Ngorongoro Conservation Area
Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a protected area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Ngorongoro District, west of Arusha City in Arusha Region, within the Crater Highlands geological area of northeastern Tanzania. The area is named after Ngorongoro Crater, a large volcanic caldera within the area. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, which administers the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, is an arm of the Tanzanian government and its boundaries follow the boundary of the Ngorongoro District in the Arusha Region. The western portion of the park abuts the Serengeti National Park. The area comprising the NCA, SNP, and Kenya's Maasai Mara game reserve is home to Great Migration, a massive annual migration of millions of wildebeest, zebras, gazelles, and other animals. The NCA also contains Olduvai Gorge, one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world.
Ngorongoro Conservation Area is one of the most popular attractions in Tanzania with 752,232 tourists visiting it in 2023.
The 2009 Ngorongoro Wildlife Conservation Act placed new restrictions on human settlement and subsistence farming in the Crater, displacing Maasai pastoralists, most of whom had been relocated to Ngorongoro from their ancestral lands to the north when the British colonial government established Serengeti National Park in 1959.
History
The name of the crater has an onomatopoeic origin; it was named by the Maasai pastoralists after the sound produced by the cowbell. Based on fossil evidence OH 7 found at the Olduvai Gorge, various hominid species have occupied the area for at least 1.75 million years.Hunter-gatherers were replaced by pastoralists a few thousand years ago. The Iraqw people came to the area about 2,000 years ago and were joined by the Datooga around the year 1700. Both groups were driven from the area by the Maasai in the 1800s.
No Europeans are known to have set foot in the Ngorongoro Crater until 1892 when it was visited by Oscar Baumann. Two German brothers farmed in the crater until the outbreak of World War I, after leasing the land from the administration of German East Africa. The brothers regularly organized shooting parties to entertain their German friends. They also attempted to drive the wildebeest herds out of the crater.
The first game reserves were established by Germans and allowed hunting. Under British rule after World War I, various game preservation ordinances which restricted hunting were enacted in various areas in Tanzania starting in 1921. By 1930, Ngorongoro Crater was included. Also during this time, the Land Ordinance of 1923 created legal basis to place the land rights of indigenous people at the discretion of the Governor, though indigenous people retained those rights through the 1950's. Tensions between the drive for preservation and the rights of indigenous people rose during this time.
The National Park Ordinance of 1948, created the Serengeti National Park. However, to secure land rights for the pastoralist Maasai people living in the area, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Ordinance separated the NCA from the SNP. Maasai people living in Serengeti National Park were systematically relocated to Ngorongoro Conservation Area, increasing the population of Maasai people living there.
It also increased the disputes between the Tanzania government and the Maasai people.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority was established at the same time and manages the NCA and works to preserve it as a multi-use protected area. The NCAA's mission is to support the traditions of pastoral Maasai people, preserve the natural and cultural values of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and to promote and regulate tourism
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, originally inscribed for its natural significance of wildlife and the Ngorongoro Crater. The NCA then received Mixed Heritage Status in 2010 due to the cultural significance of the anthropological importance of the Olduvai Gorge.This cultural recognition, however, has not included the Maasai community, hence the longstanding conflict surrounding the use and management of the park.
The Wildlife Conservation Act of 2009 further restricted human use of Ngorongoro Crater and created a legal framework to politically disenfranchise and forcibly displace traditional pastoralists. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is seeking solutions to ease conflict and improve collaborative efforts toward conservation with the locals.
Citing concerns about the preservation of the natural value of the NCA, starting in 2021, the Tanzanian government designed and then started implementing a plan to relocate all of the Maasai people in Ngorongoro Conservation Area to Msomera, a village 600 kilometers away. This is considered a voluntary relocation, however, Human Rights Watch reports that the government has acted in a coercive way without accordance to the principle of free, prior, and informed consent.
Geography
The Serengeti ecosystem includes multiple preserved areas in Tanzania. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is in the southeast portion. The NCA adjoins the Serengeti National Park to the northwest and is contiguous with the SNP's southern Serengeti plains. These plains also extend to the north of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area into the unprotected Loliondo division and are kept open to wildlife through transhumance pastoralism practiced by the Maasai. The south and east of the NCA are volcanic highlands, including the famous Ngorongoro Crater and the lesser-known Empakaai Crater.The southern and eastern boundaries of the Serengeti ecosystem are approximately defined by the rim of the East African Rift wall, which also prevents animal migration in these directions. In the topographical map, Lake Nyanza is the same as Lake Victoria in the Serengeti Ecosystem map.
Geology
The Pliocene Ngorongoro volcanic group consists of eight extinct shield volcanoes within the Eyasi half-graben, the eastern boundary marked by the Gregory Rift Western Escarpment. The Lake Eyasi escarpment bounds the half-graben on the southwest. Within the complex, five volcanoes are dome-shaped cones, while three have calderas. Ngorongoro Volcano is primarily basaltic trachyandesite. The caldera is fed by the Munge and Oljoro Nyuki Rivers, while the Ngoitokitok hot springs feed into the Goringop swamp. Lake Magadi is a shallow alkaline lake. Other volcanoes within the complex include Olmoti, Empakaai, Loolmalasin, Sadiman, Lemagrut, and Oldeani. The northwest portion of the NCA consists of the Serengeti Plains, the Salei Plains, the Oldupai Gorge, and the Gol Mountains inselbergs. These inselbergs are part of the Mozambique Belt quartzite and mica schist about in age.Ngorongoro Crater
The main feature of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is the Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic caldera. The crater, which formed when a large volcano erupted and collapsed on itself two to three million years ago, is deep and its floor covers. Estimates of the height of the original volcano range from high. The crater floor is above sea level. The crater was voted by Seven Natural Wonders as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa in Arusha, Tanzania, in February 2013. The Ngorongoro volcano was active from about 2.45 to 2 million years ago. Volcanic eruptions like that of Ngorongoro, which resulted in the formation of Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, were very common. Similar collapses occurred in the case of Olmoti and Empakaai, but they were much smaller in magnitude and impact. Out of the two recent volcanoes to the northeast of the Empakaai caldera, Kerimasi and Ol Doinyo Lengai, Doinyo Lengai is still active and had major eruptions in 2007 and 2008. Smaller ash eruptions and lava flows continue to slowly fill the current crater. Its name in Maasai means 'Mountain of God'. The Munge Stream drains Olmoti Crater to the north and is the main water source draining into the seasonal salt lake in the center of the crater. This lake is known by two names: Makat as the Maasai called it, meaning salt; and Magadi. The Lerai Stream drains the humid forests to the south of the Crater and 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 Ngorongoro Conservation Area headquarters reduces the amount of water entering Lerai by around 25%.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 the area is inhabited by hippopotamuses, elephants, lions, and many others. Many other small springs can be found around the crater's floor, and these are important water supplies for the animals and local Maasai, especially during times of drought. Maasai were previously permitted to graze their cattle within the crater, but as of 2015 were restricted from doing so.
Olduvai Gorge
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area also protects Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge, situated in the plains area. It is considered to be the seat of humanity after the discovery of the earliest known specimens of the human genus, Homo habilis as well as early hominidae, such as Paranthropus boisei.The Olduvai Gorge is a steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley, which stretches along eastern Africa. Olduvai is in the eastern Serengeti Plains in northeastern Tanzania and is about long. It lies in the rain shadow of the Ngorongoro highlands and is the driest part of the region. The gorge is named after 'Oldupaai', the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant, Sansevieria ehrenbergii.
It is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world and research there has been instrumental in furthering understanding of early human evolution. Excavation work there was pioneered by Mary and Louis Leakey in the 1950s and is continued today by their 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.