Landscape-Scale Conservation
A community game scout walks across the land toward zebras and wildebeest.
Erika Piñeros/African People & Wildlife
Community scout walking toward a herd of zebra

Landscapes

WHERE WE WORK

Tanzania is one of the world’s greatest centers of large mammal biodiversity.

Today, human population growth, unplanned development, agricultural expansion, human-wildlife conflict, and climate change threaten the future of the region. African People & Wildlife works to protect endangered wildlife and empower rural communities across six critical landscapes and beyond.

Our Conservation Landscapes

3M+

acres of habitat

116

Warriors for Wildlife

77

rural partner communities

Map of APW's Conservation Landscapes in Tanzania

Tarangire-Manyara Landscape

The Tarangire-Manyara Landscape stretches from the Usambara mountains to the Great Rift Valley, where a critical wildlife corridor connects habitats between Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Parks and up toward Lake Natron through the Engaruka Valley. We focus on the vibrant community rangelands in the region, where Maasai pastoralists and their livestock intermingle with an extraordinary diversity of endangered or vulnerable species including elephant, lion, cheetah, leopard, wild dog, fringe-eared oryx, and giraffe.

Warriors sitting on a high point above the Maasai Steppe in Tanzania

Greater Serengeti Ecosystem

Adjacent to Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is one of Tanzania’s most famous protected areas where people and wildlife coexist. Designated as a World Heritage Site, it spans approximately 8,300 square kilometers. The area is most known for its caldera where approximately 25,000 large mammals abound and where Maasai pastoralists historically descended to water their cattle. Our efforts focus on the community lands bordering the caldera and extending towards the Serengeti plains where human-elephant conflict is escalating and livestock, wildebeest, and other species frequently intermix.

Rhino in the Ngorongoro landscape

Greater Lake Natron Landscape

The Greater Lake Natron landscape stretches along the border with Kenya and is in the Gregory Rift, the eastern branch of the Great Rift Valley. Declared an International Ramsar wetland site for its biodiversity, the Lake Natron basin is the sole known breeding grounds of the East African Lesser Flamingo. Our efforts in this landscape focus on the communal rangelands to the east of the lake, where extremely arid conditions require wise rangeland management for people and wildlife alike.

Flamingos at Lake Natron

West Kilimanjaro Landscape

The West Kilimanjaro landscape connects the slopes of Africa’s tallest mountain to the world-famous Amboseli National Park in Kenya. The beautiful savannahs in this area provide forage for the Maasai’s livestock as well as passage for the world famous Amboseli elephants and hunting grounds for large carnivores. In this landscape, we work with communities in and around the Enduimet Wildlife Management Area, a community-run conservation area.

Women moving cows through a Living Wall with Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background

Greater Mkomazi Landscape

With a mountain-studded geography, arid forests, wooded grasslands, and a shared border with Kenya’s Tsavo National Park, Mkomazi National Park is teeming with eland, buffalo, lion, elephant, oryx, gerenuk, and more. The park and surrounding communal lands have a history of human-wildlife conflict, with pastoralists and farmers competing for space and natural resources. We are expanding our programming to the Greater Mkomazi landscape partnership with the Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) and look forward to sharing this new project area on future conservation safaris.

Two elephants in Mkomazi National Park

Greater Mikumi Landscape

Mikumi National Park is brimming with wildlife that gathers in the rich Mkata floodplain. Connected to the Selous Game Reserve in the south and ringed by communal lands in all other directions, the park is the heart of a vast, interconnected landscape that must balance the needs of wildlife and local people. Livestock grazing and agricultural development around the edges are prone to conflict with carnivores and elephants. Like the Greater Mkomazi landscape, we will collaborate with TANAPA and other conservation partners to focus on human-wildlife coexistence in the years ahead.

Lion in the grass
Maasai mother and child in Tanzania

Protect More Animals in New Places

With people and nature under extreme stress, our work has never been more urgent. Help bring holistic conservation solutions to Africa’s hotspots.

I’m excited to expand our programs to new conservation landscapes, a testament to our team's longstanding success across northern Tanzania and the confidence earned through our collaborative efforts with local communities.

Charles Trout, Co-Founder and Chief Program Officer, African People & Wildlife