Kenya’s Masai Mara Game Reserve under Depletion

Masai Mara national reserve which is Kenya’s leading safari destination and a pillar of the Sh100 billion tourism sectors for decades. Unfortunately this reserve, popular for its annual wildebeest’s migration might end up becoming pale shadow of itself resulting from the imbalance between the expansion of tourism and this on going natural degradation but fortunate for Tanzania’s Serengeti national park is the fact that it is the major benefactor in this and they are within the same ecosystem although has got better management policies thus the increasing number of animals.

Meanwhile Masai Mara’s problems are partly attributed to the increasing number of tourist lodges and camps that are competing for space and therefore pushing wildlife that are so sensitive to human activities like lion, rhino, and elephant to other locations like to Serengeti in Tanzania.  This means that Kenya is at the risk of losing its most popular tourist attraction which is the annual Wildebeest Migration.

Most of the Tanzanians who are living around the Serengeti Game Reserve are said to have set the area on fire causing a delay in the crossing of the wildebeest from Serengeti plains into Kenya in July this year. However that’s no reason because according to the experts, the major problem is the increasing human activities on the Kenyan side of the Serengeti eco-system and this will with in a short period of time become threat to the animals and therefore discourage them from crossing over in future as the case has been for the past so many years and attracting so many tourists thus improving the industry.

All the assumption follow the sudden change in these animals’ migratory patterns because these wildebeests used to stayed for 3 months in Kenya but of recent, they stayed fro just three weeks and they ran back to Tanzania. And this according to Seth Mihayo a Tourism Conservator at Serengeti National Park, the Masai Mara Reserve of Kenya which is the recipient of the annual wildebeests migration from Tanzania is being affected by the growing numbers of hotels as well as human activities like cattle grazing and constant cutting down of the natural green cover making the place unbearable for them so they rush back home.

This is a serious threat to the Kenya’s tourism industry especially since most of East African countries’ economies largely depend on tourism. The annual wildebeest’s migration attracts thousands of tourists and if they stop crossing to Kenya because Masai game reserve is no longer in good condition that will mean a reduction in the number of tourists who will be visiting not only Kenya but also Tanzania to witness the migration, thus a huge impact on the industry.