Serengeti closed to residence; Ngorongoro Conservation Area created and Maasai evicted from the plains
Following a British-led committee of enquiry reporting in 1957, two 1959 statutes split the original park: Serengeti National Park was closed to all human habitation, and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area was created as a multiple-land-use area of about 8,292 km2 where Maasai would be permitted to live. Maasai were moved out of the Serengeti plains in exchange for undertakings about grazing, water development and continued residence in Ngorongoro. Whether those undertakings were honoured is the disputed question that runs to the present day.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Serengeti National Park · national park · Tanzania
- Ngorongoro Conservation Area · protected_area · Tanzania
- Maasai · people · not located
- Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) · organisation · Tanzania · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Ngorongoro Conservation Area: Not Our World Heritage Site - submission by Maasai Indigenous residents of the NCA, with the 1959 legislative division
Two 1959 statutes closed Serengeti National Park to human habitation and created the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (about 8,292 km2) as a multiple-land-use area for Maasai evicted from the plains; Maasai residents state in their own submission that permanent residence and grazing were the consideration for leaving the Serengeti, and that later restrictions and the relocation programme break that undertaking.
Submitted to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Special Rapporteur call for inputs) · 2022-07-28 · Partly verified
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/indigenouspeoples/sr/callforinputcovidrecoverysubmissions/2022-07-28/MaasaiIndigenousResidentsofNgorongoroConservationArea.pdf ; 1959 division summarised at https://serengetipark.org/serengeti-national-park-history/
Recorded on Serengeti National Park
- Serengeti National Park established on land used by Maasai pastoralists
- Serengeti closed to residence; Ngorongoro Conservation Area created and Maasai evicted from the plains
- Rinderpest disappears from the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem
- The wildebeest population irrupts from roughly 250,000 to over a million
- Amboseli gazetted as a national park, removing Maasai rights inside the boundary
- Edge degradation squeezes wildlife into the ecosystem core
- Serengeti National Park inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List
- Drought kills roughly a quarter of the wildebeest population
- AI satellite survey returns fewer than 600,000, and is contested
- Tanzania begins relocating residents from Ngorongoro and demarcating Loliondo
- TAWIRI Aerial Point Survey estimates 1,366,109 wildebeest
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- TAWIRI Aerial Point Survey estimates 1,366,109 wildebeest · 2023
- Tanzania begins relocating residents from Ngorongoro and demarcating Loliondo · 2022-06-16
- AI satellite survey returns fewer than 600,000, and is contested · 2022–2023 imagery; published 2025
- Drought kills roughly a quarter of the wildebeest population · 1993–1994
- Serengeti National Park inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List · 1981
- Edge degradation squeezes wildlife into the ecosystem core · c. 1977–2018 (40-year record)
- Amboseli gazetted as a national park, removing Maasai rights inside the boundary · 1974
- The wildebeest population irrupts from roughly 250,000 to over a million · 1963–1977