Wildlife is our oil: conservation, livelihoods and NGOs in the Tarangire ecosystem, Tanzania

The Tarangire ecosystem of northern Tanzania is proclaimed a site of global biodiversity significance. The economic value of wildlife in Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Parks is substantial and growing. Maintaining the health of these parks is important to Tanzania’s overall tourism industry and macroeconomic health. A considerable proportion of Tarangire’s wildlife leaves the park for approximately six months a year, migrating onto village lands under the jurisdiction of local communities. Of particular importance are grazing and calving areas in the Simanjiro Plains. Conservation of the ecosystem’s migratory wildlife populations largely depends on maintaining these habitats on communally owned lands. However, populations of most large mammal species have declined by over fifty percent in the last decade. The progressive conversion of pastoral rangelands to agriculture is believed to be a major contributing factor to this decline. Community-based conservation (CBC) interventions in the Tarangire ecosystem aim to increase the combined economic returns from wildlife and pastoral livestock production in order to reduce incentives for non-wildlife compatible agricultural land-use change. Increased State investment in CBC, continued growth in photographic and hunting tourism revenues, and large infusions of funding from international conservation organisations suggest that substantial potential exists for CBC to play a significant role in poverty reduction and biodiversity conservation. This thesis examines the fortunes of CBC in the Tarangire ecosystem. It uses a household survey conducted in a village earning substantial wildlife tourism revenues to show that wildlife benefits are concentrated in the hands of the elite, and have limited livelihood or conservation impacts. By documenting the root causes of local resistance to conservation, this thesis explains the failures of new conservation strategies in Tanzania.