Abstract
For millennia, people have lived alongside wildlife in the semi-arid savanna of the Tarangire Ecosystem (TE), northern Tanzania. The TE preserves one of the last long-distance wildlife migrations in Africa as well as a large and diverse human population. Initial wildlife conservation approaches, settlement politics, and changes in human livelihoods have created a fragmented coupled social-ecological system that currently faces serious challenges for both people and wildlife. In this introduction to the book “Tarangire: Human-Wildlife Coexistence in a Fragmented Ecosystem” we outline the environmental and climatic settings as well as the social, economic, and political structures and histories of the ecosystem. The combination of heterogeneous geology, variable rainfall, a historical focus on conserving dry-season ranges of wildlife, and an expanding human population brings people and wildlife in contact, often with negative consequences for humans and wildlife. From an anthropocentric perspective, large carnivores and elephants are perceived as particularly problematic. In this book, we adopt a social-ecological approach and present different perspectives on wildlife conservation in the TE as frameworks for integrated and effective solutions. The first section of the book addresses the human dimension in human-wildlife interactions, whereas the second section employs a more ecocentric perspective and summarizes the status and ecologies of key large-mammal populations in the TE. The third section addresses human-wildlife interactions explicitly with an eye towards solutions.
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Acknowledgments
We thank all residents of the TE for taking their time to speak with us and to openly share their views on wildlife conservation and the hardships they experience. We also express our sincere gratitude to all the organizations that funded our work in the last 10 years: The School for Field Studies, PAMS Foundation, Pennsylvania State University, University of Zurich, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Sacramento Zoo, Tulsa Zoo, Tierpark Berlin and Zoo Berlin, The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, Zoo Miami, Toronto Zoo, Save the Giraffes, Rufford Foundation, ERM Foundation, Fulbright Program, ESRI Nonprofit Program, and Microsoft Azure. Logistical support to Wild Nature Institute was provided by Asilia Africa, & Beyond, Nomad Tanzania, and Tarangire Safari Lodge. Thank you to Charles Foley for helpful input to this introductory chapter and Jason Riggio for creating the map of the TE .
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Kiffner, C., Bond, M.L., Lee, D.E. (2022). Human-Wildlife Interactions in the Tarangire Ecosystem. In: Kiffner, C., Bond, M.L., Lee, D.E. (eds) Tarangire: Human-Wildlife Coexistence in a Fragmented Ecosystem. Ecological Studies, vol 243. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93604-4_1
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