Manyara Ranch

Today the African Wildlife Team visited Manyara Ranch, located 80 km South of Arusha. The ranch was bought in April of 2001 as the first purchase under the Tanzanian Land Conservation Trust (TLCT). This trust is set-up to allow the community members (those living within the trust) to choose how they want to develop the land, but within a conservation framework. One of our projects will be to build a sustainable development plan for the area based on things like eco-tourism, beekeeping, and sustainable ranching.

The Manyara Ranch is in a uniquely important location. It is located between two National Parks: Tarangire & Lake Manyara. Several kinds of animals (zebras, wildebeests, elephants, etc) use the area as a migration corridor, essential to their survival during the dry season. By creating the trust, AWF helped to save this land from agriculture and excessive ranching, which would destroy the corridor and severely damage these animals’ migration routes. Now it’s time to figure out how to make this a sustainable enterprise so that people can enjoy it for generations to come.

AWF has already done some very good things. They have established a cap on the number of cattle that can graze the area to 6,000 and are teaching 63 traditional Masaai families how to fatten their cows and sell them after 5 years to get the peak price, instead of keeping their cows 12 years and selling for a very low price. They have also moved a boarding school, which had been in squalid conditions (4 children in one bed!) and was located in the middle of the migration corridor (putting the kids in danger from elephant attacks) to a better location, completely refurbishing the school.

Our trip out there was just to get to know the landscape and to help us see what might be improved. Little did we know we were in for an amazing treat! The last thing we did was talk to four Masaai women who are working on a tree planting project for local schools. See them below in their traditional garb:



Most exciting for me, just like an official National Park, we saw gobs of animals. Hundreds of zebra, a handful of giraffe, impalas, five ostriches, and herds of wildebeests! The game scouts, local Masaai trained to protect the park from poachers, met us in the middle of the park and gave us a ride in their open air truck. Standing there with the wind in your face, ducking from the scary spikes on every tree with wild animals that you’ve only seen on TV is probably going to be one of the most memorable adventures of my life. I can’t believe how lucky we are to be doing this as our jobs!!!