Introduction

The Serengeti National Park in Tanzania is one of the most hailed wildlife reserves in the world known mainly for its annual migration.
Each year, up to 2 million herbivores and carnivores travel from the northern hills of Tanzania to the sourhtern plains of Kenya in seach of rain. They then make the return journey about 5 months later as they complete an annual circular migration.

The Tanzanian government recently decided to go ahead with plans to construct a highway from the town of Arusha to the lake-side town of Musona. This proposal has been met with protests from major environmenal conservation groups and Tanzanian tourism operators. This is primarily because the new highway cuts through the migration route of the 2 million animals that make that are vital to the surrounding ecology.

The objective of this project is to do an analysis of the current government proposed route and carry out and use GIS analysis to find an efficient alternate route. Using ArcMap to carry out spatial analysis the project will attempt to find a new route that:

• Accomplishes the governments goals.
• Preserves wildlife in the conservation area and surrounding national parks.
• Minimises the amount of cultivated land that gets constructed on.
• Follows current roads. (minimizes forest cutting to create a new route).

This World Heritage Site will potentially suffer irreparable damage if the plans for the highway continue to advance and its risks.

The video below briefly describes the migration. Worth a watch if you want to understand more about it.