Dar to deploy troops in parks with poaching out of control

The National Security Council and the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces are developing contingency plans to deploy specially trained troops to the country’s wildlife parks to combat rampant poaching.

The EastAfrican has been informed that the decision was prompted by the fact that poaching is threatening endangered species such as rhinos and the rising incidence of smuggling of live animals from game reserves and national parks.

The army will operate border detection systems, provide communications, analyse intelligence and provide air and ground transport, freeing up game rangers to perform other duties.

Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Ezekiel Maige says the circumstances that would trigger deployment are still to be determined and that the funding request for the special operations and the number of troops are still the subject of discussion between TPDF and the ministry.

Mr Maige said TPDF personnel already familiar with anti-poaching procedures will use their expertise and skills to support the direct services underway by law enforcement.

According to Mr Maige, the upsurge of game-poaching has assumed “alarming proportions.”

“The TPDF soldiers will be dispatched in the western national parks and game reserves in Kagera, Kigoma and Rukwa Regions; it is going to be an increasingly bloody war against poachers who threaten Tanzania’s western parks including Gombe National park — home of the famous Jane Goodall chimpanzee research centre — and the Mahale Mountains National Park, which has spectacular wildlife concentrations.

There is also the remote Katavi National Park, which is said to have a greater density of mammals than any other Tanzanian reserve, among them the last great herds of buffalo in East Africa, up to 1,000 head.

Others are the game reserves of Moyowosi, Ugalla River, Kigosi, Uwanda and Biharamulo.

Last year poachers killed one of five endangered black rhinos that were relocated to Serengeti National Park from South Africa. Latest statistics show that up to May this year, a total of 1,370 poachers had been arrested in various national parks and game reserves, and 171 guns confiscated.

Sources say sophisticated international poaching syndicates are operating in the country’s national parks.

Mr Maige said the poaching has reached such deadly proportion that the government cannot continue relying on park rangers alone to combat the heavily armed poachers.

The idea of deploying TPDF troops to fight poaching was first floated by President Jakaya Kikwete when he toured the Natural Resources and Tourism Ministry recently. President Kikwete said it appeared poachers had overwhelmed game rangers, adding, “The military was successfully used in the 1980s, resulting in the arrest of hundreds of poachers and the impounding of many weapons. We are going to do the same.”

President Kikwete, who is the chairman of the NSC, said the sentences currently handed down by the courts were no deterrent to the poachers — remarks interpreted by analysts to mean a major overhaul of the laws and penalties relating to poaching may be on the way.

Currently, sentences handed down for killing rhinos and elephants can often be as low as 12 months or a $500 fine.