Tanzania rangers to undergo paramilitary training
Saturday April 07 2018
Tanzania has announced plans to equip rangers with better skills to combat poaching.
The special training, involving key personnel from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, will transform operations for wildlife and forest institutions into paramilitary units to reinforce an anti-poaching drive.
The training will enhance the protection of wildlife, mostly elephants and rhinos living in protected areas and those roaming freely in areas outside wildlife parks, game reserves and forests.
Officials from the Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa), Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) and the wildlife division of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism have been trained.
Tanapa controls 16 national parks, and NCAA operates independently as a conservation authority for Ngorongoro area which comprises the Maasai cattle herders, wildlife inside the Ngorongoro Crater and outside and the Olduvai and Laetoli pre-historical sites.
The wildlife division controls 38 game reserves and open areas inhibited by wild animals.
Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Japhet Hasunga said more than 100 civilian staff in the ministry were trained last month in Katavi region in western Tanzania, where poaching of elephants has been reported allegedly by Burundian poachers.
The introduction of paramilitary training for wildlife rangers and managers was necessitated because poachers have been using high-tech communications and military equipment to kill elephants and other endangered species.
Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Hamis Kigwangala said the government had been planning to introduce military training in key units charged with wildlife protection.
Poaching is an increasingly serious threat to wildlife in Tanzania, in particular elephants for ivory.
Controlling this problem has proved difficult due to a number of factors including the large size of the national parks and a lack of clear boundaries, as well as limited manpower and equipment to monitor and manage activities in wildlife conserved areas.
An aerial wildlife census showed that elephant numbers in Tanzania declined from over 120,000 in the early 2000s to about 50,000 in 2015.
More than 17,797kg of illegally exported Tanzanian ivory (4,692 elephant tusks) had been seized at overseas ports over the same period.
A recent wildlife conservation study by the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute had indicated a decline in elephant poaching.
The study had attributed the drop to the implementation of paramilitary strategies involving wildlife officers.
Research by scientists from the World Wildlife Fund, the University of Vermont and the University of Cambridge shows that tourism revenue lost to the current poaching crisis exceeds the anti-poaching costs necessary to stop the decline of elephants in East, Southern and West Africa.