Serengeti endangered by Arusha-Musoma road

Construction of the new road from Arusha to Musoma on Lake Victoria is now scheduled to begin in 2012. The Tanzania government has finally come to a decision on the route for the new link between the two towns after meetings with the local communities and the Tanzanian National Parks Authority (TANAPA), which until now has been opposed to the development.

The new road will be good news for business between the two cities, which are at present only linked by a route through Kenya. It will also shorten the overland journey between Arusha and Mwanza, an important town on the edge of Lake Victoria, and it will please some parts of the tourist industry as it will connect various important sites in north Tanzania. However it is bad news for conservationists as the route is planned to cut through the Serengeti National Park.

It is believed that the new road will connect Mto Wa Mbu on the edge of Lake Manyara, Engaruka, an Iron Age site, Lake Natron, a remote salt lake close to the Kenyan border and an important breeding ground for the lesser flamingo, and Loliondo in the Maasai ancestral lands, before turning into the Serengeti. Here what is worrying conservationists is that the road will cut through traditional and very important migration routes, especially in the area around the Klein