Biodiversity, conservation and development in Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania

Savanna woodlands and their associated species diversity and endemism are w idely seen as declining through human impacts. Alternative views suggest th at savanna ecosystems vary with a large number of biophysical factors, amon g which human impacts may be of relatively minor importance. This paper exa mines the debate with respect to Mkomazi Game Reserve in Northern Tanzania, where biodiversity has been inventoried and local resource use studied. It sets out the history of land use in Mkomazi and examines the available dat a on the area's plant, bird and invertebrate diversity. Comparative analysi s is complicated by the paucity of data for other savannas in the same biog eographic zone, and by differences in sampling effort and methodology. Cons ervation literature and Tanzanian government documents present Mkomazi as o ne of the richest savannas in Africa, as a centre of endemism: and as threa tened by deleterious impacts of human land use. Available data do not subst antiate such statements. The paper examines implications of those perceptio ns for management, particularly eviction of resident pastoralists from the Reserve in 1988, and subsequent exclusion of reserve-adjacent dwellers. Con servation relies increasingly on reserve-adjacent people, and on prioritizi ng the allocation of scarce resources. There is an ur ent need for rigorous studies of the implications of human land use in savannas, for better data on biodiversity, and for rigorous standards in the way those data are appl ied.