In the worst case, the Serengeti could disappear completely in a few decades,” says Røskaft. These resources are deteriorating little by little, and what we see in the Serengeti is that the pressures on the ecosystem can become so large that that they are no longer sustainable. “Everything we harvest from nature are services that the ecosystem services provides us. The region also offers crucial resources such as vitally important water, food for animals and humans, wood for fuel and construction, land that can be cultivated - and nature experiences. Together the Mara River, the Mau Forest and the Serengeti constitute one of the world’s most complex ecosystems, and they support a great diversity of fauna and birdlife, as well as special and rare plants. The Mara River, which originates in the Mau Forest, is the lifeblood of the entire ecosystem of the national park. Serengeti National Park in Tanzania extends into Kenya towards the Mau Forest, the largest virgin montane forests of Africa. “The Serengeti is in many ways an image of Africa, and we’ll use the Serengeti as our case study in this research project,” says Eivin Røskaft, a Professor of Biology at NTNU, who is heading the entire EU project. A large EU-funded research project is taking stock of what is happening in the Serengeti. Serengeti means “endless plains” in the Maasai language, but the national park is pressured from many quarters and is changing quickly. This iconic image of the national park is far from guaranteed in perpetuity. The herd is heading towards one of the life-giving water holes, where wildebeest congregate along with zebra, gazelles, antelopes, elephants and other species of the abundant animal population that live in the Serengeti and make the area unique.

The setting sun gives the scene a golden tinge.

Dust swirls up from the many hooves pounding the ground, and forms a haze over the landscape. A huge wildebeest herd migrates across the open, parched plains.

Open spotify serengeti