Largest national park created
DAILY NEWS Reporter
Daily News; Thursday,December 28, 2006 @00:05
PLANS are underway to combine Ruaha National Park with Usangu Game Reserve in the south to make Africa's largest existing Park.

A press release yesterday by the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) said that the move was part of the country's efforts to upgrade its game reserves into national parks.

The move will also increase the biodiversity of that area as well as boosting tourism in the region, added the statement.

The Managing Director of TTB, Mr Peter Mwenguo, said:''Tanzania's tourism strategy is to encourage high quality, low volume tourism,'' adding that by increasing the number of national parks, the country was able to create more diversity in the safari circuits and avoid mass tourism.'

When annexed, the Ruaha park's size will increase to over 15,000 square kilometres from the current 12,950 square kilometers.

Tanzania, the largest country in East Africa, is said to be the last frontier of the enchanting Africa of the past century, with 25 per cent of the land set aside for protected areas.

There are currently 14 national parks and 30 game reserves. Ruaha, which boasts a population of about 10,000 elephants, the largest in any EA African national park, protects a vast tract of the rugged semi-arid bush country that characterizes central Tanzania.

Its life blood is the Great Ruaha River which courses along the eastern boundary of the park. A fine network of gameviewing roads follow the Great Ruaha and its seasonal tributaries. The Usangu Game Reserve includes the Ihefu Wetland, the natural reservoir for the Great Ruaha River.

Among other Tanzania's famous parks include Africa's highest and permanently snow-capped Mt Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti.

Other attractions include the famous Ngorongoro Crater, one of the country's most incredible natural wonders, as well as Olduvai Gorge (cradle of mankind), the Marine Park of Mafia Island and Mnazi Bay, which provide exciting deep sea fishing and aqua sports.

Pippa:

Very interesting. Tanzania is going to "upgrade its game reserves into national parks."
and Kenya has just downgraded their National Park to a reserve. We'll have to wait and see which works out better.

Either way I see a positive development. In Kenya KWS is buying land to increase the size of Nairobi National Park and reduce local human-wildlife conflicts and in Tanzania Parks are being merged to increase their size.

Looks very promising to me

Carsten:

Promising as long as it can happen. I have a feeling that there will be such a hue and cry from the people that it won't get off the ground.

Does anyone know if Kenya has a legal way to take land by eminent domain such as the US has? Here if they want to put a road in they can take your land (against your will) but end up paying you only a per centage of what the market value is.

As I said, `promising´ not `ah great, all issues solved, we can take bushdrums offline again´ :-O

No idea if such a law exists in Kenya, but I guess that if they[Government] would want to, they could. In the end it is all just a matter of compensation these days.

More good news for most of you.........Usangu Game Reserve was formerly a hunting concession which will cease to exist once it becomes a National Park.

It will be interesting to see after 5/10 years whether that was a good move or not with respect to wildlife conservation. One of the main reasons this was done I suspect, is to protect the water catchement Usangu flood plain that is crucial for one of their Hydropower stations following recent countrywide electric power rationing....I´m for it if they are able to make treasury release the resources required for its protection.