Serengeti national park
INTRODUCTION
The Serengeti national park* is a large natural park located in Tanzania (East Africa). It is the second larger park animalist of Africa, he extends on 15 000 km² (1.5 million ha). The animal life is more important there than elsewhere, with approximately 4 million animals present in the park. There is more than 400 species of birds in Serengeti.
DESCRIPTION
The park covers 14 763 km² grassy plains, savannas as well as bordering forests and grounds wooded. Serengeti is located in the north of the country, bordered in north by the borders of Tanzania and of Kenya where it is in continuity with the national park of Masai Mara*.
The human occupation is prohibited there the exeption of the personnel of the zoological company of Frankfurt*, and to the personnel of the TANAPA*.
The park is generally described as being divided into three areas :
Plains of Serengeti : A sight without end with very few trees and the meadows as far as the eye can see make of it the most emblematic decoration of the park. It is here that come to live the wildebeests of December to May.
The Western corridor : The Western corridor: "Black" cotton (makes clay black of it) covers the marshy savanna of this area. The Grumeti river shelters enormous Nile crocodiles.
Nothern Serengeti : This zone begins at the small village from Seronera (small village built for the members of the personnel of various associations), to the Mara river at the border of Kenya.
Close to the park Olduvai Gorge is, where many fossils and human vestiges were exhumed. The park is contiguous with the surface of conservation of Ngorongoro, and is part of the great ecosystem of Serengeti. It is listed by UNESCO* like world heritage. The administrative entity for all the parks of Tanzania names Tanzania National parks* (Tanzania National Parks, or TANAPA*).
HISTORY
The extent of the national park of Serengeti was used formerly as pasture for the cattle of the people maasai which called this zone the "plain without end". The German explorer, Dr Oscar Bauman penetrates for the first time in the area in 1892. In 1913, the British Stewart Edward White explored the northern area of Serengeti then returned in 1920 in the area where will be érigié many years later the village of Seronera.
It is into 1951 that Serengeti National Park was created thanks to the common efforts run of Bernhard Grzimek and her Michael son to make known the place by the biai of a book and film "Serengeti Shall Not Die", works largely recognized in the world of the nature conservation.
Within the framework of the creation of the park, and in order to preserve fauna, the Maasaï people were moved towards the highland of Ngorongoro. Serengeti is the oldest national park of Tanzania and remains the floret of the tourism industry of the country, offering a major attraction thanks to "Northern Safari Circuit".
FLORA OF THE PARK
Serengeti National Park consists of meadows and forests, plains, kopjes and of the marshes, which all constitute a savanna. “Savanna” is a general term for very standard designer of semi-arid grounds of the meadows wooded and opened with all the mixtures of graminaceous and trees between the two. Savannas cover a quarter of the surface of the ground and the worlds can support more animals than any other type of ground.
A common characteristic of savannas is fire. Unless the grass of savannas is completely consumed by the animals, it will be sometimes flaring. With the possibility of having a massive number of animals resident and frequent fires, savannas are very dynamic landscapes and tend to change quickly. That makes them very interesting from the scientific point of view.
FAUNA OF THE PARK
Besides the great annual migration of the ungulates*, the park is very well-known in particular for its actions carried out for the safeguarding of fauna for "Big Five", thus named as being the five trophies most snuffed by the hunters formerly and the photographers nowadays :
The lion* : The enormous quantity of herbivores shows perfectly what could be the largest population of these felid* in Africa.
The leopard* : This solitary predator is usually observed in the area of Seronera.
The elephant : The herds seem to take again hair of the animal as from the years 1980. This pachyderm abounds especially in the northern part of the park.
The black rhinoceros* : The poaching reduced its population to a handful of individuals close to Moru Kopjes, in the center of Serengeti.
The African buffalo : The large herds remain, in spite of their number, very reduced because of diseases.
The park also shelters many other species such as the cheetah*, the Thomson's gazelle, the Grant's Gazelle, the Common Eland,, the kob, the hyena, the baboon, the impala, the African wild dog* and the giraffe.
Serengeti was one of the places where animalist photographers recognized internationally like Yann Arthus-Bertrand* appeared and it is today the place of appointment of many amateur photographers or professionals in search of photo safari. Many animalist reports intended on television are turned there.
EPILOG
Thanks to its biodiversity and with the ecological importance of the area, the park was classified in the list of the world heritage by UNESCO*.
The man and the animal are interdependent on this planet with the resources limited with other elements such as the water, the ground and the air which form the fragile crust outside of the ground that we call " biosphere " . Health, the wellbeing and the survival of our parks and their fauna reflect the state of the human condition. The increasing demographic pressure as well as the farm threaten from now on more than ever our parks and the life which is preserved there. A balance must be found between the safeguarding and the use of the resources of the park so that the single ecosystems of Serengeti can be preserved for the future generations. Matter of Lota Melamari, managing director of the national parks in Tanzania.
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