TANZANIA
Wildebeest and cattle share grazing landÂ
The indigenous Maasai people are a remarkable pastoral people who have, for hundreds of years, lived with their cattle on the rangeland, co-existing and interacting with wildlife.
Because of their expertise in management and conservation of resources for wildlife and livestock, the Maasai ecosystem is home to spectacular assemblages of African wildlife populations.
This is in contrast to most of the rest of the world where the average size of wildlife populations has plummeted more than two-thirds in less than 50 years, according to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund).
In the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), which resident Maasai call their ancestral home, Maasai ecological strategies and practices are being dismantled by external pressures, such as neo-colonial racist policies restricting the use of their land, loss of land through encroachment by farmers surrounding the area, and land grabs by foreigners.
Although most tourists plan their visits in the summer months of July and August, the migration is a long, drawn out process; considering nearly 2 million wildebeest, and hundreds of thousands of gazelle and zebra partake in this dangerous and awe-inspiring 300 mile migratory loop, it is unrealistic to expect the massive migration to reliably occur in one place or another at a given time of year.
