Stakeholders call for protection of animal migration corridors’
A man was on Tuesday killed by an elephant in Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park.
What you need to know:
- Wildlife corridors are areas that act as a safe transition zone for migratory animals. At times, animals may even live and thrive in these habitats indefinitely.
Dar es Salaam. Wildlife stakeholders are calling for urgent investment in human resource, technology and finance to restore and protect wildlife corridors threatened to be encroached and blocked due to human activities.
Wildlife corridors are areas that act as a safe transition zone for migratory animals. At times, animals may even live and thrive in these habitats indefinitely.
A principal research officer with Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (Tawiri), Dr Steven Nindi, said the country has 52 corridors but more than 90 percent were potentially found in rural areas thus threatening wildlife extinction and limiting migratory of animals.
He made the remarks yesterday at a virtue second Biodiversity Conservation Breakfast meeting organized by Journalist’s Environmental Association of Tanzania (Jet) under the USAID project Tuhifadhi Maliasili.
Dr Nindi noted that a number of corridors are located in different localities and others are Trans-borders in areas such as Songea, Mpanda, Arusha and Kigoma something that makes it difficult to restore them.
During his presentation titled: supporting biodiversity conservation through effective management of wildlife corridors in Tanzania, he said, “government alone cannot protect and restore wildlife corridors, protecting wildlife corridors is a very dynamic process that requires joint effort.”
“The current estimate indicates that there is a drop of more than 250,000 of elephants from the previous estimate of 300,000, imagine there are only 60,000 elephants,” he said.
Corridors are found in areas that are potentially used by humans such that animals face human-wildlife challenges, especially “continuous wildlife corridors” that pass through different countries and resident areas.
National Land Use Planning Commission (NLUPC), director of research Dr. Joseph Layson said his organization has continued to collaborate with villages in order to ensure the protected areas are surveyed and village lands are also surveyed.
“The ongoing biggest challenge is wildlife conflict. We are currently integrating land use plans for the current and next generation to ensure life of wildlife and humans are not affected,” he said.
