Serengeti Archive
Serengeti Highways & Monopolies
Posted by jimheck in Economy, Great Migration, Politics, Serengeti on August 16, 2010
Your voice against the Serengeti highway has attracted the attention of the most powerful in Tanzania. Unfortunately, he’s digging in his heels.
During an end of July live television speech to the country President Jakaya Kikwete said that “under no circumstances” will the government be deterred from building the road.
Kikwete doesn’t shy from the limelight, [...]
Ivory Highways in Tanzania
Posted by jimheck in Corruption, Poaching, Serengeti on July 6, 2010
A courageous legislator in Tanzania’s Parliament has charged Tanzania’s Minister of Tourism with corruption. The pieces to the puzzle seem to fit.
Last week Tanzanian MP, Magdalena Sakaya, publically accused Tanzania’s Minister for Tourism, Shamsa Mwangunga, of deceit with regards to her attempt to sell ivory stockpiles.
This is no small matter. Sakaya is one [...]
SerHighway Reveals More Corruption
Posted by jimheck in Corruption, Serengeti on June 29, 2010
Public pressure may be working to forestall the Serengeti highway. The terrible corruption of the Tanzanian government is coming to light.
Tanzania has a far less dynamic and transparent media than either Kenya or Uganda, but the “little engines that could” are blowing their whistles as hard as they can!
A tiny on-line publication, This Day, [...]
Serengeti Highway Alert
The Tanzanian government has approved a major highway construction program that will bisect the northern Serengeti. It’s disaster. We need your help, now.
Click here to join the growing list of individuals and organizations opposing this move.
The US$480 million highway will travel just east and south of Ngorongoro Crater and around the eastern side [...]
Back on (a wet) Track!
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Great Migration, Serengeti, Weather on January 19, 2010
As we enter the great migration season in Tanzania everyone ready to go (including me) wants to know the state of the veld. Well – dare I suggest it? – it looks… wonderful.
I wanted to say “normal” but normal doesn’t exist, anymore, in these confused eras of global warming. But frankly that’s what [...]
Maasai Rebellion?!
Posted by jimheck in Community Based Tourism, Mara, Politics, Serengeti on September 24, 2009
A continuing struggle in the private game reserves of the Mara/Serengeti border area has been exacerbated by the drought and economic downturn and may turn violent.
A number of private reserves in the Loliondo area, which lies on the eastern border of the Serengeti and southern border of the Mara, risk growing civil disruption by the [...]
5-Bell Alarm
Posted by jimheck in Corruption, Serengeti on September 21, 2009
The Serengeti development project received a pledge of $350 million, today, from an institution that doesn’t exist.
Tanzania’s Daily Star newspaper reported today that a “FINANCIAL institution headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland had pledged to [sic] realise 350 million US Dollars (about 500 bn/-) to finance the construction of an international airport in Serengeti District.”
The newspaper, citing [...]
SERENGETI ALARM
Posted by jimheck in Corruption, Serengeti on September 17, 2009
The Serengeti ecosystem is being compromised by a corrupt Tanzanian government and greedy businessmen representing themselves as conservationists.
An international airport may be built in the Serengeti; a modern highway may connect the Mara with Grumeti; and ten more lodges and hotels might all be built, without any real public discourse or environmental analysis, and with [...]
Dry Season Serengeti
I usually don’t visit the Serengeti in the dry season, but the drought in Kenya made it a practical alternative. We weren’t disappointed!
The director of the Cleveland Zoo, Steve Taylor, said at the end of our time at Ndutu Lodge in the southwest Serengeti that it was the best game viewing he’d ever had [...]
Dry Serengeti
Posted by jimheck in Great Migration, Serengeti, Weather on March 27, 2009
Our safari encounters a very dry Serengeti. Is a drought, or are floods, coming?
We arrived Ndutu Lodge on Wednesday after an extremely dry drive east to west across the entire bottom half of the Serengeti. It isn’t yet a drought, but it’s very dry.
We started north of Olduvai Gorge, saw the remarkable Shifting [...]