Mkomazi Reserve

The Mkomazi Reserve is a spectacular wilderness area nearby to Mount Kilimanjaro. To the north, Kenya's vast Tsavo National Park shares a border with Mkomazi, making common ground for migratory herds of elephant, oryx and zebra during the wet season. Together they form one of the largest and most important protected ecosystems on earth. The reserve was established in 1951, but never attracted the financial support required to prosper, and indeed the relocation of people out of the reserve attracted widespread criticism. By 1988, Mkomazi was in steep decline; heavy poaching had wiped out its black rhino and elephant populations; overgrazing, deliberate burning and illegal hunting had reduced its wildlife populations.

The Tanzanian government invited Tony Fitzjohn to work with them on a programme of habitat restoration and the reintroduction of endangered species. Having restored the reserve’s infrastructure, breeding programmes were begun for the most endangered species: black rhino and wild dogs. In the late 1960s 250 black rhino inhabited Mkomazi, but by the late 1980s there were none. To date eight have been brought back to Mkomazi with a plan to increase this to 20. A similar programme is underway for the Painted Hunting Dog – Mkomazi has the first captive breeding and translocation programme for the dogs in east Africa.

Community work at Mkomazi

At the establishment of the reserve, it was agreed that once rehabilitation was underway they would establish community programmes for the residents of the villages surrounding the reserve. This was to be a huge task encompassing 41 villages in three districts and two regions, with a total population of about 200,000. The outreach programme was started a couple of years later with the aim of ensuring that the local communities benefit from the presence of the game reserve and come to look upon wild animals as a valuable, but sustainable, resource.

The programme has helped to build and equip local primary schools and clinics, facilitated the formation of women’s groups and recently completed projects including the sinking of a borehole and water pump, and the construction of a police station. Revenue-generating projects have also been initiated with the provision of maize grinders for many villages. Any profits raised by the operators of the machines are put towards the refurbishment of the schools. Community conservation safaris have also been started into a couple of the districts.

Ruaha National Park

Ruaha is Tanzania’s second largest park covering an area of some 10,300 sq. km. It was established in 1910 and protects a large part of the Great Ruaha and Mzombe River Eco-systems. It is situated in southern Tanzania and is interesting in that it represents a transition zone where eastern and southern African species of flora and fauna overlap. The park itself is surrounded by a further reserve area of another 30,000 sq. km, thereby creating a huge and rare uninhabited wilderness, which benefits a rich variety of game and over 400 species of birds.

Community work at Ruaha

Conservation lessons

The Ruaha National Park is fed by the Great Ruaha river. In the upstream Usangu region rice cultivation is a dominant source of local income. In the early nineties irrigation schemes diverted substantial water resources from the river to the rice fields to increase their yield. In 1993, for the first time, the Great Ruaha river then dried up completely. The worthy but naive intent to maximise rice production failed to predict consequences including regional drought, wet season flooding, and hydroelectric power failure – a lesson in long-term problem solving in a region afflicted by more than a single trouble.