Managing the migration - Maasai Mara National Reserve and Serengeti World Heritage Site connectivity

Abstract

The greatest natural mass wildlife migration on the planet, involving one ecosystem, two different nations and millions of animals, brings together the Serengeti World Heritage Site (WHS) in Tanzania and the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. In terms of natural heritage, the border is crossed by the Mara River and represents a fluid boundary. On the scale of Indigenous local communities, the borderlands area is also shared on both sides by the Maasai peoples, long associated with a pastoral and herding tradition of domesticated animals, but more recently through transformed engagement in conservation and tourism activities. But with regard to the more substantive conservation, tourism and other economic or political aspects, the boundary between Kenya and Tanzania forms a more challenging frontier which, to be truly effective, demands a greater degree of cooperation and joined-up management of the ecosystem.