The proposed northern crossing of the Serengeti National Park by a highway is justified by the Tanzania government as much needed access to markets for rural Tanzanian farmers and fishermen living on the shores of Lake Victoria despite the catastrophic implications for migratory wildlife that cross the plains north to south every year in one of nature's great spectacles.
Recent developments indicate the primary driver of the highway plan is industrial and mining profits, not improvement of the lives of ordinary Tanzanians. President Kikwete recently gave approval to accelerate development of a soda ash factory on the shores of Lake Natron, the only known breeding grounds of the East African flamingo
[photo]. The Indian industrial conglomerate, Tata, wants to construct the plant. Tanzania's President points to Kenya's soda ash operation on the other side of the Rift Valley as justification for exploiting the rich soda ash deposits while wrecking the last breeding refuge of the flamingo. Objecting conservationists are portrayed by the government as unpatriotic interlopers trying to protect "empty mud flats". Germany, Tanzania's former colonial motherland, has offered to fund a southern bypass study, but so far Tanzania officials appear uninterested in the offer. The draft environmental impact study has been labeled "completely inadequate" for not considering alternative routes by the Frankfurt Zoological Society. The study also "contradicts itself" by finding the highway will boost tourism, while at the same time ignoring the adverse impacts the highway will certainly have on migrating herbivores, the big attraction for international tourism.
