The Serengeti National Park clocks 60 as challenges outlined
Serengeti. The interaction between humans and wildlife, as well as game poaching, remain major the challenges for conservation in Tanzania.
This was said here yesterday during the commemoration of the 60th anniversary since the establishment of the Serengeti National Park (Senapa) and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), the oldest conservation areas held at Fort Ikoma.
Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan, therefore, called for conservation authorities, public institutions, individuals and the general public to continue protecting wildlife and natural resources.
She said poaching has been reduced by nearly 90 percent, but it had reduced the number of elephants to 55,000 in 1989 from 300,000 in 1980.
“Each one should participate in finding the permanent solution to reduce the interaction between human and wildlife,” Ms Hassan said. Human interactions with wildlife are caused by increasing number of economic activities, as people are evading national parks, which caused disturbances to wildlife animals.
She warned leaders who are using their positions to break the laws by evading conserved areas, saying the government will take legal measures without considering their status in society.
“The new generation should inherit what the old generations did on conservation of natural resources for the benefit of future generations,” the Vice President said.
She, therefore, directed the conservation authorities to prepare short, medium and long-term strategies which would ensure sustainable conservation of wildlife and natural forests for the benefit of future generations.
The strategies, she said, should find solutions for the challenges facing conservation as 35 percent of the country’s land is conserved area.
“Apart from allocating 35 percent of the country’s land for conservation of wildlife and natural resources, there still are some challenges in the sector, which need concrete solutions to make it sustainable for economic development,” she said.
To make that possible, the Vice President called upon NCA and Tanapa to consider the directives of the Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, on wildlife and forests conservation for development.
In 1961, she said, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere said “the survival of wildlife should be taken seriously by each of us on the African continent. These wild species and the vegetation they live on are not only important as natural wonders, but are important as our natural resources and for our social welfare”.
Senapa with an area of 14,763 square kilometresn and NCA with 8,300 square kilometres, were established in 1959, two years before independence.
Natural Resources and Tourism minister Khamis Kigwangalla said the ministry has been implementing various strategies for the benefit of the national economy in the coming sixty years, including opening zonal tourism circuits in areas which are not being promoted enoigh as tourist attractions.
