It seems like somebody recently speculated that the roads in the Serengeti National Park are about to be tarmacked.
But since bitumen doesn’t augur well with the natural environment, the Tanzania National Parks, the entity which manages all game parks in the country, has been compelled to issue an official statement refuting the assumptions.
Signed by the head of TANAPA’s Communications department, Conservation Officer Catherine Mbena, the dispatch insists that there are no plans to give the roads in Serengeti a coat of tarmac.
According to the statement, one of the local papers which is printed in Kiswahili language had carried a story with the headlines claiming ‘Serengeti now to construct tarmac roads in the Park!’
But the Tanzania National Parks’ Management, according to Ms Mbena, has no such plans.
“While it is true that TANAPA is researching alternative technologies to be applied in upgrading, paving and improving roads in all National Parks, Serengeti included, tarmacking is not one of them,” reads part of the statement.
The Tanzania National Park management points out that they intend to apply environmentally friendly technologies in order to make Park roads more passable and be able to withstand all weather elements.
Hardening road surfaces using ecological friendly paving technology, will also reduce the frequency of maintaining and repairing the mostly earth and gravel roads currently crisscrossing the parks.
Serengeti’s neighbours, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, recently accomplished the task of paving the roads leading into and out of the Crater.
The NCAA applied interlocking concrete blocks that are believed to be environmentally friendly.
It is still not known if the Tanzania National Parks will borrow the same technology from their next-door neighbours in conservation.
…Or whether they will result to using flagstone pavers that can be found in some parts of the park.
“We are targeting technologies that are sustainable and blend with nature,” the TANAPA statement concludes.
Stretching over 14,763 square kilometers, Serengeti is the third largest National Park in Tanzania, after Nyerere and Ruaha.
It was also the first to be established in 1959, alongside the Ngorongoro Conservation Area which was essentially annexed from the former.
Recording more than 400,000 visitors per year, Serengeti is also the most popular of the 22 parks operating under the Tanzania National Parks.
Meanwhile this is the statement from TANAPA written in Kiswahili
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