The Wrong RoadIn late July, President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania announced that his government intended to go ahead in 2012 with plans to build a highway running from Arusha in north-central Tanzania to Musoma on Lake Victoria. No one disputes the economic value of developing highways and other public works in Tanzania. But this planned highway includes a potentially tragic pitfall: it cuts straight through the heart of the northern Serengeti, one of the greatest national parks on the planet.
It would bisect the route of the great migration, the annual movement of more than a million wildebeest and other herds. President Kikwete has promised that this would only be a gravel road, and has said that he would never build anything that could harm the ecosystem.
But it would be a commercial highway nonetheless, and it would link two populous regions of Tanzania. Even a gravel road across the northern Serengeti would bring an immediate flood of traffic, instantly fragmenting the ecosystem and causing enormous potential for human-animal conflict in the form of accidents and poaching.
Tanzania’s reputation as a conservation leader in Africa has depended in large part on its protection of Serengeti. And if the government so chose, it could still protect the integrity of the park and safeguard the millions of animals that live in it and migrate through it. There is an alternative southern route for the Arusha-Musoma highway, one that would link more unserved communities than the northern route and still leave Serengeti intact.
Two things are needed. The first is a clear answer to a basic question: Why does President Kikwete support this highway when its potential impact on the ecosystem and on tourism — a major component of the Tanzanian economy — could be so dire? This is not a question the Kikwete government is eager to see pursued, especially by Tanzanians.
What is also needed is international pressure on the governments and nongovernmental organizations that would normally help finance this kind of economic development. That includes China, which plays an enormous role in African development. This is not a choice between economic development and protecting Serengeti. It is a choice between the wrong kind of development and the right kind.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/opinion/31tue3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
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