1. The Serengeti-Mara Plain lies across the Tanzania/Kenya border and is roughly the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The Kenyan national park portion of the Serengeti plain is called Maasai-Mara. This area as a whole is symbolic of a landscape that epitomizes the concept of African Eden, a landscape protected by European interest in preserving what they perceive as an unchanging piece of Africa as a preserve of African wildlife free from human depredations. Analyzing it as a dynamic ecosystem thus has particular value.
   


2. My thesis that the Serengeti-Mara is an anthropogenic landscape requires challenging the idea that it was a pristine historically unchanging ecosystem. Part of the argument also is that its status has been a product of the sweep of human demography, regional economic change, and political movements within the East African region.
   
   
3. Serengeti-Mara most affected by its geological and climatic status as highland plain surrounded by mountains, shallow agriculturally marginal soils, and swept annually by wet/dry oscillations of the ITCZ that creates seasonal pasture, water sources, and a pattern of herbivore migration and predator hunting. In historical terms there were historical periods from 1800-present:
   1. 1800-1850 Part of limited regional economy dominated by Maasai transhumant pastoralism, trade links to adjacent cereal-producing zones, long-distance trade in iron, salt, and ivory. Mixed grassland and scrub acacia landscapes allowed limited contact with tsetse fly that meant a degree of immunity from sleeping sickness. Human competition over water sources and seasonal pasture favored pastoral control over central plain. Larger scale kingdoms grew up around lakes region. Most people had very limited contact with a wider world. Was this ecology control?
   2. 1850-1890 Period of expansion of scale as Lake Kingdoms grew, coastal Swahili city-states became international trade entrepots, and movement east-west increased scale of human contact. Serengeti-Mara was not a destination, but a transit zone. International ivory trade and firearms increased impact of hunting activity and European interest in contact with states in lake region. New population densities as towns grew up along caravan routes and kingdoms grew as economic and political units. Kilimanjaro and Meru pop. grew as sites of intensive agriculture.
   3. 1890-1918 Colonial period with Germany and Britain dividing region by treaty. Germany begins economic exploitation with plantations and military settlement around Kilimanjaro-Meru and British with Uganda ties. Seeking economic base to support colonial adventure. WWI ended German colonial rule and division into Kenya Colony and Tanganyika Protectorate. British begin to push Maasai off highlands into marginal zones (1904, 1911, 1940s in Tanganyika) thus increasing population in lower areas such as Serengeti-Mara.
   4. 1918-1961 Period of late colonial rule with development of high potential zones around lakes and on coast.
   5. 1961 Present Period of Independence Development of divergent political/economic systems in Tanzania and Kenya, one capitalist with large involvement of foreign capital and the other socialist. Land ownership private versus state. Tourism major sector of Kenya and Tanzania. Initial period of growth followed by massive debt. Kenya under increasingly autocratic rule and Tanzania budding democracy but urban base of power.


4. Within the overall historical benchmarks the Serengeti-Mara area evolved its own ecological history based on local dynamics of ecosystem and political economy of an emerging nations. There are at least 4 discernible ecological phases evident in the 1800-present period. The key elements are human management, fire, wildlife (esp. elephants), cattle, and vegetation
   1. Phase One: Local ecology of livestock, wildlife, mixed vegetation moving toward grassland, tsetse habitat, and area ringed by ag. zones with intensive ag. Ecology control of sleeping sickness, human/wildlife competition for habitat. Grassland was dominant vegetation at end of period controlled by fire and movement of seasons., Elephant herds under increasing threat of firearms and international market for ivory. By 1900 elephants gone. Most assumed they were never there.
   2. Phase Two: Grasslands reported by first Europeans travelling during dry season when herders were further north. Disequilibrium: Maasai call it enkiaaroto1889 rinderpest kills 90% of cattle, wildlife, and famine drives away human pop. Gregarious, herd forming wildlife esp. hard hit. Grassland dominates landscape and Europeans state that they can drive their car anywhere at 30-40 mph.
   3. Phase Three: Era of low rainfall 1920s -30s. By 1930s landscape had changed. Without animals, elephants, threat of fire and human settlement grasslands gradually evolve into acacia and croton thicket that brings back tsetse habitat. Low elephant pop. and dry conditions also allow woody thicket growth. Colonial gov't begins an anti-tsetse campaign that moves people away from habitat and into densely settled zones. Anti-wildlife and mechanical bush-clearance fails under low rainfall condition. Lack of agriculture and human presence leaves bush habitat out of control. Ideal for hunters and in 1937 Serengeti named as game reserve. Wildlife had come back as hosts for trypanosomes. Maasai at northern edge of Mara used area only for sheep and goats, not affected by trypanosomiasis. Conditions continued into period of major activism to declare Serengeti as National Park restricted from human activity.
   4. By 1960s rainfall levels increased dramatically sleeping sickness began to decline, not from colonial campaign, but because of loss of habitat (woody vegetation thickets). 2 primary reasons both the result of the areas increasing human population at the edge of the park area. 1)increasing effect of fire 2) increasing elephant herds. Density of human settlement meant increasing use of fire to burn fields for planting and also to enhance hunting zones by park officials. High fuel content of grass away from dense domestic herds made hotter fires that destroyed fire resistant trees. Next elephants were pushed out of fringe areas and took refuge inside park. Their increased density thinned woody vegetation through ring-barking and heavy browsing. Park rangers reported elephants more commonly. From 1961-67 there was a 60-65% decline in woody cover. By 1982 over 90% of area covered by woodland in 1950 was now grassland.


5. Major point of this examination has been to lay out further evidence that ecosystems are dynamic and not unidirectional. The factors that account for change are complex and conjunctural historically. Can they be predicted? Where is the human role and is it decisive or just one of many factors? We should look comparatively at a range of cases from different parts of the continent.
   

Reading (Instructor Reference):

Holly Dublin, "Dynamics of the Serengeti-Mara Woodlands: An Historical Perspective," Forest and Conservation History, 35, 4 (October 1991), 169-78.