Tanzania Plans For Commercial Truck Highway
Travel industry petitions to stop Serengeti highway
ITHACA, New York - Travel companies, associations, and travelers around the world are asking the government of Tanzania to stop plans for a major commercial highway across the Serengeti National Park.
The government of Tanzania recently approved a major commercial truck highway across the Serengeti. The US$480 million highway is planned to link Arusha and the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya through the Serengeti National Park, said Isidori Shirima, Arusha regional commissioner.
Conservation organizations have warned that the highway would be destructive to the Serengeti ecosystem, as it cuts across the path of ancient wildlife migration routes. The Frankfurt Zoological Society, which has been the main supporter of the Serengeti for the past fifty years, stated, "The entire Serengeti will change into a completely different landscape holding only a fraction of its species and losing its world-class tourism potential and its status as the world's most famous national park - an immense backlash against the goodwill and conservation achievements of Tanzania.”
Responding to the threat, an online petition by travel operators and associations asks the government of Tanzania to stop the highway. It warns that, in addition to damaging a priceless World Heritage Site, it would damage Tanzania’s tourist industry, jeopardizing billions of shillings in foreign exchange needed for economic development.
Tour companies and associations interested in signing the petition should go to the following web site:
http://www.savetheserengeti.org/issues/stop-the-serengeti-highway/
On the site, there is a link to the travel industry petition, as well as information on how individuals can get involved. The website also has background information on the highway and its impacts, as well as links to articles and official positions by the African Wildlife Foundation and Frankfurt Zoological Society. Also included in the site is information on an alternative route around the southern part of the Serengeti that preserves the ecosystem and provides service to a greater number of Tanzanians.
The Serengeti ecosystem is a geographical region located in northwestern Tanzania and southern Kenya. It hosts the largest and longest overland migration in the world. Some two million wildebeest, zebras, and antelope make the annual trek each year between Kenya’s Masai Mara Reserve and the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. It is widely regarded as the greatest wildlife spectacle on Earth, and the Serengeti National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Comments
The trade off for human obsession with gadgets, luxury, convenience, and the highways, trucks and factories needed to build the machinery, trucks, by products and spare parts, is a Planet void of Life. No technology, science, laboratory, hydroponics, Monsanto fertilizer corporation can safe its skin from its own self destructive creations. Politicians not heeding the warnings should have their head examined unless they want to lose it when the world wakes up. And the world is waking up.
"an online petition by travel operators and associations"?
Unfortunately this website doesn't tell us any name of someone in the travel industry. It also doesn't tell us who is behind this. If you go to "How you can help" they just ask for your personal data. No action plan, no explanation of what they plan to do, not even a link to a petition site on that page, just a mysterious "we will tell you...". There's no privacy statement or any other legal statement on the site.
So what do you think will they do with all the collected data?
As long as the commercial interest in building the highway outweighs the commercial interest in promoting Tanzania's natural heritage, the road builders are likely to get their way. One way that commerce and conservation might be able to coexist in the Serengeti would be for park fees to directly subsidise the longer, green route, and possibly after the green road is built, to use them to subsidise drivers' costs in taking it.
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