Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Geography

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) covers over 8,000 square kilometers on the Southeastern margins of the Serengeti National Park. It can be divided into five regions: The crater highlands rising to over 3,000 meters; the gently undulating Salei plains and the Gol mountains to the North; a portion of the Serengeti's 'short grass' plains in the West; and the Kakesio hills and Eyasi escarpment to the South. Rainfall varies greatly giving rise to many different types of vegetation, from montane forest and grassland on the highland to dry woodland on the escarpment and semi-arid grassland on the plains.

Wildlife

Ngorongoro sustains the highest concentration of wildlife on earth during the annual migration when over a million wildebeest, half a million gazelles and a quarter of a million zebra come in from the Serengeti. The crater itself has a particularly high concentration of prey and predator species including lions and cheetah. It also provides a refuge for elephant and one of the last remaining wild populations of black rhinocerous in East Africa.

People

The NCA includes sites of archaeological importance: Olduvai Gorge and the Laetoli site, providing evidence of human occupation for nearly four million years. Pastoralism has been practised in Ngorongoro for at least 7,000 years and the Maasai have lived there for two centuries. Today there are over 40,000 residents with 150,000 livestock units (cattle, sheep and goats) which move between dry and wet season grazing areas. In addition to the Maasai, small populations of Tatoga pastoralists and Hadza hunter-gatherers live east of lake Eyasi in the south of the NCA.

Conservation status

The conservation area was established in 1959. It is a World Heritage site since 1979 and has been classified as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO.