Tanzania occupies approximately 945,200km2 of the eastern African region. Its protected area network covers about 28% of the total land area. Of this, 12 national parks (NPs) represent 4%, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area represents 1%, 15% comprises 31 game reserves (GRs), and 8% comprises 38 game-controlled areas. This means at least 19% of the land (NPs and GRs) is managed primarily for wildlife protection where no human settlement is allowed, and 9% of the land is intended to enable wildlife to coexist with people. Forestry reserves also add substantially to the areas for wildlife protection.
Conflicts between people and wildlife have increased around protected areas because of increasing human populations and their activities, including settlements, agriculture, livestock husbandry, deforestation, charcoal burning, tourism, and research. These conflicts include blockage of migratory and dispersal areas, loss of habitat for wildlife, raiding of crops and attacks on livestock by wildlife, competition for resources such as watering points and grazing areas, illegal/unsustainable harvesting (poaching), and disease transmission. Tanzania has not been spared from these trends. Disease transmission from livestock to wildlife has become a more serious problem due to increasingly constrained ecosystems, which can result in stressed and immunocompromised wildlife. Emerging diseases have already affected large tracts of protected areas with little regard for international boundaries.