NGORONGORO CONSERVATION AREA
Ngorongoro Conservation Area is named after the world’s largest intact and unfilled caldera, the Ngorongoro Crater, and
provides a home for Maasai pastoralists who live in relative harmony alongside the region’s abundant wildlife.
The area now known as the Ngorongoro Conservation Area has been occupied by hominid species for approximately three
million years – an astonishing fact proven by fossil evidence found at Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli. Around the time that
our ancient ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis, was leaving footprints that would become one of the most important
anthropological discoveries in history, the Ngorongoro Crater was formed by a major volcanic eruption.
For the past 2,000 years, the area has been the province of pastoralist tribes, including the Mbulu, the Datooga and
most recently, the Maasai. The first Europeans arrived in 1892, and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area was established as
a sanctuary for wildlife in 1976. Three years later, the area was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in
recognition of its importance as the only conservation area in Tanzania that protects wildlife while allowing human
cohabitation.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is home to an incredible abundance and diversity of wildlife, including Grant’s and
Thomson’s gazelles, wildebeest, zebra and large herds of buffalo. The Ngorongoro Crater alone sustains around 25,000
large game animals, all of whom live at close quarters in the natural enclosure of the caldera. This density of wildlife
makes the crater the best place in Tanzania to see the Big Five. It also supports the only viable population of black
rhino left in the country, while its tusker elephants are some of the largest on the African continent.
Every year, the grass plains around the crater play host to the herds of the Great Migration, usually numbering close to
two million wildebeest, zebra and other antelope. This sudden abundance of prey attracts many different predators,
including lion, cheetah, hyena and the endangered African wild dog. The crater’s Lerai Forest is a sun-dappled thicket
of yellow-barked acacias, which provide the perfect habitat for the elusive leopard.
Around 500 bird species have been recorded in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, of which 400 can be found in the crater
itself. The region’s dense acacia woodland is home to the world’s largest known population of the near threatened
Fischer’s lovebird, while the Gorigor Swamp is an important habitat for aquatic species like the whiskered tern and
African rail. Many of the birds found in the conservation area are unique to Tanzania or East Africa, including endemics
and near-endemics such as the Jackson’s widowbird, the Hartlaub’s turaco and the rufous-tailed weaver. All seven East
African vulture species are represented here, while Lake Magadi, Lake Ndutu and the Empakai Crater lake host vast flocks
of lesser and greater flaming
