Ngorongoro Conservation Area

"Ngorongoro" redirects here. For the district, see Ngorongoro District.

Panorama view of Ngorongoro Crater

Ngorongoro Conservation Area
IUCN category VI (protected area with sustainable use of natural resources)
Location	Arusha Region, Tanzania
Area	8,288 km²
Established	1959

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

UNESCO World Heritage Site
Criteria	Natural: vii, viii, ix, x
Reference	39
Inscription	1979 (3rd Session)
Endangered	1984-1989

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area or NCA is a conservation area situated 180 km west of Arusha in the Crater Highlands area of Tanzania. The conservation area is administered by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, an arm of the Tanzanian government, and its boundaries follow the boundary of the Ngorongoro Division of Ngorongoro District. It is 8,288 km² - about the size of Crete.

History and Geography

Based on fossil evidence found at the Oldupai Gorge, it is known that various hominid species have occupied the area for 3 million years. Hunter gatherers were replaced by pastorialists a few thousand years ago. The Mbulu came to the area about 2,000 year ago, and were joined by the Datoga around the year 1700. Both groups were driven from the area by the Maasai in the 1800s. Massive fig trees in the northwest of the Lerai Forest are sacred to the Maasai and Datoga people. Some of them may have been planted on the grave of a Datago leader who died in battle with the Maasai around 1840. [2]

No white man is known to have set foot in the Crater until 1892, when it was visited by a Dr. Oscar Bauman. Two German brothers farmed in the Crater until the outbreak of World War I, after leasing the land from the then in control German colonial administration of East Africa.

Ngorongoro was declared a conservation area in 1959 and at that point it was separated from the Serengeti National Park. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority is the governing body regulating use and access to the NCA. The area became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

Land in the conservation area is multi-use, it is unique in Tanzania as the only conservation area providing protection status for wildlife whilst allowing human habitation. As such land use is controlled to prevent negative effects on the wildlife population, for example cultivation is prohibited at all but subsistence levels.

The area is part of the Serengeti ecosystem, and to the north-west it adjoins the Serengeti National Park and is contiguous with the southern Serengeti plains, these plains also extend to the north into unprotected Loliondo division and are kept open to wildlife through transhuman pastoralism practiced by Maasai. The south and west of the area are volcanic highlands, including the famous Ngorongoro Crater and the lesser known Empakai. The southern and eastern boundaries are approximately defined by the rim of the Great Rift Valley wall, which also prevents animal migration in these directions.

The annual ungulate migration passes through the NCA, with wildebeest and zebra moving south into the area in December and moving north in June. This movement changes seasonally with the rains, but the migration will traverse almost the entire plains in search of food. The NCA has a healthy resident population of most species of wildlife, in particular the Ndutu Lake area to the west has a strong cheetah and lion population.

Wildlife

Wildebeest are one of the ungulates found in the Crater.

A population of about 25,000 large animals, largely ungulates along with (reputedly) the highest density of mammalian predators in Africa, lives in the crater. These include black rhinoceros, which have declined from about 108 in 1964-66 to between 11-14 in 1995, and hippopotamus which are very uncommon in the area. There are also many other ungulates: wildebeest (7,000 estimated in 1994), zebra (4,000), eland, Grant’s and Thomson’s gazelles (3,000).

Male and female lions in Ngorongoro Crater.

The crater has the densest known population of lion numbering 62 in 2001. On the crater rim are leopard, elephant numbering 42 in 1987 but only 29 in 1992, mountain reedbuck and buffalo (4,000 in 1994).

Wildlife at Ngorongoro Crater.

However, since the 1980s the crater’s wildebeest population has fallen by a quarter to about 19,000 and the numbers of eland and Thomson’s gazelle have also declined while buffalos increased greatly, probably due to the long prevention of fire which favors high fibrous grasses over shorter less fibrous types. In summer enormous numbers of Serengeti migrants pass through the plains of the reserve, including 1.7 million wildebeest, 260,000 zebra and 470,000 gazelles. Waterbuck mainly occur mainly near Lerai Forest; servals occur widely in the crater and on the plains to the west. Common in the reserve are lion, hartebeest, spotted hyena and jackal. Cheetah, though common in the reserve, are scarce in the crater itself. Wild dog has recently disappeared from the crater and may have declined elsewhere in the Conservation Area as well.

Ngorongoro Crater

Black Rhinos in the crater

The main feature of the NCA is the Ngorongoro Crater, which is the world's largest unbroken, unflooded volcanic caldera. The Crater, which formed as the giant volcano exploded and collapsed on itself some two to three million years ago, is 610m deep and the floor is 260km² (102 square miles).

Although thought of as "a natural enclosure" for a very wide variety of wildlife, up to 20% or more of the wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) and half the zebra (Equus burchelli) populations vacate the Crater in the wet season. Animal populations in the crater include most of the species found in East Africa, but there are no impalas (Aepyceros melampus), topis (Damaliscus lunatus), oribis (Ourebia oribi), giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis), or crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus). [3]

The Munge Stream drains Olmoti Crater to the north, and is the main water source draining into Lake Magadi, the seasonal salt lake in the center of the Crater. The Lerai Stream drains the humid forests to the south of the Crater, and it feeds the Lerai Forest on the Crater floor - when there is enough rain, the Lerai drains into Lake Magadi as well. Extraction of water by lodges and NCA headquarters reduces the amount of water entering Lerai by around 25%. [4]

The other major water source in the Crater is the Ngoitokitok Spring, near the eastern Crater wall. There is a picnic site here open to tourists, and a huge swamp fed by the spring, and inhabited by hippopotamus, elephants, lions, and many others. Many other small springs can be found around the Crater floor, and these are important water supplies for the animals and local Masaai, especially during times of drought.

Aside from herds of zebra, gazelle and wildebeest, the crater is home to the "big five" of rhinoceros, lion, leopard, elephant and buffalo. The crater plays host to almost every individual species of wildlife in East Africa, and there are an estimated 25,000 animals within the crater.

Fire is being used to manage vegetation in the Crater.

Following the recommendations of the ad hoc committee of scientists convened after the 2000 drought, an ecological burning program was implemented in the Crater, which entails annual or biannual controlled burns of up to 20% of the grasslands. [5]

Olduvai Gorge

Main article: Olduvai Gorge

Olduvai Gorge, February 2006

The conservation area also protects Olduvai Gorge, situated in the plains area. It is considered the seat of humanity after the discovery of the earliest known specimens of modern man, Homo habilis as well as early man Paranthropus boisei.

The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge is a steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley, which stretches along eastern Africa. Olduvai is in the eastern Serengeti Plains in northern Tanzania and is about 30 miles long. The gorge is named after the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant Sansevieria ehrenbergii, commonly called Oldupaai.

It is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world and has been instrumental in furthering understanding of early human evolution. Excavation work there was pioneered by Louis Leakey in the 1950s and is continued today by his family. Some believe that millions of years ago, the site was that of a large lake, the shores of which were covered with successive deposits of volcanic ash. Around 500,000 years ago seismic activity diverted a nearby stream which began to cut down into the sediments, revealing seven main layers in the walls of the gorge.

Popular culture

• The Un'Goro Crater in the fictional world of Azeroth from the MMORPG World of Warcraft is most likely based on the Ngorongoro Crater.

References

• Ngorongoro Conservation Area at the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre
• Tanzania Tourist Bureau website
• Official UNESCO website entry
• Deocampo, D.M., 2004. Hydrogeochemistry in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, and implications for land use in a World Heritage Site. Applied Geochemistry, volume 19, p. 755-767
• Deocampo, D.M., 2005. Evaporative evolution of surface waters and the role of aqueous CO2 in magnesium silicate precipitation: Lake Eyasi and Ngorongoro Crater, northern Tanzania. South African Journal of Geology, volume 108, p. 493-504.

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