BREAKING BARRIERS: THE FIRST FEMALE FIELD GEOLOGIST IN TANZANIA

(Featured image by Eleanora Robbins.)

Tanzania’s Chief Geologist, Alec McKinley, regarded me skeptically from behind his large wooden desk. “You’ll niver go into the field,” he announced in his Scots brogue.

It was 1964 and I, a Peace Corps volunteer (and newly minted geologist c/o Ohio State University) had just arrived in Dodoma, the headquarters of the Geological Survey of Tanzania (GST), to learn my duties. I had expected them to include fieldwork, so, naturally, I was disappointed. Just like every other geologist on Earth, I looked forward to working in the field. But I was a woman, and in those days female geologists everywhere faced uphill battles for acceptance.

Office of the Geological Survey of Tanzania (or Tanganyika as it was in 1964) in Dodoma.

Photo: Eleanora Robbins

Instead, I was given the task of assessing data in notebooks, obtained from Williamson’s Diamond Mines, containing spectrographic trace chemical data. And when I say notebooks, I mean piles of them, containing data from 60% of the country. Williamson’s Diamond Mines had removed all the gold and silver analyses but left the data on the other 15 chemical elements.

Norrie, GST Director, John Pallister and Chief Geologist, Alec McKinley. 1964.

Photo: Eleanora Robbins

In 1961, Tanzania had too few educated people to man top-level government positions. Therefore, many British colonial personnel stayed on until Tanzanian’s could be trained to take their places.

But fate later smiled on me. Alec McKinley took home leave. Officials posted to the far reaches of the British Empire typically did this once every several years but then did not resume their duties for up to a year. Therefore, Alec would be gone for some time. Fortunately for me, his replacement, Gerald Carter, had a different approach. For one thing, he wanted to “ground truth” the sites reported in the notebooks. Secondly, as the proud and often harried parent of two daughters, he was fully aware of the inherent capabilities of females. He was, in other words, a breath of fresh air. “I’m sending you into the field,” he announced. Thus was my place sealed forever as the first female field geologist with GST.

***Gerald Carter***
Photo: Eleanora Robbins. 1965

He did put one restriction on me—I had to stay in someone’s house. To determine where this would be, I prepared a new map. On it I plotted the locations of my anomalies (ground-truthing sites), Peace Corps volunteers, schools, and missions. One anomaly was not too far from where another member of my Peace Corps group, a nurse, Diane Schultz, was posted in Kondoa, central Tanzania. I wrote to her, and she replied, “Come.” Therefore, my field crew and I stayed at her place. They camped out in her yard. It was a win-win situation for everyone, too, as Diane and I discovered the first morning when we peaked out the window and saw prostitutes / girlfriends leaving the camp. Camp in a city? Enjoy city life!

Dodoma, near the center of Tanzania. Kondoa is 95 miles north, on the road to Arusha.Map by Shakki. GNU Free Documentation license 1.2.

Norrie with her field crew. Dodoma, Tanzania.

Photo: Eleanora Robbins

My crew and I spent three weeks working out of Kondoa, prospecting for mineral deposits by taking stream sediment samples from dry stream beds (it was the dry season). Going to a previously sampled area, we walked up the principal stream until we reached the mouth of a tributary, then walked a short distance up that to take a sample. Samples were analyzed in the lab using a spectrograph. And that was it: field work that was simple, straight forward, and routine. Nevertheless, we had to keep alert. I discovered this on my very first day in the field, when, somehow, we walked right into a herd of elephants and had to crawl away on hands and knees through sparse grass to escape. On the second field trip, a charging rhino caught us off guard and I was saved from being gored and trampled when one of my crew yanked me up a steep stream bank just before the heavy beast (they can weigh over a ton), trotted by, huffing like a steam engine.

Sampling sediments in a dry stream bed in Central Tanzania. (If spectrographic analysis in the lab found significant amounts of an important mineral in the sample, prospecting would continue up the tributary to locate its source.)

Photo: Eleanora Robbins

However, the encounter that’s most seared into my memory happened when, walking upstream in a wide, dry riverbed, we suddenly disturbed two cape buffaloes resting in the deep shade of an overhanging tree. One of them charged. Pandemonium ensued, with everyone but me rushing for the nearest tree and climbing as high as they could. “Panda mti!” my crew screamed at me, “Climb a tree!” Unfortunately, I couldn’t. Having had polio as a child, my stomach muscles aren’t strong enough. So, here I was, the only person still on the ground, the sole focus of a rapidly approaching beast with wicked-looking horns. What to do? Whatever adrenaline says! Remembering a knoll about a quarter mile back, I ran for it.

Cape buffaloes: Even lions are wary.

Photo: David Bygott

This put my field crew in an existential bind. As I learned later, they had been told their main job was to bring me back alive; samples were secondary. So, they climbed out of the trees. I have no idea what happened behind me. I know we had two big rifles but heard no shots. I know the men put themselves in danger for me. I ran in circles around the knoll trying to escape that buffalo before someone somehow diverted it, causing both animals to run away.

I sat down and started to cry. My field tracker, Issa Laibu, caught up to me and asked, “U mzima? (“Are you alive?”). I said, “Ndiyo” (“Yes”). “Kwahiyo kwanini unelia, mama?” Issa asked, “So why are you crying?”. I couldn’t think of a reason, so I stopped, got up and we went back to work. Of course, we were skittish for the rest of the day.

After all the samples were taken in the field, I spent the rest of my time at Dodoma, plotting more data onto maps (analyses were done by others). And I admit, it was fun being young and female, surrounded mostly by single men. Social life in Dodoma was good, plenty of parties given by my European and Asian colleagues, an ever-changing stream of visiting Peace Corps volunteers, trips to Arusha for milkshakes, and travel to Dar es Salaam to swim in the ocean.

Norrie and her assistant, Tony Petro, plotting data from the notebooks onto maps.

Photo: Eleanora Robbins

I also met Mary Cibaya, the health care worker at the GST there in Dodoma. She first sought me out to teach her English, then later invited me to visit her and the children of her Wagogo village outside Dodoma. (The Wagogo tribe occupies a large area around Dodoma in central Tanzania.) About once a week over the next two years, I strapped my guitar over my shoulder, jumped on my blue Peace Corps bike and pedaled out of town to her village.

It was fun! The village children taught me Tanzanian songs, bits and pieces of which I still remember. In fact, even now, many years later, I still sometimes find myself crooning “Malaika, na kupenda maliaka–Angel, I love you, angel,” a love song that was popular at the time, or “Baba na mama . . . Sita rudi—Father and mother . . . They won’t return,” a beautiful melody about remembering dead parents. In return, I taught them American folk songs, just as I did at birthday parties for my European and Asian colleagues’ kids. Soon all the kids in the village and Dodoma were singing American songs like Kumbaya, only with different accents: The African children singing Kum “ba” ya, (in Swahilli, the accent is on the middle syllable), and the other kids singing Kumba “ya.”

Wagogo children

Photo: Eleanora Robbins

Mary became my best friend in Tanzania. She taught me the first lesson I needed when working with kids—that mothers and grandmothers will do their best to attract anyone who will give their children a leg up in this world. Mary had six at the time but eventually nine over the years. She always told me, “Norrie, I’m going to send my children to you one day.” I was to learn that she meant it.

Norrie and Mary Cibaya

Photo: Eleanora Robbins

Almost 30 years later, in 1996, my husband, Brian, and I welcomed Mary’s 26-year-old son, Isaac, at Dulles Airport near Washington DC where we lived. After a few months with us, he moved to the Los Angeles area where there is a large Tanzanian community. We kept in touch. Isaac subsequently became a building contractor. He also married and, together with his wife, produced two bright children, a daughter who is presently interested in black holes, and a son in videography.

Then, 27 years after coming to the USA, Isaac asked me, now a widow living in San Diego, California, to formally adopt him. “My mother, Mary, always told us, her children, that we had two mothers—her in Tanzania and you in America,” he explained. I was intrigued. Having given Mary the money to build the house in which she raised Isaac and his siblings and having kept up with her and them over the years, I already regarded them as “family.” Also, Brian and I had never had children. Therefore, by adopting Isaac I would automatically gain some. On March 17, 2023, we legally became mother and son.

Gaining a ready-made family was a decided benefit of my working in Tanzania. I also benefitted in that my Peace Corps experience there gave me non-competitive eligibility for a 34-year-long government career with the U.S. Geological Survey. And an interesting career it was, too, especially in that, focused as it was on rocks and minerals of the world, it allowed contacts made so many years ago to become lifelong friendships which, thanks to the internet, are still intact.

No complaints!

This post is adapted from Warner, D. (Editor). 2024. We Came, We Saw, We Changed: Creating a Peace Corps Legacy in Tanzania 1964-1966. Library of Congress Control Number 2024907333 (with additional input from Eleanora Robbins).

VOLUNTEERING IN TANZANIA: LESSONS FROM THE KILOMBERO SETTLEMENT SCHEME

(Featured image by Paul Bolstad.)

Editor’s note: Many of this website’s posts derive from my time as a volunteer in Tanzania in the mid 1960’s. However, I’m also interested in the experiences of other volunteers who devoted a few years of their lives in assisting communities and non-government and government agencies in East Africa. This post, by Paul Bolstad, is the second in this line. If you have a volunteer story you would like to have published please let me know at d_herlocker@icloud.com.

By Paul Bolstad, U.S. Peace Corps volunteer.

PROLOGUE

It was late afternoon and the Kilombero Settlement Scheme’s small, corrugated metal office building was hot and stuffy. Wiping sweat from my brow, I returned to trying to make sense of a farmer member’s accounts as recorded by the scheme’s clerical staff: Smudged pages, indecipherable scribbles, misplaced decimal points, numbers in the tens when all logic said they should be in the 100’s, columns that didn’t add up. . . Yuck!

“Hodi?” Can I come in? Our mechanic stood in the open doorway brandishing a greasy truck (lorry) part. “Imekwisha!” he announced. It is finished! He glumly added that: (a) the vehicle it came from couldn’t run without it, and (b) he had no replacement parts. Oof! Bad news: The scheme’s trucks had to be kept running to haul our farmers’ sugar cane to the processing factory. I knew exactly what Mr. Temu, the manager, was going to say: “Paul, please take the bus to Dar es Salaam tomorrow to get more vehicle parts.”

And I didn’t want to because it would delay sorting out the farmers’ accounts so they could be paid for cane they had produced last year, something the previous manager had failed to do. But the trucks had to be kept running, so . . .

***Mechanic: How can I work without spare parts?***
Paul Bolstad

Just then another familiar face appeared, an older man with wispy beard and Muslim skull cap (kofia). Mr. Temu and I knew him as a loquacious troublemaker and probable cause of the removal of the scheme’s previous manager. He wanted to see Mr. Temu about a “problem.” Uh oh!

This was more bad news: I could see this request leading to a baraza or meeting, with Mr. Temu and I spending an entire morning or afternoon listening to farmers’ complaints about problems we already knew about and were trying to fix. It would keep us in touch with our farmers but otherwise solve nothing. For my part, I would worry the whole time about unfinished accounts and the need to keep our trucks / lorries running.

Dar es Salaam was beginning to look more inviting.

I was part of a group of 13 Peace Corps volunteers assigned to the Rural Settlement Division in Tanzania’s Ministry of Lands and Settlement. Our charge was to help, in any way we could, in the management of resettlement schemes. The latter were assisting people to a better life by giving them an opportunity to produce cash crops alongside their normal food crops. This involved clearing land with heavy equipment, surveying plots, and supplying seeds, fertilizers, tools, and on-site agricultural advice. Schemes marketed the crops at negotiated prices and, after deducting the costs of inputs they had supplied, paid each farmer based on the amount he/she had contributed.

KILOMBERO SETTLEMENT SCHEME

The Kilombero Settlement Scheme, based at Sonjo 35 miles north of Ifakara, supported 250 families living in three villages. Settler members came from all over the country. The settlement scheme provided sugar cane to the privately owned Kilombero Sugar Company, which had extensive plantations of sugar cane at the base of the Udzungwa Mountains 17 miles away. Smaller sugar cane “out-growers” augmented the company’s cane production. At 1,000 acres, the Kilombero Settlement Scheme was the largest “out-grower.”

Sugar cane growing on the settlement scheme.

Paul Bolstad

Planting sections of sugar cane, which will take root and grow up to 15 ft (4.5 m) high and 2 inches (5 cm) thick .

Paul Bolstad

I arrived in Oct. 1966, half-way through the harvesting season, to find the settlement scheme roiled by farmers so unhappy that they had forced the removal of the previous manager. They were especially angry about frequent breakdowns of settlement scheme vehicles which threatened the scheme’s ability to deliver its quota of cane to the sugar factory. Many had waited for over a year to harvest their cane and be paid.

Farmers discussing a problem

Paul Bolstad

However, there was a wider problem in that the farmers simply didn’t trust the government civil servants running the settlement scheme. They especially disliked the Tanzanian clerical staff, or “karanis,” who acted superior, treating the farmers with little respect. The farmers also felt the karanis were trying to trick them out of their fair shares in the proceeds. The leaders in fomenting and channeling this mistrust and anger were settlers from the coastal areas, the “Waswahili,” whose language, Kiswahili, was widely used throughout East Africa as a trade language. Not known for their commitment to hard physical labor, they were, on the other hand, accomplished attenders of meetings and discussions, and in sending delegations to headquarters bearing complaints and demands.

(For more about Swahili culture see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_culture.)

***Settlement scheme farmers meeting to discuss problems. Note the predominance of Muslim Waswahili as indicated by their distinctive kofias or caps.***
Paul Bolstad.

THE NEWCOMER

I had no immediate assignment, which was just as well because I was, at the time, effectively useless to anyone. Thus, my first three months were devoted to improving my Kiswahili language skills, and in a crash course in sugar cane production and operational details of the settlement scheme.

Paul Bolstad

When the new settlement scheme manager, Mr. Felix Kitipo Temu, arrived, I found him to be friendly, helpful and highly competent. I became his administrative assistant, and we became fast friends while working together to understand and put right the troubles that plagued the settlement scheme. I soon found myself deeply involved in its operations.

Mr. Felix Kitipo Temu, in retirement many years later.

Paul Bolstad

AS A GO-BETWEEN

I acted as Mr.Temu’s “go-between” with the sugar factory whenever the scheme couldn’t fulfil its quota of cane. He also frequently sent me to Dar es Salaam, over 200 miles away, to obtain vehicle parts and get papers signed at the ministry. I became an expert in going from one desk to another in government offices, waiting out reluctant and/or slothful bureaucrats until I got what I needed. Because travel by bus to Dar es Salaam took a full day, and I averaged one trip a month, this aspect of my work took up much of my time.

AS AN ACCOUNTANT

Mr. Temu’s arrival coincided with the end of the harvesting campaign of 1966. Each year the sugar company set the dates of the “campaign, which usually started when the fields and roads were dry enough to support heavy equipment and continued for about seven months when the sugar processing factory, which ran 24 hours a day, shut down for five months of repairs and maintenance.

***The Kilombero Sugar Cane factory backdropped by the Udzungwa Mountains. The factory continues to operate to this day with 45% of its production supplied by 8,000 Kilombero Valley small holders.***
*https://www.kilomberosugar.co.tz/en/about-us*

The factory’s shutdown brought up the issue of payments to the farmers. Before any payment could be approved by headquarters in Dar es Salaam, we had to submit our accounts for each farmer, including how much cane was produced and transported minus charges for goods and services. But the scheme’s accounting system was a mess. Mr. Temu and I struggled for three months to make sense of seven months of receipt books and records before we satisfied the chief accountant. We then went to the bank and loaded up our Land Rover with a pile of money in small denominations and drove straight back to Sonjo. I still remember the line of expectant farmers waiting to be paid the next day.

Subsequently, Mr.Temu asked me to devise a new accounting system based on what we had learned, one any illiterate farmer could understand when he was paid. In fact, it only required the ability to add up a column of numbers twice and get the same result, as well as using a measure of common sense. (Mr. Temu’s favorite saying was “Common sense is not common.”) I don’t remember being involved in accounting after that.

AS A PLANNER

We spent much of each year preparing for the next harvest season, a major objective being to ensure that our cane was successfully loaded in the fields and hauled to the factory over 17 miles of bad roads.

The reason this was so important was that the settlement scheme had to supply its quota of a minimum daily tonnage of sugar cane to the factory or risk its quota for the next harvesting season being reduced, Furthermore, if not delivered within two or three days of being cut, the sugar content of the cane began to fall, causing the factory to reject it or pay a lower rate.

Farmers loading sugar cane.

Paul Bolstad

Trucks hauled cane to the factory on dirt roads like this.

Paul Bolstad

Thus, we had to ensure our government-owned trucks / lorries were adequately prepared for the long harvesting season by the scheme’s trained mechanic and his assistants. (We had a warehouse but no roofed garage, therefore repairs were carried out in the shade of a large tree.) We also had to order the correct quantities of spare parts for the coming season so that the scheme’s mechanics could quickly repair vehicles as needed.

Mechanic repairing truck

Paul Bolstad

AS A BUILDER

Mr. Temu and I came up with the idea of creating a shortcut to the factory and charging a small fee for each truck using it. This required digging a ditch of considerable length to drain low-lying sections of the proposed road. Our government division advanced funds to hire laborers, and our neighbor, Major Plett, another sugar cane “out-grower,” whose trucks would also use the short cut road, provided additional labor.

We devised a simple design for the ditch, a method of measuring the amount of earth removed by each laborer, and a way to keep the ditch drained of water while being dug (basically, start digging at the lowest spot and work upwards). We also paid each laborer as soon as he completed his day’s defined task. I remember being amazed at how much this speeded their work. The short cut was a success, significantly reducing the distance our trucks had to drive to reach the well-maintained roads of the sugar company.

Farmers building the shortcut road.

Paul Bolstad

We next decided to construct a proper office and a much better facility for servicing vehicles and storing spare parts. This required government funds for labor and for cement and bati (corrugated metal) sheets. We already had iron frames supplied years earlier for settler housing but never used. In addition, I secured a CINVA-RAM block-making machine from the Peace Corps office in Dar es Salaam, and prepared simple designs for the two buildings.

We then found a good source of soil to use to make “stabilized soil” blocks with the CINVA-RAM machine. Then I simply showed some laborers how to use the machine and paid them for each block produced. (See how a CINVA-RAM machine works at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMK3l8_VR4Q.)

The walls were formed by laying air-dried blocks between the steel frames, which, set every ten feet, supported the corrugated metal roof. Having learned to lay bricks during Peace Corps training, I not only could teach and supervise the workers but also, much to their amazement, do the job myself—I doubt any of them had ever seen an “mzungu” (white man) lay bricks. The speed of their work improved considerably after that. They were a great success, and we were very proud of them.

The results of this effort were two buildings of simple but durable construction; the office is still standing and in use today, over half a century later.

Constructing the new Kilombero Settlement Scheme office building in 1967.

Paul Bolstad

The same building in 2024

Jono Jackson

YEAR 2

Transporting cane to the factory continued to be a problem. Therefore, we encouraged the farmers / settlers to obtain their own vehicles for hauling sugar cane. One farmer, who owned a duka (small store), had the financial resources to buy a new Ford 5-ton lorry. Another bought, with my financial support, an older used truck which often broke down. But we didn’t stop at that as we also recruited several transporters from Dar es Salaam to come to the settlement scheme during the harvest season and earn 51 shillings per load.

LOOKING BACK

I left the Kilombero Settlement Scheme in 1968 when my two years as a volunteer ended. A year later, in 1969, the government of Tanzania concluded its financial resources were too limited to continue supporting settlement schemes and abruptly converted the Kilombero Settlement Scheme into a self-supporting cooperative. This caused the poorer settlers, including most of the coastal Waswahili, to immediately depart, leaving their holdings to be taken over by the scheme’s more successful farmers. When next I visited, in 1974, the cooperative was struggling to survive.

Settlement scheme problems? *Hakuna matata!*
Paul Bolstad

Looking back on my time at the Kilombero Settlement Scheme, I for years felt it difficult to conclude that the efforts of Mr. Temu and I in putting it on a firm operational footing were in any way part of an incremental building of a rural development process. One can even say that our efforts were largely wasted because of the abrupt abandonment of the settlement scheme idea so soon after I left. (Note: That said, my discovery that the office building we constructed still exists, that it is still occupied by a cooperative, and that recent data shows “out-growers” to be supplying up to 45% of total cane intake of the Kilombero Sugar Factory (https://www.kilomberosugar.co.tz/en/about-us) makes me wonder if Mr. Temu and I, weren’t perhaps more successful than we thought.)

In any case, I know I did the best I could and that what came of my efforts is more the responsibility of those that followed. I am content in the memory of the rich personal experiences and relationships I had with people such as Mt. Felix Kitipo Temu, who became a friend and acted like a co-worker rather than a boss. I was fortunate that I had to learn Kiswahili, (now Tanzania’s official national language), because it provided insights into, and appreciation of, Tanzanian culture I would not otherwise have had. Furthermore, I gained a perspective on rural development in Africa that proved useful in my subsequent studies and in living and working elsewhere in Tanzania. All in all, I consider myself the chief beneficiary of the two years I spent in Tanzania on the Kilombero Settlement Scheme.

WILD DOGS: WILDLIFE OF NGORONGORO

Featured image: African wild dog pack, Kruger National Park, South Africa. Bart Swanson. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 unsorted license

“Wild dogs!” John yelped. Pointing out the right window of his Land Rover, he exclaimed “Over there–ten of them.” Then he really got excited: “And they’re chasing something! See how they’re trotting, strung out in a long line? Fantastic!” Abandoning our search for rhinos, we promptly sped off to follow the hunt.

It was 1965 and I, the assistant conservator (forests) for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), was temporarily without official transport because the NCA had prematurely exhausted its government-imposed monthly fuel allowance. For the time-being I would be unable to supervise the crew constricting a road around the western and northern rim of Ngorongoro crater or visit forest guards patrolling the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve; they were all too far away. What I could do, however, was accompany my neighbor, John Goddard, a Canadian biologist studying black rhinos, into the Crater. John had his own source of funding, which meant he was unhampered by government fuel allowances.

Rattling across the crater floor in John’s Land Rover, we followed the pack for about a mile before it brought down its prey, an adult Grant’s gazelle. Then, instead of resting from their exertions, the wild dogs immediately started ripping it apart; John and I arrived to find one dog pulling on a foreleg of the gazelle, another yanking the other direction on a hind leg, and two others tugging at its stomach while the rest of the pack danced about uttering excited twitters and whines. John quickly took several photographs, but then surprised me by leaving the vehicle to approach the frenzied melee taking place only thirty feet away. What was he thinking? They’ll eat him for dessert! But then another surprise: instead of aggressively defending their kill, the wild dogs warily backed away, allowing John to walk right up to it.

Wild dog pack tearing into a Grant’s gazelle in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.

In his 1972 book, Ngorongoro: The Eighth Wonder, Henry Fosbrooke remarks on how wild dogs in the crater always gave way when John approached. He did this, Henry said, to collect the prey’s mandibles–aging its teeth showed an animal’s age at death. John wanted undamaged specimens so he collected them as soon as possible after the wild dogs made their kill. However, in this case at least, there also was a fringe benefit: Returning with both the gazelle’s head and part of one of its hindquarters, John announced, “This takes care of dinner, tonight!”

My three years (1964-1967) at Ngorongoro exactly coincided with the presence of a wild dog pack in Ngorongoro Crater. Few were seen prior to this time and the pack left the crater in 1967. But then African wild dogs have a reputation for being rare and elusive. For instance, Henry Fosbrooke saw a wild dog only once during his 30 years of on and off acquaintance with Ngorongoro. George and Lory Frame, who studied cheetahs and wild dogs on the Serengeti Plains in the 1970’s, often spent days or weeks searching for dogs to study, then, having found a pack and studied it for a few days, woke up the next morning to find the dogs had vanished.

“Where’d they go?”

Being rare and elusive makes the African wild dog difficult to study. Nonetheless, it’s worth the effort, and not just because the wild dog occupies its own taxonomic genus (Lyacon) differing from the genus Canis (jackals, wolves, coyotes, domestic dogs) by dentition highly specialized for a hyper-carnivorous diet, and in having four toes on each foot. Both attributes support survival, the first by enhancing the shearing of meat, which increases the speed at which prey is consumed (thereby lessening the chance that lions and hyenas can steal the kill), and the second increases an animal’s stride and speed, allowing long distance pursuit of prey.

To the average viewer, however, the African wild dog’s most distinctive features are its large, round ears, and a splotchy black, white, and brown (sometimes verging on yellow) body–hence its other name, the painted dog. Happily for those who study this species, each animal has its own unique, readily distinguishable coat color pattern. African wild dogs also apparently really stink, although, unlike John Goddard, I never got close enough to tell.

Painted dogs, Kruger National Park, South Africa. Unlike those pictured here, the wild dog in East Africa generally has a white-tipped tail. (The Maasai call it Oloibor kidongoi, the white-tipped one.)

Bernard Dupont. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.

The African wild dog is a habitat generalist able to survive in a wide range of environments (An extreme, although undoubtedly short-lived, example is the sighting of a pack near the summit of Tanzania’s 19,341 ft Mt. Kilimanjaro). However, wild dogs are most commonly found in relatively open habitats which provide good views and running conditions.

Almost exclusively carnivorous, killing most of what it eats, the species is specialized as a pack hunter, concentrating on whatever medium-sized antelopes are most abundant. More enduring than its prey, it pursues the latter at up to 35 m/h (56 km/h), one dog leading , and the rest strung out behind, until the prey is exhausted, usually within 3 miles (5 km). Their ability to run their prey down without having to conceal their approach allows African wild dogs to be conspicuously colored, and like cheetahs, hunt only during the day.

African wild dogs chasing prey in Botswana’s Okavango Swamp.

Lip Kee. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.

Probably one of the most successful African carnivores, African wild dogs are such effective hunters that when prey is abundant, a pack can regularly have both breakfast and dinner. For example, wild dogs in Ngorongoro Crater killed twice a day, catching 85% of the animals they chased. Even the lowest recorded success rate for this species (39%) exceeded those of all other large predators except cheetahs. Furthermore, the entire pack benefits from a kill because it is shared among them.

Wild dogs in the Serengeti primarily prey upon Thompson’s gazelles and, in season, wildebeest calves (pictured here).

One reason for their rare and elusive nature is that wild dog packs are frequently on the move, averaging 10 km (6 miles) / day, or when game is scarce, up to 40 km (25 miles) / day. In the latter case, hunting ranges can be huge, up to 1500-2000 sq. km / 580 – 770 sq. miles (The largest recorded range is greater than the total area of London), exceeding in area even those of cheetahs. However, a range can be smaller when prey is resident and numerous.

The African wild dog has specialized on an abundant food resource which it can only exploit efficiently by hunting in packs. In East Africa these typically consist of about 10 animals but can go as high as 20 or even 60. Social bonds are strong; when separated from its pack, an African wild dog becomes so depressed that it may die. Each pack has only a single breeding pair, composed of the dominant male and female, which needs assistance from the other adults to provision large litters of up to 10 pups during an extended (12-14 month) period of dependence. Food sharing, by regurgitation of meat obtained from a kill, is supported by an emphasis on submissive, begging behavior within a pack. Aggressive behavior is rare. In-breeding is prevented by the emigration of females to other packs whereas the males, related to one another but not the breeding female, remain.

Wild dog pups. Litter sizes , larger than any other canid, are enough to form a new pack every year.

David Bygott

Despite being such effective hunters, and having an exceptionally efficient reproductive system, African wild dogs are the least common large predator in Africa. Furthermore, their population is declining. With under 7,000 animals remaining in the wild (there are fewer wild dogs than cheetahs) and having disappeared from much of their former range, African wild dogs are the continent’s 2nd most endangered large carnivore, after the Ethiopian wolf. Reasons given include:

(a) infectious diseases: Wild dogs are highly susceptible to canine diseases spread by domestic dogs;

(b) competition from lions and spotted hyenas, which appropriate wild dog kills, and in the case of lions, also kill their pups and adults;

The fragmented continental habitat of African wild dogs. The full extent of the original habitat can be roughly approximated by the distribution of smaller relict ranges. (Approximately 700 wild dogs live in northern Botswana.)

IUCN. CCA-SA 4.0 International license.

The results are smaller, less efficient and viable wild dog packs. Once African wild dog packs are reduced to small sizes, and suitable habitats are fragmented and altered by humans, wild dog populations seldom recover.

Lions are bad news for wild dogs.

David Bygott

So are domestic dogs, which carry infectious diseases.

Bothar at English Wikipedia CCASA 3.0 Unported.

Thus, the most effective way to ensure the conservation of African wild dog populations is thought to be by creating and protecting areas connecting isolated habitats. A good example of the importance of extensive, connected, ecologically diverse wild dog habitats is provided by the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem in Tanzania and Kenya. Probably due to a combination of disease and competition from lions, (the major source of wild dog mortality in the Serengeti), and from spotted hyenas, African wild dogs disappeared from the 5,700 sq. mile (14,763 km) Serengeti National Park in the early 1990’s. However, the wild dog populations survived by moving into other parts of the greater (15,444 sq. mile / 40,000 sq. km) Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem. These include Ngorongoro Crater where wild dogs have returned after a 30 year absence, but primarily the Loliondo Game Controlled Area where a more hilly habitat provides greater security from larger predators while the wild dogs are denning and raising their young. Currently, the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem contains about 120 African wild dogs.

The Loliondo Game Controlled Area (dark green) lies east of the Serengeti National Park.

Abrah Dust. CCA-SA 4.0 International license.

REFERENCES

Estes, R.D. 1991. The Behavior Guide to African Mammals: Including Hoofed Mammals, Carnivores, Primates. The University of California Press. Fosbrooke,H. 1972.

Fosbrooke, H. 1972. Ngorongoro: The Eighth Wonder. Andre Deutsch.

Frame, G. & L. Frame. 1981. Swift & Enduring: Cheetahs and Wild Dogs of the Serengeti. E.P. Dutton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_wild_dog

MORE ABOUT LEOPARDS

Featured image by David Bygott

My previous post, LEOPARDS: WILDLIFE OF NGORONGORO, stimulated some comments worthy of sharing:

Yvonne Stephenson*

When Yvonne and her husband Steve lived in the Serengeti National Park “many moons ago,” Kay Turner had two pet serval kittens given her by a warden of Tanzania’s game department. His rangers had found them at the bottom of a six-foot-deep pit that poachers had covered with grass to trap passing animals. Kay raised the two servals for six months. Then, one night, while they were sleeping on her bed, a leopard crashed through the bedroom window’s wire mosquito screen and caught one. Luckily, Kay was in another room at the time, entertaining guests. (*The husbands of Yvonne and Kay were, respectively, chief, and deputy chief wardens of the park in the early 1970’s.)

Young serval cat.

Photo by Su Neko. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 generic license.

On another occasion, Yvonne continues, “A ranger burst into our house to report that a leopard had been spotted up a tree with a cheetah, which it must have killed, because the cheetah’s tail could be seen hanging down from the branch. This was very sad for few cheetahs were being seen at the time.”

Herman Dirschl

Herman, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area’s ecologist in 1966, relates a leopard encounter experienced by John Goddard, a biologist studying rhinos in Ngorongoro Crater. John was on the porch of Lerai Cabin when he noticed his little dog, which had wandered several hundred feet away to the edge of Lerai Forest, racing toward him with a leopard in close pursuit. John opened the cabin’s door just in time to let his dog in, slamming it in the leopard’s face.

Lerai Cabin at base of crater wall, 1964.

Patrick Furtado

Patrick thinks he remembers reading a passage in Beryl Markham’s memoir, West with the Night, about her bulldog fighting off a leopard that leaped through a window to catch it. I can easily believe this happened because West with the Night is about Beryl growing up in Kenya in the early 1900’s when it was British East Africa, and wild animals still prowled the outskirts of Nairobi. Beryl’s bulldog would not have been the only domestic pet to have a close–and sometimes deadly–encounter with a leopard.

David Bygott*

David, commenting on my statement that leopards were rarely seen in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, says this has changed due to an increase in tourism, which is habituating leopards to people (or perhaps the vehicles they ride in). And, of course, leopards also are more commonly seen because more people are looking for them. ” I have seen leopards several times on the main road from Lodoare Gate to Ngorongoro, and in the crater. In the Ndutu area I’ve seen them many times.” (*David Bygott and Jeannette Hanby are the authors of Ngorongoro Conservation Area: A Complete Guidebook. https://www.hanby-bygott-books.com)

Tourists: Agents of habituation.

Photo by David Bygott.

David continues: “Here’s one of my favorite leopard memories: Years ago, staying at Serengeti’s Migration Camp, Jeannette and I slipped away and climbed a small hill to enjoy the sunset. As we sat there, I chanced to look over my shoulder and saw a leopard sitting about ten yards away, illuminated by the sun, peering at us over the tall grass. In the time it took me to whisper ‘Chui!‘ it vanished completely, leaving only an indelible mental picture.”

“Why watch a sunset when I can nap?”

Photo by David Bygott.

FURTHER READING

Bygott, D. & J. Hanby. 1992. Ngorongoro Conservation Area: A Complete Guidebook. https://www.hanby-bygott-books.com

Markham, B. 2013. West with the Night. North Point Press. 2nd edit. (First published in 1942.)

Turner, K. 1977. Serengeti Home. George Allen & Unwin.

LEOPARDS: WILDLIFE OF NGORONGORO

Featured image: Leopard on rock, by David Bygott

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanganyika, 1964.

John Goddard and I were twenty feet up in a sturdy acacia at the edge of the floor of Ngorongoro Crater, searching for rhinos hidden by a dense understory of head-high shrubs. We saw three right away, one a young calf. Also in sight were sixteen elephants shouldering their way through the shrubs to a nearby swamp. But John focused his camera entirely on the rhinos. Not having seen these individuals before, he was ecstatic. However, it was late afternoon, and I was thirsty, so I climbed down to walk back through the shrubs to where his wife and young daughter (and a jug of cool water) were waiting in the car. But then a loud cry stopped me.

“Dennis!” John yelled from high in the tree. “Run for the car!”

I wheeled in alarm. About a hundred yards away, John was in trouble.

“Leopard!” He shouted while frantically breaking off a dead branch to use as a club. “At the base of the tree!”

He was as high in the tree as he could get, shouting excitedly and waving his improvised club; the leopard was probably this very moment preparing to bound up the tree and chew his ankles off. Running back to the Land Rover, I drove it through the bushes toward the tree while John’s wife tried to calm their daughter’s anxious queries about her father’s safety. But we never saw the leopard. The noise of our approach–racing engine, the screech and whap of branches against the car, wheels bumping over rough ground–probably scared it off. John clambered down as fast as he could, and we returned to the road. By this time, his wife had had enough. She had not slept well in their tent. She had almost stepped on a cobra earlier in the morning. And now the leopard. It was time to go home.

And home they went.

Buffaloes by My Bedroom: Tales of Tanganyika

Was John in real danger? Many years later, comfortably far removed from the possibility of eye-to-eye contact with an uncaged leopard, I can say that he probably wasn’t. Leopards have indeed killed people when other food was unavailable. However, that wasn’t the case in Ngorongoro Crater which contained an abundance of prey species more attractive to leopards.

Leopard with kill. Photo by David Bygott.

Jackals, of which three species inhabit Ngorongoro Crater, are a good example–leopards really like jackals. That they also like domestic pets was discovered by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area’s first conservator, Henry Fosbrooke, when a leopard snatched his small dog from beside his house one night, grabbed one of his cats from the veranda the next day in broad daylight, and then returned the following evening to see if anything else was on offer. (Leopards have been known to come through open windows to catch sleeping pets.)

Black-backed jackal, a favorite food of leopards.

The leopard’s fondness for domestic pets, however, has not kept it from becoming one of the most economically important animal species in Tanzania. Tourists want to see them, sports hunters want to shoot them, and both groups pay substantial amounts of money for the opportunity.

Tourist photographing a leopard. Photo by David Bygott.

That said, leopards are rarely seen in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area–I saw none during my three years there. This is because leopards are animals of bush and forest rather than open grassland, and usually try to stay inconspicuous (see habitat map at end of post). Nonetheless, tourists with competent guides have a reasonable chance of seeing one. Location is also important. For instance, leopards are frequently seen resting on the branches of fever trees near Seronera in the Serengeti National Park. The trees provide cover from which they can hunt gazelles in adjacent grasslands, then haul their carcasses up a tree to keep then from being appropriated by lions.

Leopard at edge of the Serengeti Plains.

Finger-like extensions of trees into open grassland (pale yellow) provide good habitat for leopards. Adapted from Herlocker (1975).

Their cryptic nature makes leopards difficult to count and monitor. Nevertheless, photo-trapping surveys show them to be widespread within the Serengeti-Ngorongoro region. Furthermore, ranger patrols have sighted a good number of leopards throughout the Ngorongoro Conservation Area’s Northern Highlands Forest Reserve (NHFR). The forest reserve is excellent leopard habitat, providing plenty of food for an animal that will eat anything from beetles and birds to wildebeests (not that the latter are found in forests). It’s such good habitat, in fact, that female leopards living in the NHFR give birth to a minimum of three cubs rather than the usual two.

Excellent leopard habitat: Northern Highlands Forest Reserve, Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Photo by David Bygott.

Leopards are often poached for their valuable pelts, leading to a probable decline in their numbers world-wide. However, even though they sometimes attack cattle, and are consequently regarded by Maasai pastoralists as a threat, leopards appear to be relatively unthreatened within the 3,200 sq. mile (8,288 sq. km) Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which contains an estimated 1,000 of these predators.

Let’s hope it continues this way.

MAPS

Vegetation of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. In terms of habitat for leopards, Grassland (yellow) is the poorest. Graphic by David Bygott and Jeannette Hanby.

MAJOR REFERENCES

Estes, R.D. 1991. The behavior guide to African mammals; Including hoofed mammals, carnivores, primates. The University of California Press.

Fosbrooke, H. 1972. Ngorongoro: The eighth wonder. Andre Deutsch.

Herlocker, D. 1975. Woody vegetation of the Serengeti National Park. The Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, College Station. 4M–9-75

Proceedings of the 1st Tanzania lion and leopard conservation action plan workshop. Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI) 20-22nd, February 2006.

THE WILDLIFE OF NGORONGORO

September 1964. One of the things I remember from my first day as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ngorongoro Crater were the reactions of Henry Fosbrooke, conservator of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and John Goddard, a Canadian wildlife biologist, to tourist vehicles tightly clustered around animals of interest, such as lions.

“Why don’t they stay on the main tracks?” Henry complained. “There’s quite enough off-track driving going on. It’s wearing down the grass and disfiguring the crater floor. I must talk with our guides about this.” John wasn’t pleased either. “Crowding the animals makes them edgy.”

Buffaloes by My Bedroom: Tales of Tanganyika.

That year, 12,137 tourists visited Ngorongoro. In 2018, over half a century later, the amount was closer to three quarters of a million. If Henry and John were worried about the impact of tourists on the crater’s environment and wildlife then, I wonder how they would feel now.

Not that I blame people for wanting to visit the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, for there is much to see. Here are some examples:

Lions. Tourist vehicles were most apt to crowd around the big cats, of which lions are both the largest, and usually easiest to find. And who wouldn’t want to see one, for the lion is the epitome of ferocity, the King of the Beasts lording it atop the food chain. Even from a distance, the large carnivore’s booming, moaning roars have a way of concentrating one’s attention, especially when sleeping in the fragile protection of a tent.

Meal time in Ngorongoro Crater. Photo by David Bygott.

Ngorongoro Crater has long been considered one of the best places on earth to see lions. In 1975, at 125 animals, it contained one of the densest populations in Africa. As of 2014, however, only 55 lions, comprising four prides, ruled the crater. Unfortunately, the lions of Ngorongoro Crater have a problem. Back in the early 1960’s most of them died, weakened by a plague of Stomoxys biting flies. Although the population subsequently grew, so few new lions entered the crater to replenish the gene pool over the next three decades that the crater’s lions became inbred. Immigration of new lions into the crater apparently has always been rare. However, a growing belt of Maasai communities may have exacerbated the situation by detering movement of lions between plains and crater (Maasai warriors kill lions to protect their livestock; they also once did it to prove their manhood.) This is one of the reasons why the Ngorongoro Conservaton Area Authority (NCAA) worries about the impact of an increasing human population on wildlife conservation (See MAASAI PASTORALISTS OF NGORONGORO: AS THEY ARE NOW). That said, however, KopeLion https://www.KopeLion.org and The Lion Recovery Fund, https://www.lionrecoveryfund have recently had some success in improving the relationship between lions and the Maasai.

Wildebeests. High-shouldered, broad-muzzled, and with cow-like horns and spindly legs, the wildebeest, or gnu, will ever win a beauty contest. (That said, I must admit to the cuteness of gnu calves.)

Wildebeest calves in Ngorongoro Crater.

In compensation, the wildebeest has a comical personality best displayed when, for instance, one of the funny looking animals cavorts about, kicking it’s heels in the air, or again, when sparring males drop to their front knees and butt heads with their hind ends in the air. Then, there’s those bleating grunts–ngggh. . . ngggh. . . ngggh–which sound like the large antelopes have sinus problems. (The name, gnu, might come from an approximation of that sound. However, the Swahili word for wildebeest is Nyumbu.)

The most spectacular wildebeest population in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) comprises the over a million animals of the migratory Serengeti herds which visit the eastern Serengeti Plains in the rainy season to graze nutritious forage and give birth.

Wildebeests on the Serengeti Plains. The animals calve on the eastern plains, which lie within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Photo taken in 1972 by Dirk Kreulen.

The eastern Serengeti Plains are bisected by Oldupai Gorge. See https://www.expertafrica.com/tanzania/info/serengeti-wildebeest-migration for a full picture of the movements of the Serengeti wildebeest migrations. Graphic by David Bygott and Jeannette Hanby.

The wildebeest population in Ngorongoro Crater contains both resident and migratory animals. Thus, about 7,000 wildebeests are present throughout the year, blending in with a similar number of other ungulates, larger mammals, such as rhinos, and predators. (The present wildebeest population is about half what it was in the 1960’s. This is because removal of Maasai cattle from the crater, combined with a ban on setting grass fires, reduced wildebeest numbers by encouraging taller grass, a habitat more conducive to buffaloes.)

Wildebeests and zebras in Ngorongoro Crater

The year-round presence of wildebeests in Ngorongoro Crater strongly contrasts with that on the Serengeti Plains where the migratory herds provide an overwhelming visual impact in the wet season but are completely absent during the five-month dry season. In fact, few ungulates of any kind use the plains in the dry season.

Dry season on the Serengeti Plains. Photo by David Bygott.

In the 1960’s, I occasionally encountered oryx on the drier parts of the Serengeti Plains. Adapted to dry environments, they also make dry season use of areas which other herbivores only use in the wet season.

Black rhinos. While only half the size of an 1,750,000-year-old ancestor discovered by archeologists at Oldupai Gorge, the black rhino is still a heavy animal, weighing in at about a ton. However, as it is able to gallop at 30 mph (50 kph), and turn in its own length, it is a surprisingly nimble large animal.

Black rhino in Ngorongoro Crater.

The rhino’s inability to distinguish a motionless object beyond 15 yards (14 meters) may explain why, rather than charge a perceived threat, it’s more apt to snort loudly and, tail looped over its rump, trot away. Even its “charges” tend to be more impulsive and confused than aggressive. I once experienced this when, while rapidly retreating from what I thought was a charging rhino, I tripped and fell flat on my face only to find my presumed pursuer trot past fifty or so feet away.

Rhinos also can become habituated to the presence of humans. I remember one, named Horace, who was fast asleep when Henry, John, and I visited him that first day in the crater, and stayed that way as we ate lunch a few feet away.

The only signs of activity from Horace, other than heavy breathing, came from several yellow-beaked tick birds (ox peckers) that hopped and fluttered about as they poked into nooks and crannies of his body in search of ticks.

Buffaloes by My Bedroom: Tales of Tanganyika.

Non-habituated rhinos, however, can be dangerous. For instance, when Horace first appeared in the crater, he vigorously charged everything in sight. John and I barely escaped the wrath of an angry female, who only managed to bump our Land Rover as we sped away. A colleague encountering a grumpy rhino in the Serengeti National Park, did not escape so easily, the big animal hooking it’s horns under his Land Rover’s fender and banging the vehicle up and down several times before disengaging, leaving the fender looking like it had been holed by artillery shells.

A rhino charging a vehicle that came too close.

Sadly, the black rhino, as it is elsewhere in Africa, is the most threatened large mammal in the NCA. Intensive poaching wiped out the entire Oldupai Gorge population of 70 animals by the 1980’s and reduced their numbers in Ngorongoro Crater from over 100 in the late 1960’s to a mere 12 in 1996. Subsequently, however, a program of intensive monitoring and protection carried out by the NCAA and Frankfurt Zoological Society, increased the population to 30 by 2017. Yet another problem is that, as with the crater’s lions, its rhinos also may be genetically isolated and inbred. This has been partially addressed by the translocation into the crater of two female rhinos.

Mobile ranger post used for monitoring and protecting rhinos in Ngorongoro Crater. Photo taken in 2004.

Nonetheless, the black rhinos of Ngorongoro Crater continue to be a major tourist attraction.

Tourists viewing a distant rhino in Ngorongoro Crater. My old colleagues, Henry Fosbrooke and John Goddard, would be startled by the numbers of vehicles, but highly gratified that none have left the road. Photo taken in 2008 by David Bygott.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Ashley Maberley, C.T. 1962. Animals of East Africa. Howard Timmons, Cape Town.

Estes, R.D. 1991. The Behavior Guide to African Animals. The University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

Fosbrooke, H. 1972. Ngorongoro: the Eighth Wonder. Andre Deutsch, London.

Ham, A. 2017. The Lions of Ngorongoro: A Remarkable Tale of Survival hips://www.afktravel.com.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority. 1966. General Management Plan. Tanzania Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.

Oates, L. & P.A. Rees. 2013. The Historical Ecology of the Large Mammal Populations of Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, East Africa. Mammal Review 43 (2013) 124-141.

MAASAI PASTORALISTS OF NGORONGORO: AS THEY ARE NOW

In the mid-1960’s, the pastoral Maasai of Ngorongoro, proud of their reputation for being fierce warriors, and possessing an abundance of cattle, were content with their way of life. Thus, they were conservative and resistant to change, an attitude that frustrated government officials, both pre-and post-independence, and gave the Maasai a reputation for being backward. (Adapted from the previous blogpost, The Maasai of Ngorongoro: 1960’s.)

Over half a century later their situation has changed–drastically.

For instance, due to better health care, and the immigration into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) of other pastoralists (especially during droughts), the human population is now twelve-fold greater.

In contrast, several factors have constrained growth of the livestock population: (a) Valuable grazing lands have been lost to other uses, primarily wildlife conservation and tourism, (b) Livestock carrying capacity has declined due to overgrazing, a ban on setting grass fires, and recurring droughts, (c) Livestock deaths have increased due to diseases and droughts.

DETAILS

Valuable grazing land was lost when the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA), concerned that the Maasai and their livestock were hindering wildlife conservation, removed them from Ngorongoro, Olmoti, and Empakaai craters in the 1970’s. (Ngorongoro Crater was an especially hard loss.)

Ngorongoro Crater is the largest in the Crater Highlands. Empakaai Crater contains a small, but lovely lake. Graphic by David Bygott and Jeanette Hanby.

Ngorongoro Crater, 97 sq. miles (252 sq. km) of productive rangeland. (View from my house on the crater rim in 1964.)

Also, expanding numbers of wildebeests calving in the wet season on the eastern Serengeti Plains, and the associated risk of cattle catching malignant catarrh fever (MCF), forced herders to keep their livestock in the highlands for extended periods. The reduced ability of the Maasai to use this wet season grazing area caused an estimated 35% reduction in cattle numbers.

Wildebeest calves on the eastern Serengeti Plains, which lie entirely within the NCA. From 1961 to 1977, the Serengeti wildebeest population grew from 250,000 to its present level of approximately 1,277,000. This caused the area used for calving to significantly expand. Photo by Dirk Kreulen.

Afterbirth of a wildebeest calf. If cattle graze grass that has been touched by it they are apt to contract (and die from) malignant catarrh fever (MCF). Photo by Dirk Kreulen.

Forage quality and production dropped (at least for cattle) in parts of the Serengeti Plains because of declining grass and increasing shrub cover associated with a ban on setting grass fires imposed by the NCAA. (Pastoralists typically burn grasslands to kill ticks, remove dry grass, suppress woody plants, and induce greening of the vegetation.) Increasing abundance of unpalatable grass species in the highlands probably reflects overgrazing.

Grass fire on the floor of Ngorongoro Crater. A decrease in fires following removal of Maasai and their livestock from the crater in the 1970’s resulted in taller grasses and lower grassland species diversity. (Also, as I can personally attest from having to pick them off my pants in 2004, more ticks.)

Livestock deaths, especially of cattle, increased when herders, unable to use wet season pastures on the eastern Serengeti Plains, were forced to keep their animals for extended periods on traditional dry season pastures in the highlands. This increased the exposure of cattle to ticks, vectors for East Coast fever (ECF). Major die-offs occurred. A good example is provided by Andrew Clark, who in 1967, described the results of a virulent outbreak of ECF in Loliondo, north of the NCA: “Hundreds of cattle died in a few weeks. The whole area stunk of rotting carcasses. Hyenas, bellies pendulous from gorging, could barely walk. Vultures were so stuffed they could hardly get off the ground.”

Ticks, carriers of East Coast fever (ECF). They become abundant on rangelands which are seldom burned and/or are used for extended periods by livestock. Photo by Dr. Alexey Yakovlev. CC Attribution-SA 2.0 G.L.

Veterinary staff with bones of Maasai cattle killed by East Coast fever in Loliondo, Photo by Andrew Clark.

As a result, Maasai pastoralists were forced to reduce the proportion of cattle in their herds and increase that of goats. This is because goats are less susceptible to disease than cattle.

A mixed herd of goats and sheep. Goats also reproduce more quickly, produce milk throughout the year, utilize a variety of habitats (Cattle are restricted to grasslands), are drought-resistant, and easy to sell and slaughter. Thus, they are the fallback livestock for impoverished pastoralists.

Finally, droughts are becoming more frequent, and lengthy. Consequently, the grasses that provide forage for cattle are less able to recover their vigor between droughts, making them less productive. Thus, they support fewer animals, which tend to be weaker, in poorer condition, and more apt to die during the next drought. The drought ending in 2009, one of the most serious in recent memory, killed 35-40% of all cattle in Ngorongoro District, which includes the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) and, to the north, Loliondo.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGE

The result of all this is that, even though animal numbers have increased, the livestock population, especially of cattle, has not grown in accordance with the human population. Livestock biomass per pastoralist, well above subsistence level in 1966, is now below subsistence level.

This has caused the Ngorongoro Maasai, with too few livestock to support themselves, to become so impoverished that they must find other ways to supplement their livestock-based subsistence economy. Presently, they cultivate. Unfortunately, most are still too poorly educated to be employed in the region’s burgeoning wildlife-viewing tourist industry (six tourist lodges in the NCA alone). Those migrating to cities generally only find work as low-paid security guards.

This 2004 scene of Maasai bomas shows two examples of change since the 1960s: (a) cultivation , and (b) huts unprotected by fences (Predators may no longer be a problem, or the Maasai now know how unhealthy it is to live at close quarters with livestock inside the stockades).

Maasai security guards in Zanzibar. Photo by Jack Meyers.

Nonetheless, despite there being too few livestock to adequately support resident pastoralists, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) is still concerned that there are too many for the land to support. It is especially worried about the ecological impact of overgrazing (as well as that of settlements and cultivation) on wildlife-based tourism, a major source of foreign currency (in 2017, 650,000 tourists visited the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, generating about 65 million $ U.S.) https://africasacountry.com/2022/04/people-live-here).

And the government is worried, too: The National assembly recently debated whether the Maasai even have a right, guaranteed in laws as far back as 1959, to live in the NCA. Also, recent reports in the media (denied by the government), state that it is considering relocating 80,000 Ngorongoro Maasai–much, if not most of the total population–outside the NCA. Whether or not this eventually happens, the NCAA/Tanzania government are “encouraging” impoverished herders to go elsewhere. Furthermore, a few hundred Maasai recently have, moving 210 miles (340 km) to Handeni in eastern Tanzania https://www.kbc.co.ke/hundreds-of-masai-ready-to-leave-conservation-area/.

Is this the future of Ngorongoro’s Maasai?

To best secure their future, the Maasai of Ngorongoro must become better educated. Photo by Christopher Michel. CC Attribution 2.0 GL.

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

Amiyo, T.A. 2006. Ngorongoro Crater rangelands: condition, management, and monitoring. MS thesis, School of Biological and Conservation Sciences, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.

Borges, J. et al. 2022. Landsat time series reveal forest loss and woody encroachment in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation. Open Access https://doi.org/10.1002/rse2.277.

Galvin.. et al. 2015. Transitions in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area: The story of land use, human well-being, and conservation. Pages 483-512 in Serengeti IV: Sustaining biodiversity in a coupled human-natural ecosystem. The University of Chicago Press.

Homewood, K.M. & W.A. Rodgers. 1991. Maasailand ecology: Pastoralist development and wildlife conservation in Ngorongoro, Tanzania. Cambridge University Press.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority. 1966. General Management Plan. Tanzania Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.

THE MAASAI OF NGORONGORO: 1960’S

(This, the first of two posts on the Ngorongoro Maasai, describes them as they were in the 1960’s. The second, coming in a few months, will describe their present situation, over half a century later.)

Kapenjiru, 1965. That night we ate goat meat roasted over a campfire while Solomon ole Saibull regaled us with stories, including how the agro-pastoral Arusha, who had originated from elements of the Kisongo, the principle sub-tribe, or section, of the Maasai, had, a few hundred years ago, pushed the agricultural Meru people from some of their land on Mt. Meru. Even more interesting, however, because we were near the place concerned, was his story about how the Kisongo defeated another sub-tribe of the Maasai, the Lumbwa, for possession of the Crater Highlands. The decisive battle took place on the rim of Empakaai Crater.

“What happened to the defeated warriors?”

Solomon shrugged, “What do you think? They were thrown over a cliff.”

Maasai murrani or warrior. Photo by Herman Dirschl.

Given the propensity in the nineteenth century for the various elements of the Maasai to slaughter one another, the Kisongo and Lumbwa might just as easily have fought over possession of barren rock. The Ngorongoro Crater Highlands, however, were a prize worth fighting for because they contained prime dry season grazing. Furthermore, in times of drought, they were a refuge for herders living in he surrounding, drier rangelands (or at least those on good terms with the Crater Highland’s occupants).

Grasslands (yellow) of the Serengeti Plains comprise the largest area of rangelands in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. However, the grasslands of the Crater Highlands can support 2-5 times as many livestock and people. Map courtesy of David Bygott and Jeannette Hanby.

Thus, it isn’t surprising that the rangelands of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area have been inhabited by livestock-keeping peoples for a very long time. The Iraqw or Mbulu people first introduced livestock, and possibly also agriculture, to the area some 2,000-2,500 years ago. Around 1,000-1,500 BC, they were replaced by the Datog (or Barabaig, Tatua) who were in turn driven out by the Maasai sometime around 1850.

A deeply worn livestock trail on Makarut Mtn, indicative of thousands of years of use by herds of livestock. Pictured: Herman Dirschl, Canadian Wildlife Service.

A century and a half later, Maasai pastoralists still occupy the Crater Highlands and adjacent eastern Serengeti Plains. Most are Kisongo Maasai. The smaller Serenget and Salei sections occupy the eastern Serengeti Plains and Oldoinyo Gol Mtns. Many of these Maasai pastoralists were moved there from the western Serengeti Plains in what is now the Serengeti National Park.

When I was at Ngorongoro in the mid-1960’s, the Maasai still largely subsisted on milk, meat, and skins from their livestock. However, whenever milk was scarce, as in the late dry season and during droughts, they also ate grains obtained from dukas (shops) or neighboring agro-pastoralists, such as the Arusha Maasai, who also farmed. They raised goats, sheep, and donkeys (the latter for hauling things), but strongly emphasized cattle, which were the principal producers of milk. In the wet season when milk was most abundant, the Maasai lived only on it. Cattle, primarily bulls, were slaughtered for meat only on special occasions, such as ox-feasts helped by the warriors. Instead, the Maasai ate goats or sheep when they wanted meat.

Donkeys being used as pack animals in the Crater Highlands. The 6-7,000 ft (2,000-2,135 m) high grasslands pictured here were used for dry season grazing. In the background is 11,811 ft (3,600 m) Lolmalasin Mtn.

Having large herds was important. The more animals, the greater chance some would survive to rebuild the herd after a drought, outbreak of disease, or major stock theft. Also, the more milk a pastoralist’s herd produced, the more people he could support. (Human carrying capacity is maximized by emphasizing milk, rather than meat in diets: Milk has a higher caloric value.) Having many cattle also conferred prestige–he with many animals was an important man.

As were their predecessors, the Datog, and probably also the Iraqw/Mbulu before them, the Maasai were transhumant pastoralists, who moved between dry season and wet season pastures (the latter in the eastern Serengeti Plains and floor of the Rift Valley). Thus, when water sources dried up and forage was depleted by grazing on the lower, drier rangelands, livestock were returned to dry season pastures in the highlands where water and forage, the latter often still green and nutritious, were still abundant.

Cattle on wet season pasture in the Olbalbal, a large, shallow depression watered by outflow from Oldupai Gorge.

A Maasai’s home, or boma, consisted of huts encircled by a stockade of cut thorn bushes or upright logs (depending on the local vegetation), which also served as a corral for livestock. Constructed of frames of poles plastered with fresh cow dung mixed with mud and cow urine, the huts were dark and smoky inside. Nonetheless, they were remarkably free of flies and mosquitoes, and fluctuated little in temperature day and night.

A view of the Olbalbal Depression and Crater Highlands from a Maasai (Serenget or Salei) boma in the eastern Serengeti Plains.

Bomas were abandoned when cow dung and parasites reached unacceptable levels. Long after fences and huts disappeared, old boma sites were marked by dense stands of dark green nettles and other plants growing on their nutrient-rich deposits of dung.

Building and maintaining a boma’s huts were the responsibility of the women, who also did the milking, gathered water and wood, cooked, cared for the children, attended calving, and dealt with night-time disturbances within the herd of corralled livestock.

Maasai ladies on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater. Note the brand new (and therefore almost pristine white) Amerikani cloth, a cheap, bleached calico named for American traders who exported it to East Africa in the mid 19th century.

Young boys and girls did the herding, assisted by warriors and elders whenever herding and watering became difficult. After circumcision, the boys became warriors or murran, who carried out difficult, long-distance herd movements, defended their locality, recaptured stolen cattle, and (at least in the past) raided other tribes, including the neighboring Mbulu and Sukuma, for livestock. Exempt from regular herding, murran hunted lions, feasted on ox-meat, consorted with young, unmarried girls, and formed strong, lasting bonds with their age-mates. Boys looked forward to becoming murran, and elders fondly remembered their time as warriors. However, like it or not, by their mid-40’s, all murran became married elders responsible for managing their herds, and taking part in political and religious affairs.

Maasai murran watching an airplane being refueled on the floor of Ngorongoro Crater.

Despite what a European visitor to a Maasai boma, swatting away flies that bred in the accumulated dung on the stockade floor, might think, the Maasai felt they were living the ‘Good Life.’ Proud of their reputation for being fierce warriors and possessing an abundance of that which, in their eyes, any sane person would want, i.e., cattle, they had everything they desired.

Thus, the Maasai have tended to be conservative and resistant to change, such as in educating children and selling cattle at livestock markets. This attitude has frustrated government officials, both pre-and post-independence, and given the Maasai a reputation for being backward.

Even so, despite contributing little to the regional economy, subsistence pastoralism, prior to the advent of tourism, was the major land use throughout most of what is now the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

PRINCIPAL REFERENCE.

Homewood & Rodgers. 1991. Maasailand Ecology: Pastoralist Development and Wildlife Conservation in Ngorongoro, Tanzania. Cambridge University Press.)

TRANSITS AND CULVERTS: PEACE CORPS ENGINEERS IN TANZANIA, 1964-66

The two young Americans, Peace Corps volunteers with Tanzania’s Public Works Division (PWD), were venting their frustrations in a bar in Musoma. “PWD wants to construct culverts and bridges but won’t pay for labor,” griped a normally amiable Gil Crosby. “And we need at least thirty guys just to do the bridge on the Ikizu-Ikoma road” added his tall partner, Neil Christianson. Glumly, he took another swig of Tusker beer.

“Ehh, I hear you,” replied the dignified African sharing their table. “President Nyerere expects Tanzanians to volunteer labor for the good of the country. But of course, they do not. Therefore, little is accomplished. This hurts our district.” Then he mentioned a problem of his own. The district council for which he worked had difficulty collecting taxes because the people were so poor. “And if we took their cows as taxes they would make war on us,” he declared.

Silently, the three men pondered their respective situations. But then the eyes of the African council employee brightened. Leaning across the table, he grinned. “Sikia,” hear me, he said, “The district council will provide funds to hire laborers if you withhold half their salaries to pay their taxes. Then our district will get culverts and bridges as well as tax revenue.” The spirits of the two volunteers abruptly improved. Their new friend must be more than a mere employee of the district council. “Have another beer,” they chorused.

When next the call for laborers went out, over a hundred men showed up. Neil and Gill only needed thirty but when the taxes of the first group of men were paid, they hired new people. Never again did the two engineers have trouble finding laborers.

Building bridges was labor intensive.
Photo: Neil Christianson.

Followers of Stories of East Africa will know that, from 1964-67, I was a Peace Corps volunteer forester in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Previous posts have described some of my duties and experiences. Now, however, I want to introduce volunteer colleagues who were engaged in other activities.

Probably the largest number of volunteers in my Peace Corps group, Tanganyika V, were engineers with the Public Works Division (PWD) and Water Development and Irrigation Division (WD&ID). The following is based on interviews with three of them.

Volunteers working for PWD constructed culverts and bridges on secondary roads, most of which were unsurfaced dirt and, therefore, often impassible during the rainy season (which kept farmers from getting their crops to market). They established work camps, ensured supplies were hauled, expedited the acquisition of trucks and bull dozers, hired laborers, and supervised construction. They also trained young Tanzanians to continue the work after the volunteers returned to the U.S. Work areas were large–200 miles (322 km) of road in the case of Neil Christianson and Gil Crosby.

Traffic halted by high water flowing over a ‘drift’ between Musoma and Mwanza. (A ‘drift’ is a layer of concrete placed across a seasonally dry stream bed to allow better traction for vehicles and prevent the road from washing out during the rainy season.) Photo: Neil Christianson.

A newly installed culvert. Culverts were adjusted in size to fit the circumstances of a drainage problem. Photo: Tom Meier.

Bridge construction. Photo: Neil Christianson.

This work camp began as a collection of tents but was upgraded to something more sturdy after visits by a roaring lion. Gil Crosby (left), Neil Christianson (right). Photo: Neil Christianson.

Volunteers working for WD&ID carried out surveys. These included geophysical surveys to find potential well sites, core drilling to determine if soils were strong and dense enough to support dams without leaking, and topographic surveys to find where to place dams, and how to distribute water from wells, dams, and rivers to users. Water development was especially important in Tanzania because large areas of the country are arid and semi-arid, with high temperatures and rates of evaporation, and erratic, unreliable rainfall. Many streams are seasonally dry.

Surveying a site’s topography to determine where to put water pipelines. Photo: Bob Ferris.

Repairing an earth dam to fix leaks. WD&ID engineers surveyed pipeline routes to distribute water from dams like this to nearby villages. Photo: Bob Ferris.

Some engineers were assigned Tanzanians to train. Neil Christianson and Gil Crosby were impressed, not only by them, but also by the ingenuity and teamwork displayed by the other members of their African crews. In some cases, a ‘trainee’ already was better trained for certain jobs than the volunteer. Bob Ferris states that his crew could do most of the work without him.

***Bob Ferris and his crew. Photo: Bob Ferris.***

Time spent in the field varied. For instance, PWD engineers Neil Christianson and Gil Crosby spent their first six months living in tents, choosing sites to upgrade, and establishing work camps before moving to Musoma, from which they visited each work site once a week to monitor progress. WD&ID engineer, Bob Ferris, based in Mwanza, made one to two week-long safaris to sites of interest within his district. Eric Ries, also with WD&ID, was away so much that he seldom used his apartment in Dodoma.

Breaking camp to go home.
Photo: Bob Ferris.

When in the field, the engineers lived in tents, caravans, and small huts. Those working in teams generally hired an African mpishi or cook. Bob Ferris, with no team mate, cooked for himself. They boiled their drinking water or mixed it with Clorox (then covered the taste by drinking it with orange squash). Or, they brought jerry cans of town water, which was safe to drink, on safari but then had to ration its use. Bob Ferris managed on 2-3 gallons per day for up to two weeks. His baths were just a quick splash once a day with cold water. Whenever Neil Christianson and Gil Crosby saw heavy rain coming their way, they stripped naked and ran out into it with a bar of soap.

Eating ugali (maize flour cooked with water to a porridge-like consistency and served with a sauce). Bob Ferris’s crew insisted that it wasn’t proper for a white person to sit on the ground like them. Photo: Bob Ferris.

Field camp. Photo: Bob Ferris.

A bath in the bush. Photo: Bob Ferris.

Tanzania’s official workday ran from 7am to 2:30pm (in any case, WD&ID engineers couldn’t survey on hot afternoons because heat waves rising off the ground made it impossible to get accurate readings with their transits). Afternoons were spent writing up field notes, reading, and napping (in the shade of a nearby tree on hot days), evenings drinking beer, orange squash or gin and tonic, and listening to the radio while insects beat against the brightly lit glass of their Petromax and hurricane lanterns. Sometimes they just sat in the dark wondering at the stars before crawling under mosquito nets to fall asleep to the whine of mosquitoes, or, if deep in the bush, the mournful whoop of a prowling hyena.

However, even volunteers who spent most of their time in the bush periodically got into town for at least short periods. Bob Ferris’s idea of heaven was returning to Mwanza from a long safari and soaking in a tub of hot water while sipping an ice-cold drink, listening to Johnny Mathis, and reading his mail. Never again, he says, will he take flush toilets for granted. Bob fondly remembers the Liberty Cinema, which showed Elvis Presley and old Western films (The cinema in Musoma was named The Diamond Talkies), the Fourways Grocery Store, which let volunteers pay when they could, and the Barclays Bank manger, who once let Bob overdraw his account before going on vacation.

Mwanza, Tanzania, 1965.
Photo: Bob Ferris.

Some memories:

Experiencing that anxious what do I do now? feeling when, on his first day in the field, Bob Ferris, a greenhorn with no practical engineering experience, stepped from his tent to find four men waiting for instructions.

Watching tribal dances on Saba Saba Day. Bob Ferris was especially impressed by the booming drums.

Dancers performing on Saba Saba Day, which commemorates the formation of the Tanzanian political party, TANU, on July 7, 1954. ‘Saba’ is the Swahili word for ‘seven.’ Bob Ferris, Neil Christianson, and Gil Crosby were the only white people there. Photo: Bob Ferris.

Their vehicle halted by high water crossing the road, Neil Christianson and Gil Crosby finding the occasion becoming a social event. They made many new friends that day with African lorry drivers and bus passengers, whose vehicles also had been stopped.

African friends of Gil and Neil joking that PWD stood for Punda Wengi Dunia, which roughly translates as “The World is Full of Jackasses.” (The Swahili word for ‘many’ is nyingi but in the Musoma area was pronounced ‘wengi.’)

Bob Ferris giving an impromptu demonstration to students at a primary school where he was surveying a water distribution system. The kids became so excited that the headmaster adjourned classes to let them watch Bob and his crew work. Chattering away like little mice they exclaimed in surprise and awe when allowed to look through his transit scope at a crew member 100 yards (90m) away.

***An impromptu demonstration.***
***Photo: Bob Ferris.***

Ever since leaving Tanzania over half a century ago, members of our Peace Corps group have periodically posed the question: Did Tanzania benefit from our presence?

The PWD engineers think so, possibly because they were able to see their efforts bear visible fruit in the form of new dams and culverts, not to mention trained Tanzanians capable of carrying out engineering duties. For instance, Neil Christianson and Gill Crosby completed over 90% of the culvert and bridge construction they were assigned. Furthermore, they trained five young Africans who proved capable of continuing the work after the two volunteers left. Consequently, Neil and Gil felt good about their impact on the country. (Using Google Maps, Neil recently discovered that at least one of the bridges that he, Gil, and their crew constructed still exists).

The two WD&ID engineers were less positive, probably because their outputs, being in the form of maps and tables, were less strikingly visible. Furthermore, they suspect that few of the dams, which they (and Eric’s partners, Richard Russell, Jeff Gabiou, and George Frame), surveyed, were ever constructed. Consequently, other than training two assistants to take on his duties, Eric feels he didn’t do much for Tanzania. Bob Ferris thinks his major contribution may have been in showing Tanzanians that not all whites felt superior to them.

I wonder what the volunteers’ British supervisors and Tanzanian work crews thought?

THE FORESTS OF NGORONGORO

1965: Northern Highlands Forest Reserve, Tanzania

Suddenly, ahead, a soft clunk sounded. Cowbell! The chief forest guard, an older man whose stiff curly hair was sprinkled with white, whispered that we should be especially quiet now. He and I were leading a group of forest guards and game scouts on a patrol for livestock trespassing in the forest reserve. Easing our way slowly around stumps, we carefully pushed branches aside to look ahead, studying each clearing before entering it, tense with anticipation.

“Wewe! Simama!” You! Stop!

“Kamata yeye!” Catch him!

Guards and scouts alike charged into the bushes . . .

Buffaloes by My Bedroom: Tales of Tanganyika.

Now that I’ve grabbed your attention, and you’re wondering what happens next, I’m taking the opportunity to introduce some important background information before resuming the story. In my previous post, I promoted the scenery and wildlife of Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) to the extent that some readers probably wondered why, if it was so great, it wasn’t a national park. The answer is that it once was. From 1951-1959 it comprised the western part of the Serengeti National Park.

However, difficulties encountered from having people, in this case Maasai pastoralists and non-Maasai cultivators, living in an area strictly devoted to the conservation of wildlife forced the then territorial government to remove the eastern Serengeti Plains and Crater Highlands from the park and place them within a separate entity, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. This allowed the Maasai to continue their pastoral existence while the government controlled the use of certain key areas, including Ngorongoro and Empakaai craters, the eastern Serengeti Plains, and the archeological site at Oldupai Gorge. Thus, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area became a multiple-use management area, the only one in Tanzania to protect wildlife while allowing human habitation.

**A relief map of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). Yellow (grassland), gray (bushland and woodland), green (forest), and brown (agriculture). Courtesy of David Bygott and Jeannette Hanby.**

The NCA’s montane forests provide an example of multiple use. Ranging in elevation from 5,000-10,000 ft (1,600-3,000 m), most forest cover occurs within the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve, a 50 mile (80 km) band of green on the southern and eastern slopes of the Crater Highlands. Here, monsoonal air masses off the Indian Ocean 200 miles (320 km) away are forced to rise, cool, and condense into mist, clouds, and rainfall. This, together with cool high-elevation temperatures, is conducive to a moist environment. Thus, unlike elsewhere in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where green foliage is a seasonal phenomenon, montane forest remains green throughout the year.

***Lichens and other epiphytes trailing from branches are associated with abundant mist.***

The first thing that struck me upon entering an undisturbed (by cutting, fire, etc.) stand of montane forest was the dim light filtering through the dense canopy 50 to 60 feet overhead. Only here and there did a beam of sunlight slant down to brighten a patch of he forest floor. The next was how a dense understory of shrubs and small trees often hampered my movements, while at other times it was so scattered (or absent) that I could walk freely across the forest floor, the latter made soft and springy by several inches of decomposing organic matter. This made it easier to appreciate the trees, which I differentiated by their many types of bark, which ranged from silver to black, and from smooth to rough, including fissured, corrugated, scaly, flaking, and peeling.

**Montane forest within the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve.**

Ngorongoro’s forests comprised many tree and shrub species. Some were worthy of note, if only for their descriptive names, including pillar wood (Cassipourea malosana), cheese wood (Pittosporum viridiflorum), brittle wood (Nuxia congesta), and black ironwood (Olea capensis). The latter, also called Elgon olive (for Mt. Elgon on the Kenya-Uganda border), stands out because it is so dense and heavy that it will not float. (Check out the world’s ten heaviest woods at https://www.wood-database.com/top-ten-heaviest-woods/).

Cape chestnut (Calodendron capense) has beautiful flowers. East African pencil cedar (Juniperus procera) is the largest species of Juniper in the world. Mountain bamboo (Arundinaria alpina) is a very large woody grass. The fresh leaves and shoots of Khat or Miraa (Catha edulis) were chewed as a stimulant throughout much of eastern Africa, especially the Horn of Africa. Podo (Podocarpus milanjianus), African mahogany (Entandrophragma angolense), and East African pencil cedar woods were highly prized for construction and other uses. However, these species were not abundant enough in Ngorongoro’s forests to attract commercial operations.

**East African pencil cedar forms pure stands in high-elevation ravines within the** NCA. The wood of this species was once extensively used to make pencils.
**Photo by Sema Tu. Creative Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.**

Dense stands of mountain bamboo on Oldeani Mountain (Oldeani is the Maasai word for bamboo). Mountain bamboo has the strange habit of gregariously dying out over large areas every 15 to 40 years or so.

In the case of the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve, a lack of commercially exploitable tree species didn’t matter because its principal purpose, ever since its establishment in 1927, was the protection of forest catchments for water production. Thus, although the forest fulfilled local domestic wood product needs, such as building poles, and firewood, it was far more important for the water (twenty-four small streams and seven springs) it provided beyond its boundaries to coffee and wheat estates, tourist facilities, Mbulu farmers, and Maasai pastoralists. Water infiltrating into the forest’s soils also sustained important groundwater forest habitat over ten miles (sixteen km) away in Lake Manyara National Park (see earlier post, On the Road to Ngorongoro: Part III)

**Farms abutting the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve. Most are new since 1965. Photo by David Bygott.**

However, the main reason for including the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve in the Serengeti National Park (1n 1951) and then the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (1959), was its value as wildlife habitat, especially for buffaloes, elephants, and rhinos. At the time it was thought that the large animals living in the forest seldom left it, although tourists would often see them along the road. However, subsequent studies revealed that rhinos often traveled back and forth between the forest and the floor of Ngorongoro Crater. Furthermore, before their access routes were blocked by new farms, elephants once moved between the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve and the Rift Valley floor near Lake Manyara .

Picture encountering this while pushing your way through dense undergrowth.
Photo by David Bygott.

Finally, the montane forests of Ngorongoro supported yet another use, a great deal of it illegal. Much of the forest within the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve was discontinuous, separated by secondary scrub and grassy glades. Possible causes included cultivation carried out many years ago, fire, and grazing/browsing by livestock. Maasai herders were sometimes allowed, under permit, to pasture their livestock in forest glades during droughts. Fires, set in the glades to remove dry grass often escaped into the forest, damaging trees. Browsing by livestock destroyed tree seedlings. Trampling hooves compacted soils, reducing their ability to absorb rainfall. These impacts had the potential to seriously reduce the forest’s water catchment value.

It was for this reason that Henry Fosbrooke, the conservator of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, wanted me, the NCA’s assistant conservator (forests), to stop forest trespass by Maasai livestock. “The forest guards aren’t doing their job properly. You must shape them up.” This explains why, in the first paragraph of this post, I and a group of forest guards and game scouts are portrayed sneaking through the trees trying apprehend trespassing herders and their animals. We now return to that story.

Cattle illegally grazing a glade within the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve. The tall grass, manyatta grass (Eleusine jaegeri), is unpalatable to livestock. The other grasses have been grazed and trampled so heavily that in places only bare soil remains, Fires set in the glade have, in the past, burned away parts of the adjacent forest, giving it an irregular, often open appearance.

The person caught by the scouts and guards was a Maasai herd boy. Soon afterward, they caught another herder, and then another. We nabbed six herders and roughly a thousand cattle that day. Together with those apprehended a few days earlier in another part of the forest, this made ten people and two-thousand cattle. No wonder the forest reserve was degraded. Three days later, the herders and I appeared in a magistrate’s court in the town of Karatu where the African magistrate levied such a small fine that a relative of the herders paid it on the spot.

“They treat these fines as grazing fees” whispered a senior staff member of the NCA, Solomon ole Saibull, into my ear. “They would willingly pay even greater amounts.” Keeping his voice low, he told me that in his experience, African magistrates seldom imposed heavy fines for forest trespass because they didn’t think it was a very important offense. Most Africans, educated or not, considered forest reserves to be relicts of colonialism, set aside by the ‘wazungu’ for their own purposes, not the African’s. “He [the magistrate] probably thinks the reserve should be converted to farms,”Solomon hissed.

Buffaloes by My Bedroom: Tales of Tanganyika.

Here was another factor contributing to degradation within the forest reserve. Now I understood why the forest guards weren’t interested in braving elephants and buffaloes to catch trespassing livestock. Why bother if it did no good? Consequently, despite our efforts, I and the forest guards were to have little impact on the numbers of trespassing livestock during my time at Ngorongoro.

**Maasai herders caught trespassing with their livestock in the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve. They were so engrossed in chewing honeycombs that they didn’t hear us approach.**

We now jump ahead thirty years. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) general management plan, published in 1996, emphasized, among other things, the continuing need to better control both fire and forest grazing. Apparently, the NCA foresters who came after me also had trouble controlling forest trespass.

Furthermore, the management plan also stated that Ngorongoro’s forests were under considerable pressure from illegal harvesting of trees for local domestic use. This to the extent that Mafu (Fagaropsis angolensis) and Khat or Miraa (Catha edulis) were listed as ‘threatened’ tree species in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area due to extensive logging of the former for building materials, and heavy harvesting of the latter for its drug properties.

This undoubtedly reflects rapid population growth, both within and outside the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (Tanzania’s population approximately tripled from 1960 to 1996), which has created a higher demand for forest products. (For information on population growth in Tanzania, go to https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/tanzania-population.)

I wonder what the situation is now, twenty-six years later.

Stories of East Africa by Dennis Herlocker

Category: Peace Corps

BREAKING BARRIERS: THE FIRST FEMALE FIELD GEOLOGIST IN TANZANIA

VOLUNTEERING IN TANZANIA: LESSONS FROM THE KILOMBERO SETTLEMENT SCHEME

WILD DOGS: WILDLIFE OF NGORONGORO

MORE ABOUT LEOPARDS

LEOPARDS: WILDLIFE OF NGORONGORO

THE WILDLIFE OF NGORONGORO

MAASAI PASTORALISTS OF NGORONGORO: AS THEY ARE NOW

THE MAASAI OF NGORONGORO: 1960’S

TRANSITS AND CULVERTS: PEACE CORPS ENGINEERS IN TANZANIA, 1964-66

THE FORESTS OF NGORONGORO

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