Posted by Katja Rosvall on August 25, 2010 at 4:45 AM
(I hope this is the appropriate forum. I'm sure there are lots of people here interested in this, not least those who arrange trips to the area.)
The Tanzanian government is planning to build a road right through the northern part of the Serengeti, which would disrupt the famous migration. According to estimates by the Frankfurt Zoological Society (ZFG), which works in the area, animal populations would fall to less than a quarter, because disrupting the migration route would deny the animals access to water in the dry season. Diseases, alien plant species and poachers would also spread more easily to the area.
ZGF suggests that the road be built south of the Serengeti, where it would also serve a larger number of people.
Note: I suspect you can only sign the petition if you're registered on the site. I didn't want to register, so I quoted the message and sent it myself to the same recipients, as far as I could find their mail addresses. I also substituted the Tanzanian embassy in Washington with my nearest embassy (in Sweden). Here are the addresses I've found, if you want to do something similar:
Ministry of Infrastructure Development (Tanzania)
permsec@infrastructure.go.tz
You can also use this search to see whether your country has an embassy in Tanzania and what its website address is. Mine does, and I wrote directly to the Embassador. These addresses are for the embassies in general.
UK embassy in Tanzania:
bhc.dar@fco.gov.uk
German embassy in Tanzania:
german.emb.dar@raha.com
Discussion
0 repliesThe Tanzanian government is planning to build a road right through the northern part of the Serengeti, which would disrupt the famous migration. According to estimates by the Frankfurt Zoological Society (ZFG), which works in the area, animal populations would fall to less than a quarter, because disrupting the migration route would deny the animals access to water in the dry season. Diseases, alien plant species and poachers would also spread more easily to the area.
ZGF suggests that the road be built south of the Serengeti, where it would also serve a larger number of people.
ZGF's article with maps (in English):
http://www.zgf.de/?id=61&reportId=137&language=en
In GlobalPost:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/africa/100818/tanzania-serengeti-migration
Petition:
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/stop_the_serengeti_highway
Note: I suspect you can only sign the petition if you're registered on the site. I didn't want to register, so I quoted the message and sent it myself to the same recipients, as far as I could find their mail addresses. I also substituted the Tanzanian embassy in Washington with my nearest embassy (in Sweden). Here are the addresses I've found, if you want to do something similar:
Ministry of Infrastructure Development (Tanzania)
permsec@infrastructure.go.tz
Permanent Secretary, PM's Office (Tanzania)
ps@pmo.go.tz
Tanzania Government
tnwinfo@plancom.go.tz
The address of the Tanzania Tourism Board (info@tanzaniatouristboard.go.tz) bounced.
Embassies:
Tanzanian embassy in Sweden:
mailbox@tanemb.se
Tanzanian embassy in the UK:
tanzarep@tanzania-online.gov.uk
Tanzanian embassy in Germany:
info@tanzania-gov.de
Tanzanian embassy in France:
ambtanzanie@wanadoo.fr
Tanzanian embassy in the USA:
ubalozi@tanzaniaembassy-us.org
Tanzanian embassy in Canada:
tzottawa@synapse.net
For other embassies, please use the search function here:
http://www.embassies-online.com/index.html
You can also use this search to see whether your country has an embassy in Tanzania and what its website address is. Mine does, and I wrote directly to the Embassador. These addresses are for the embassies in general.
UK embassy in Tanzania:
bhc.dar@fco.gov.uk
German embassy in Tanzania:
german.emb.dar@raha.com
French embassy in Tanzania:
ambfrtz@cats-net.com
Italian embassy in Tanzania:
italdipl@raha.com
US embassy in Tanzania (I found no mail address):
http://tanzania.usembassy.gov/
Thank you for reading this!