'Even where we have populations like wildebeests that range between countries, there hasn't been much cooperation.'īut the flamingo action plan changes that. 'In Africa, we tend to look at species and populations as national assets,' says Ken Mwathe, coordinator for BirdLife's Nairobi, Kenya, office. The plan, developed with the assistance of Cambridge, England–based BirdLife International, includes conducting new scientific research on the flamingos, managing local water resources, and instituting cooperation between African nations-a rarity for that continent. Last week, Tanzania announced an action plan to help protect flamingos not just within its own borders, but in neighboring countries. At least 75 percent of the world's lesser flamingos breed there, making the lake's health vital to the species's survival. The decline comes in no small part from ecological disturbances by humans at the lesser flamingo's three major breeding sites in Africa, typified by plans (since scuttled) to build a soda ash mining plant on Lake Natron.

That might seem like a lot, but the species has faced a dramatic decline in numbers in recent years, enough for the IUCN to classify the birds 'near threatened' on its Red List of Threatened Species. The exact population for lesser flamingos ( Phoenicopterus minor) in Tanzania is hard to come by, but estimates range from 1.5 million to 2.5 million birds.

Why can flamingos survive lake natron