Can Africa's environment survive Africa's economic growth?

In 1982, the Selous Game Reserve was granted "World Heritage Site" status by the United Nations, which formally put it on the map.  Then the Tanzanian government decided that they needed to improve access to the reserve to bring in more revenue.

In 2002, authorities secured funding from the German government and proceeded to grade a motorway through the park. Swathes of land, up to 60 metres wide, were cleared, flattening everything in a straight line that paid little attention to engineering or design.  Where the old dirt road used to wind pleasantly, it now just ploughs straight through. Where it passed through forest, the route is now lined both sides with the remains of great trees that have been ripped from the ground and pushed aside by heavy machinery. The road has been built with no consideration to drainage or maintenance and is subsiding and crumbling.

The ugliness of the road has reduced tourism numbers.  This, the world's second largest nature reserve, the size of Switzerland, is visited by a paltry 2,000 tourists a year.  Who wants to visit a nature reserve to see a highway?

Tourism is worth an estimated $1.26 billion a year to Tanzania, some 6.1 percent of the economy; 622,000 annual tourists spend about $1,600 a visit.  Three-quarters of them visit a single place: the Serengeti National Park.

The Serengeti is a mainstay of the epic natural history documentary.  No show is complete without aerial shots of 1.4 million wildebeest on their annual migration and braving crocodiles as they cross the Mara River.  Soon they will have to brave traffic.

The government is to spend $480 million building a highway between Musoma, on the banks of Lake Victoria, to Arusha, directly across that migratory path.  UNESCO, the WWF and the IUCN – three of the world's largest environmental conservation organisations – have begged President Jakaya Kikwete not to continue.  Kikwete is facing a bruising election battle and has promised that he will deliver.

Tanzania is an independent nation (if one ignores their over-reliance on foreign aid) and so is welcome to choose its own development needs over those of rich foreigners for preserving the environment.  A nation that depends so heavily on that environment would do well to pay some attention to these fears.

If the Serengeti loses its animals, it loses its attraction as a tourism node.  It also loses much more.  1.4 million wildebeest – and there's no way to put this politely – produce a great deal of dung.  They are integral to the redistribution of nutrients across the northern savannah.  Agriculture, especially subsistence farming, is the most important economic and employment factor in this impoverished nation. It is responsible for 80 percent of employment and 26.6 percent of the total economy.

Does Tanzania really want to remove its greatest source of free fertilizer?

What is President Kikwete delivering?  Tanzania's economy depends on development aid; 12 percent of GDP and 50 percent of state expenditure? Total foreign direct investment to Tanzania was $645 million in 2009, half of tourism revenue.  The bulk of non-aid state revenue is derived from tourism.

And it's not as if there aren't options.  The WWF has proposed an alternative route that bypasses the reserve, is shorter than the one currently proposed (so cheaper to build), and will connect more towns to the national road network.

Each country has a small number of assets that are the random gift of chance and geography.  The Middle East has oil.  Australia has the Great Barrier Reef.  Cape Town has Table Mountain.  A country with one of these things doesn't just inherit an expensive obligation of care; it also gains a tremendous asset in which it can invest.

Should that asset ever be lost it will be impossible to recover.  While many African nations enjoy some quick-footed growth they shouldn't be so swift to throw away irrecoverable assets.