Serengeti IV

Abstract

The motivation for this series of volumes is to provide a synthesis of the scientific research conducted in the greater Serengeti ecosystem and also to show how a major protected area can be of benefit to society and the world as a whole. The most recent of these volumes was Serengeti III: Human Impacts on Ecosystem Dynamics published in 2008. That volume was based on a series of workshops that modeled the system. It laid the theoretical foundation for the present book which puts together the fi eld data that have been collected to test these ideas. As we outline in chapter 1, the Serengeti National Park is under threat from development projects surrounding the ecosystem. Development from proposed roads through the protected area and airports adjacent to it will have negative impacts. There is also a groundswell of opinion in some quarters that protected area conservation has failed in meeting its objectives of conserving biota for posterity and that we must change direction and focus on conservation in human- dominated systems, which is communitybased conservation. Whereas conservation in human landscapes is essential, this cannot be the sole solution to preserving biota. There are many species that cannot live there and these must find refuge in protected areas. However, even the largest protected areas cannot exist alone; they are dependent on the modified ecosystems surrounding them. It is therefore important to create sustainable ecosystems in the surrounding modified landscapes. This in turn requires that human societies are sustainable in terms of wealth, health, and education. We, therefore, in this volume ask three important questions: Do protected areas play a role in conservation that is not achieved in human ecosystems? Can human- dominated systems contribute to conservation objectives? Do these two— protected areas and human- dominated areas— support each other? The natural ecosystem is changing from environmental disturbances within and human impacts outside the system. We ask how the greater Serengeti ecosystem, including both the human and natural components, can be made sustainable in the face of these changes. The chapters, therefore, address both the function of the protected ecosystem and the contribution of the human system that surrounds it. We have held a series of workshops first at Santa Barbara in 2001– 2003 at the National Center for Ecosystem Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), then at the Serengeti National Park headquarters at Seronera (2004), and finally at the University of British Columbia (2007), funded by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (PWIAS). The most recent workshop in 2007 addressed research that was to test these models. Thus the present book, which is the outcome of that workshop and the subsequent research, first documents more of the biodiversity in the system, this time including microbes, plants, insects, rodents, and birds as well as the larger mammals. Second, it explores both the environmental factors that impinge on this biodiversity and the human impacts from outside the protected area, the human component in the greater Serengeti ecosystem. This aspect explores how human livelihoods are impacted by living next to a famous national park such as the Serengeti, and throws light on what is needed for these peoples to value the area. Finally we summarize the contributions that science has made to both the Serengeti National Park and to Tanzania as a whole over the past fi fty years to highlight its value for conservation and the well- being of Tanzanians. A large number of people have been involved with this latest volume. Some fifty scientists attended the 2007 workshop. By the time the research was completed and the chapters written, we had 91 authors contributing to the book. Most encouraging is the considerable increase in the number of Tanzanians and Kenyans (22), a quarter of the contributors. We hope this trend will continue. As before, many disciplines are represented— ecologists, molecular biologists, geologists, economists, social scientists, mathematicians, and disease specialists— to name some. Members have come from many different countries. Apart from Tanzania and Kenya, they come from Ethiopia, Holland, Germany, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States, and members are also working in Afghanistan and Indonesia. We are very grateful to the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, which has administered our work and provided the facilities at the Serengeti Wildlife Research Centre in Seronera. The Tanzania National Parks have always been generous in allowing us to conduct our work and we hope this provides some return for them. The several chief park wardens of Serengeti have been very helpful over the years as were the other wardens and rangers, too many to mention by name. Reviewers, who are experts in their fi eld, commented on each of the chapters so as to provide an outside perspective. They include R. Bengis, R. Boone, M. Boyce, N. Bunnefeld, C. Burton, N. Carter, C. Chapman, L. Coppock, J. Cory, N. DeCrappeo, J. Detling, A. Ford, A. Gaylard, S. Gergel, B. Godley, J. Gross, K. Hodges, S. Huckett, P. Hudson, J. Jankowski, B. Klinkenberg, C. Krebs, W. Laurance, P. Lundberg, J. Luzar, A. MacDougall, A. Marin, R. McCulley, A. Middleton, R. Naidoo, A. Nuno, J. Rist, K. Rogers, N. Stronach, S. van Rensburg, B. van Wilgen, and K. Wilson. We also thank the anonymous reviewers who looked at the whole manuscript. We thank them all for their time and consideration. At the University of British Columbia (UBC) Eric Leinberger kindly drew the geology map, while Andy Leblanc and Alistair Blachford helped with computing. Dianne Newell, as director of the PWIAS, facilitated the workshop and funding in numerous different ways. In Arusha we thank Jo Driessen and Judith Jackson for looking after us. We thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) for supporting the editors. Markus Borner of FZS has consistently supported our work over many years. He retired in 2012 and Rob Muir has taken over and continues to help us. A. R. E. Sinclair was also supported by a Canadian Senior Killam Research Fellowship for two years and by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia to produce this book. Anne C. Sinclair helped with collating, editing, and formatting the chapters. Her help was invaluable. Finally we remember our two colleagues, Magai Kaare and Simon Thirgood, who died from freak accidents during the production of this book. Magai Kaare championed canine rabies control in communities adjacent to the Serengeti National Park. His passion for infectious disease research contributed greatly to the health of the ecosystem. He died too early to appreciate the remarkable impacts of his work, but his legacy lives on through the work of his team. Simon Thirgood was passionate about ecology, conservation, and Africa. He saw the Serengeti ecosystem as the ultimate natural research laboratory and knew he was privileged to have spent some of the happiest years of his life there. He was a gifted teacher and trainer, always fair and always honest, and was using this talent to inspire a new generation of African biologists in the years before he died. Both made a significant contribution to the work in Serengeti and their names appear on the chapters.