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Government calls for Ngorongoro Conservation
URL: https://www.safarilands.org/index.php/environment/more/government_calls_for_ngorongoro_conservation/
Posted: Friday May 15, 2009 10:58 AM BT
Posted: Friday May 15, 2009 10:58 AM BT
Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) has been directed to explore viable alternatives that would ultimately limit increased human activities which have been threatening the crater.
Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Ezekiel Maige told the 'Daily News' in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the move is aimed at salvaging Ngorongoro over the looming territory's ecological deterioration."We have already directed the Ngorongoro Authority to conduct census for both human population and livestock in the areas so that we can take appropriate measures," said the minister.
A recent report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) cautioned that Ngorongoro could be removed from the list of the World Heritage sites as a result of increased human activities which have been contributing to the territory's ecological deterioration.
The area, mostly inhabited by the Maasai people, has in recent past witnessed a significant increase in human population from 8,000 people ill 1959, to 64,100 in 2002.
Mr Maige said the area has a standard of holding capacity of only 25,000 people, and the available statistics also indicate that the 8,292 square kilometres of the Ngorongoro Conservation areas has 13,650 head of cattle, and 19,305 goats and sheep, making the area
densely populated.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is situated about 180 km (112 miles) west of Arusha in the Crater Highlands area of Tanzania.
It 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 covers an area of 8,288 km (3,200 square miles) about the size of Crete.
Mr Maige said that one of the alternatives to salvage the arenas could be relocation of people living in the areas, particularly those who would prefer to get involved in a huge scale cultivation of crops as a means of their survival.
The UNESCO declared the Ngorongoro crater a Natural World Heritage Site in 1979, twenty years after the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority was established in 1959, with an eye to protect an area covering 8,300 square kilometres.
According to UNESCO's latest exclusive report of the reactive monitoring mission, the popular tourist site in the country seems to have fallen from grace as far as both international conservationists and green activists are concerned.
The UN body also suggested that the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority should work in close collaboration with the Maasai people to explore alternatives to limit or stop livestock grazing in the crater.
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