Climate Change and Population Growth in Pastoral Communities of Ngorongoro District, Tanzania

Abstract

The pastoral way of keeping livestock is the most productive form compared with rangeland and agropastoral farming in dryland areas. Conservation of biodiversity and pastoral livestock keeping go very well together and have a lasting future in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and around the Serengeti National Park, where the number of people living in the protected areas is limited. With the appearance of population growth and climate change, a problem arose. In the Ngorongoro District, human population has grown from barely 20,000 to near 200,000 in the last 55 years. The carrying capacity for livestock of the available land varies due to seasonal weather and climatic condition. However, figures from the last 5–6 decades hint at fairly stable numbers of livestock units. The livestock numbers cannot support the growing population. A diversification of the economy is needed to escape poverty and achieve sustainable development. This paper investigates strategies open to pastoral communities to become middle-income earners over the next 20 years. These strategies are different for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the newly proposed game reserve, and the rest of the district. In the two most protected areas, pastoral livestock keeping will support much less people than today. Outside these two protected areas, a big expansion of tourism activities, a concentration on quality meat processing, and food production will service the demand from the local population, the tourists, and beyond. The paper shows that only a radical policy regarding investments and the creation of economic opportunities for a growing population outside the protected areas can lead to medium and eventually to high income. Otherwise, climate change and population pressure will continue to impoverish the district.