A disturbed and damaged crater

 On the way to the Serengeti reserve, travelers will enter an equally beautiful, important, special and interesting reserve - the Ngorongoro Crater. Unlike other reserves where the frequency of visits depends on the seasons. Ngorongoro being a closed "cauldron" in which the animals are "permanent" attracts visitors all year round. The area of ​​the crater that attracts hundreds of thousands of travelers throughout the year is small and the result is a constant density of vehicles at all hours of the day

Towards the calving season in the Serengeti areas in Tanzania, the tourism movement intensifies and increases. Starting from mid-January to the end of February, thousands of travelers will "flood" the reserves in northern Tanzania, most of them on organized tours that move in multi-motorized vehicles in large groups.

On the way to the Serengeti reserve, travelers will enter an equally beautiful, important, special and interesting reserve - the Ngorongoro Crater. Unlike other reserves where the frequency of visits depends on the seasons. Ngorongoro being a closed "cauldron" in which the animals are "permanent" attracts visitors all year round. The area of ​​the crater that attracts hundreds of thousands of travelers throughout the year is small and the result is a constant density of vehicles at all hours of the day.

Things have come to the point where tourists complain about the overcrowding and that they see more cars than animals. According to the director of the reserve, Dr. Fred Manongi, "those tourists who want to visit the reserve complain about the large number of cars and tourists", the complaint is that the large number of cars harms the sights of nature and the landscape, and indeed anyone who has traveled in East Africa knows the phenomenon of identifying a special event and The "crazy rush" of dozens of cars towards the event. 23

For most travelers, the "galloping" is a kind of spice addition to the sights of nature, but there are those who see the damage to the environment. According to Dr. Magoni, in order to reduce overcrowding, the entry and exit routes are one-way, going down to the crater from the west and going up to the south, thus regulating traffic.

good and beautiful? It is not certain, since the regulation does prevent "traffic jams", but there is nothing in the regulation of traffic to prevent the disturbance to animals. We are used to referring to this: "The animals have gotten used to cars as if they are part of nature, so the disturbance is minimal. However, this is not the case. Even large animals such as buffaloes, lions and elephants change their behavior in the presence of a car and even more in the presence of a convoy of cars,

It is enough to see how zebras, wildebeest or deer stay away from the roads during the "traveling" hours, and occasionally how lions "use" cars as a hiding place for a hunter or as shade. Anyone who understands the terrain knows how hyenas and vultures recognize the clustering of a large number of cars as a sign of prey worth a closer look. The disturbance is so great that it is known that cheetahs, who naturally hunt in the morning and afternoon hours, which are the cooler hours of the day, are disturbed by the crowd of travelers and cars, therefore the cheetahs change their behavior and switch to hunting in the afternoon, during the hours when travelers return to lodges or parking lots for lunch .

Hours when there are fewer cars that will scare the prey and "mark" everyone where it is happening. But these are hours when it is warmer and the direct light is bright and without shadows, conditions that make it difficult for the hunter and his chances of success.

And if you look at the relatively small Ngorongoro where the travelers stay all day and during the lunch hours gather in a number of parking lots for a short time, then the disruption to living is even greater.

The crater, whose cliffs are about 600 meters high and about 16 km in diameter, is the leading site in the number of visitors in Tanzania, according to estimates, about half a million people visit it every year, when at the peak of the season 400 cars enter the crater every day.

According to Dr. Magoni, "Ngorongoro is considered one of the seven sites in Tanzania that have been declared as heritage sites. "The crater is one of the few places where you can see the narrow-lipped ("black") rhinoceros in the wild, as in other places it is kept in pens", in addition to that you can see a wide variety of birds and mammals in the crater in daily activity and almost throughout all seasons of the year,

The Ngorongoro is undoubtedly a unique and special attraction, a uniqueness that is also the Achilles heel of the crater, and the question arises, are we doing enough to preserve the natural environment in the crater?

Several years ago, I asked the person who was then the director of the reserve whether a carrying capacity survey was conducted there, whether they check how many cars and people can be put into the crater without significant damage, since the carrying capacity of a site will almost always be a compromise between the desire of the visitors and the need to preserve it. The answer you received was negative, that is, a carrying capacity survey of one of the most important natural sites in Africa and in the world was not conducted, since the management has an interest in generating as much revenue as possible, that is, allowing a maximum number of visitors. The main consideration is multiple revenues,

In other places there are attempts to regulate the number of visitors by prohibiting the construction of lodges, in the southern African countries there are reserves where the regulation is by small and expensive lodges. In the Ngorongoro Crater there are no lodges inside the crater but there are many on its edges, now that visitors are complaining about the number of cars, perhaps there is a reason to consider limiting the number of visitors for the sake of the nature for which the reserve was declared.