In partnership with the African Wildlife Foundation, USAID worked with Tarangire National Park in Tanzania to design a modern visitors center to increase visitor numbers and communicate key issues about the park’s uniqueness. The Center’s structures, styled after the traditional dwellings of local Mbugwe and Maasai, consist of a gatehouse, main pavilion, and tourist kiosk, crowned by a three-story wooden “tree-house” built around an awe-inspiring baobab tree.

The new center also educates visitors on the human dimensions of the surrounding landscape, such as pressure on wildlife from expanding human populations seeking to improve their livelihoods.

The visitor center in Tarangire, together with a sister center at nearby Lake Manyara National Park, represents the culmination of USAID’s efforts to strengthen management and infrastructure of these two parks which together anchor the larger Maasai Steppe ecosystem. These parks are ranked second and third among Tanzania’s thirteen national parks in terms of visitation, behind only Serengeti National Park, and are contributing to both the national economy and increasingly, to local livelihoods.