Ivory Ban further eased the burden on the park's elephant population. Slowly and surely, park authorities wrested control of the park away from the poachers.
However, meat poaching continues. In an average year, local people living around the park illegally kill about 40,000 animals, mainly wildebeest and zebra, but also giraffe, buffalo and impala. Many other animals are caught in poachers' snares or pit fall traps. 

The killing is ultimately a manifestation of long-simmering antagonism between the impoverished villagers around the Serengeti's protected areas and the authorities of the Serengeti National Park. The conflict, now recognized as the source of most management, poaching and encroachment problems did not exist two decades ago; there was land enough for everyone and every animal. What we must face, all of us - poachers, tourists, farmers, 

conservationists and pastoralists - is the difficult truth that the land does not go on forever. In an effort to harmonize the existence of pastoralists with the wildlife in the Serengeti buffer zones locally administered game reserves, Willdife Mangement Areas, are now created in the peripheries of the park.