Why wildebeest are a climate hero of the savanna

Wildebeest may be best known for their annual Great Migration in eastern Africa, the largest movement of animals in the world. However, this event is more than just an incredible natural phenomenon and tourist attraction—it also drives the crucial ecological processes that support the Serengeti Mara’s ability to adapt to the effects of climate change.

It’s wildebeest’s year-round movements and migrations—including their iconic once-a-year 600-mile migration through Kenya and Tanzania’s savannas and grasslands—that significantly influence the landscape and health of one of the largest and most protected ecosystems on Earth.¹

Their grazing reduces overgrown vegetation and curbs destructive wildfires while their movements aerate the soil and enrich it with nutrients and carbon from their dung. Healthier soil promotes new and diverse vegetation growth, which helps to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

When properly managed, savannas like the Serengeti are capable of capturing at least as much carbon as tropical rainforests.² Wildebeest play an important role in promoting its carbon storage and, in turn, support the health, resilience, and climate change mitigation potential of the Serengeti Mara ecosystem.

Superpower: Wildfire suppressors

Consuming more than 4,500 tons of grass every day, wildebeest act as natural lawn mowers, keeping vegetation low, which helps reduce the frequency and intensity of wildfires.³ In the early to mid-twentieth century, disease transmission from domestic cattle decimated wildebeest populations, leaving the Serengeti-Mara ungrazed and overgrown. As a result, wildfires consumed 80 percent of the ecosystem annually,⁴ and the Serengeti became a net source of carbon emissions.

Disease management and anti-poaching efforts helped wildebeest populations recover from around 200,000 in the late 1950s to a peak of 1.5 million in the late 1970s.⁵ Today, wildebeest still number over a million and their rebound helped to restore the Serengeti-Mara. It’s estimated that every increase of 100,000 wildebeest translates into 10% less area burned.⁶

Superpower: Soil enrichers

As wildebeest traverse the landscape, their trampling aerates the soil and redistributes nutrients while mixing in large amounts of carbon-rich dung. Combining with other organic matter—such as dead trees, leaves and other plant matter—their movements help integrate carbon into long-term soil reservoirs. Soil stores three times more carbon than terrestrial vegetation, and this carbon can be preserved for up to centuries, boosting the ecosystem’s long term carbon storage capacity.⁷

Additionally, soil can store more carbon when fires are less frequent.⁸ By reducing the size and frequency of savanna wildfires through their grazing, wildebeest support the accumulation of new carbon into the soil over time.  

Superpower: Biodiversity boosters

Wildebeest’s migrations and the way they interact with the land make them a keystone species, affecting every natural process in their ecosystem.⁹ Their movements not only boost soil carbon storage but also promote soil productivity, which leads to new plant growth¹⁰ and greater carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere.¹¹ Wherever wildebeest and other migratory herbivores go, they also spread nutrients and seeds from a variety of plant species. This creates a more biodiverse and resilient ecosystem better equipped to withstand the effects of climate change.¹²

The health and function of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem depend greatly on wildebeest populations. Their year-round movements and grazing help suppress catastrophic wildfires—thereby reducing carbon emissions—and boost carbon sequestration by promoting vegetation diversity and growth. With over a million wildebeest roaming eastern Africa, it may seem their populations are secure. However, one of their greatest and increasing threats is the loss of habitat connectivity. Many of the wildebeest’s historical migratory corridors have already collapsed or are under threat from habitat loss and fragmentation due to roads, fences, human settlements, and agricultural expansion.¹³

Losing these migrations means risking the breakdown of the ecological processes that sustain a healthy ecosystem. Protecting wildebeest means we’re also protecting their invaluable contributions that support the Serengeti-Mara’s carbon storage capacity and its ability to adapt to the effects of a changing climate. While wildebeest are not a silver bullet for addressing the challenges we face due to climate change, their influence on the health of their ecosystem highlights the important interconnection of nature and climate.