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It’s fair to say that without tourism, many protected wildlife areas in East Africa would not exist. Tourists, in a sense, are the keystone species that keep many ecosystems intact.

But tourism is a two-edged sword. The income and jobs it creates can help protect fragile ecosystems. But it also brings impacts that threaten habitat and wildlife, even the future of tourism itself.

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Tourism is extremely important for Tanzania and Kenya, both of which share the Serengeti ecosystem.

Tanzanian tourism, for example, accounts for half a million jobs in direct employment and more than double that in jobs that indirectly support the industry. In a country where the average income is less than three US dollars a day, that’s a huge asset.

It’s a seductive idea, therefore, to keep growing tourist numbers indefinitely to maximize the benefits.

Overtourism

The term is being increasingly used, and for good reason. Wikipedia defines it as “the perceived congestion or overcrowding from an excess of tourists, resulting in conflicts with locals.” But this definition is too narrow. It may fit destinations like Barcelona or Venice but does not cover impacts on natural areas like the Serengeti.

In these areas, “locals” include wildlife and plants and the all the natural resources that sustain them. Impacts include land degradation by vehicles, stress on wildlife that impairs their hunting and reproductive success, demands on water and other resources, introduction of invasive plants, and barriers to wildlife movement.

Moreover, locals do include human communities around the Serengeti, which need to get tangible benefits from tourism. Otherwise, they may turn their backs on conservation, as this recent article suggests,

Land owners around Masai Mara park threaten to ditch wildlife conservation over poor pay.

Overtourism, of course, impacts the visitor experience as well, degrading the very qualities that lure travelers. This is happening in parts of the Serengeti ecosystem.

Serengeti Watch has received numerous reports from travelers about safari vehicles speeding and harassing wildlife. For instance, a BBC film unit told us of a safari vehicle racing toward sleeping lions in order to get clients good photographs. Guides, who depend on gratuities from travelers for much of their income, are under pressure to produce.

One traveler reported her experience in a blog:

“A stressed out Cape buffalo charged our car because he was separated from his herd. A scared leopard was forced into hiding after being boxed in by a mass of tourist vehicles. Hyenas sleeping on the road were awoken and startled when our car got too close. While all of these experiences were phenomenal for us, I can’t help wondering: is it fair to the animals?”

Scientists are now telling us how this does affect wildlife:

Femke Broekhuis, a cheetah researcher at the University of Oxford, wrote an article entitled, We need to limit tourist numbers to save cheetahs from becoming an endangered species.

A study of impalas in the Serengeti showed “significant physiological stress in relation to roads and traffic’ resulting in “a more female skewed sex ratio, lower observed reproductive and recruitment rate, and reduced time spent on restorative behaviour (i.e. resting)."

And then there is the outright killing of animals by safari vehicles. as reported in this article by a Chinese news agency, Tanzanian experts raise alarm over killings of cheetahs in Serengeti by tourist cars.

One report Serengeti Watch received told of a young zebra being killed by a safari vehicle jockeying for position at a crowded wildebeest crossing.

Masai Mara is Too Crowded

The Mara has lost much of its wildlife, and it is not unreasonable to believe this is in part due to overcrowding, overbuilding, poor tourism practices, and lack of enforcement of regulations.

The Mara Conservancy, which does an excellent job administering a section of the Masai Mara Reserve, says,

“Is unregulated traffic at key crossing points actually destroying the very spectacle that attracts tens of thousands of tourists to the Mara… The answer is an unequivocal yes. There is absolutely no doubt that the number of vehicles witnessed at crossing points (up to 300 were reported in one case) totally disrupted the crossings – driving the animals away to quieter spots”

An article entitled, How the Masai Mara is sinking under its own global success, reports that the tourism visitor density there is…

“ten times higher than some other Kenyan parks and 17 times more than Tanzania Serengeti. Visitors and high concentration of lodges have partly contributed to the reduction in animals’ numbers, with some such as resident wildebeests declining over time by as much as 75 per cent."

In the Mara, the saturation point has already occurred. In the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, there is much more land area (about ten times that of the Mara) and far fewer accommodations. But crowding and negative impacts are mounting, and there are plans to keep the numbers growing.

A World Bank study in 2015 entitled, The Elephant in the Room: Unlocking the Potential of the Tourism Industry for Tanzanians, advocated an eight-fold increase in Tanzanian tourism by 2025!

The WB admits this is ambitious and acknowledges it would place a great strain on the Northern Circuit, which includes the Serengeti National Park. For this reason it advocated diversifying tourism to lesser used parks in the southern part of the country. But the Serengeti, like all iconic attractions, is unique and will continue to be the main attraction for travelers.

The way forward

The model of tourism best for the Serengeti ecosystem is High Value Low Impact Nature Tourism. The opposite of mass tourism.

Unfortunately, this usually translates to high end, expensive tourism for the relatively few who can afford it. There must be ways for East Africans to enjoy their own heritage. (Serengeti Watch is taking hundreds of young students into the park for their first ever visit.)

Future tourism, however, may not follow this model. Governments are eager to maximize income. In the Mara, the body that administers the reserve would like to double tourism numbers (in one year).

Right now, tourists come primarily from Western countries, the US, UK, and Germany. But new markets are being targeted, especially in China and India. If these markets take off, the numbers could be staggering.

The time to plan and act is now. There must not only be a wise strategy to keep tourism in check, but the will to enforce it. Governments need to plow back more tourism revenue into conservation and park administration rather than siphoning it off. And this should include support to local communities.

Finally, it’s up to the tourism industry and travelers to step up and give back with real support. We’re working on this.

If you’ve used a safari company, encourage them to join Friends of Serengeti.