By Macharia Kamau

Tanzania will not build a road through the Serengeti, as earlier planned. The announcement is a big win for the Masai Mara National Reserve and the spectacle that is the annual wildebeest Migration.

Tanzania had planned to construct a 50-kilometre road that would be part of a 400-kilometre road connecting Arusha and Lake Victoria. But the country cancelled the plans after sustained pressure from environmentalists, regional and Governments including Kenya, US and Germany.

Construction works for the road, which conservationists said would have eventually shrunk the wildebeest and zebra population in the ecosystem, were scheduled to start early 2012.

World wonder

The estimated 1.3 million wildebeests and over 300 000 zebras move north to Masai Mara every year in what is referred to as the annual wildebeest migration, and regarded as modern day ‘world wonder’.

Tanzania, which had said the road was necessary to open up the north western part of the country, now said it had put the environment into consideration and would put an alternative road circumventing the park.

In a letter to the he Unesco World Heritage Committee, Tanzania said the planned road would not "dissect the Serengeti National Park and, therefore, will not affect the migration and conservation values of the property."

"This decision has been reached in order to address the increasing socio-economic needs of the rural communities in northern Tanzania, while safeguarding the outstanding universal value of Serengeti National Park," reads a statement from the Tanzanian Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.

Environmentalists had argued that the road endanger the lives of two million wildebeests and zebra that annually cross over from Serengeti into the Mara forming the annual migration spectacle that attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists to the Mara.

30 per cent

Studies by environmental lobbies showed that the proposed 50 kilometre road stretch would have cut the wildebeest herd by over one-third (over half a million animals) as increased human traffic within the park would have increased poaching, as well as encouraged environmental degradation.

The road had been projected to see over 800 vehicles passing through the park per day by 2015, and expected rise up to 3,000 vehicles by 2035.

Tanzania yielded to pressure from a number of western governments — including Germany and the US — that voiced concerns about the road.

The World Bank had offered to Fund Tanzania in building an alternative road. The country now plans tarmac roads that are away from the park, that it said would leave fragile habitat on both sides of the park undisturbed by the roads.

More time

The new road going round the park will mean that it will take more time to reach the far-flung areas that the government wanted to connect to commercial activities with the road dissecting through the park.