The Hadza tribe of Tanzania are one of the last remaining societies in Africa, that survive purely from hunting and gathering. Very little has changed in the way the Hadza live their lives. But it has become increasingly harder for them to pursue the iconic Hadza way of life. Today of roughly 1,300 Hadza living in the dry hills here between salty Lake Eyasi and the Rift Valley highlands, only about 100 to 300 still hunt and gather most of their food. The Hadza’s homeland lies on the edge of the Serengeti plains, in the shadow of Ngorongoro Crater. It is also close to Olduvai Gorge, one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world, where homo habilis, one of the earliest members of the genus Homo was discovered to have lived 1.9 million years ago. The Hadza have probably lived in the Yaeda Chini area for millennia. Genetically like the Bushmen of southern Africa they are one of the ‘oldest’ lineages of humankind. They speak a click language that is unrelated to any other language on earth. Their way of life is being encroached on by pastoralists whose cattle drink their water and graze on their grasslands, with farmers clearing woodland to grow crops, and climate change that dries up rivers and stunts grass. Over the past 50 years, the tribe has lost 90% of its land. Either the Hadza will find a way to secure their land-rights to have access to unpolluted water springs and wild animals, or the Hadzabe lifestyle will disappear, with the majority of them ending up as poor and uneducated individuals within a Westernized society that is completely foreign to them.
