By ADAM IHUCHA--Dressed
in a bright red shuka with strands of equally colourful beads around his neck,
Peter Lesongoyo, 27, stands along the road leading to Engaresero village in
northern Tanzania, desperately waits for tourists.
Unexpectedly, a tall and lanky
Maasai morani together with his 20 or so colleagues are silent, with no
strengths to shout or perform a traditional jumping dance in savannah scenery.
Each one of them has unpleasant story to tell. Life is unbearable as tourists have suddenly
given their village the cold shoulder; for reasons neither Lesongoyo nor his teammates
know.
“I’m
greatly worried not only for myself, but also for the entire community because
if tourists numbers keep on falling, we will perish of hunger” says Mr.
Lesongoyo.
Indeed, as you travel
from Arusha to Lake Natron or Lake Eyasi sprawling basins, you enter a world of
private horror, where indigenous communities struggle to survive and cope with a
modern lifestyle.
Hadzabe,
Maasai and Tatoga ethnic groups, the surviving remnants of the relic of
the hunter-gatherers and nomadic pastoralists on earth, basically live on what
nature provides.
Their
staple food consists wild fruits, honey, as well as bush meat, and milk.
Owing
to Climate change and other modern
developments such as commercial agriculture and mining, which have depleted thick
vegetation, forcing the indigenous communities to abandon their traditional
lifestyles in order to survive.
In their efforts to adapt,
lately, the communities have been engaging in cultural tourism trade, as an
alternative economic activity, to keep their lives going.
They
sell traditional items such as beads and outfits and earn lots of dollars to
meet their ends meet.
But,
the new business that brought rays of hope for them is not absolutely without
storm.
Nuisance fees
As you read this, local
authorities in northern Tanzania compete with each other in placing barriers
for charging tourists en-route to the cultural setups.
Tourists travelling to
Lake Natron and Oldonyo Lengai have since 2012 been subjected to cough up $40
each just on transit.
Monduli, Longido and
Ngorongoro district councils have imposed these unspecified charges on each
foreign tourist.
Tourists pay $10 at
Engaruka gate in Monduli District Council, another $10 at Oldonyo Lengai for
Longido District Council, while Ngorongoro District Council collects as high as
$20 at Engarasero barrier.
Alexis Cronin, a foreign tourist
doesn’t understand why he should pay $40 just on transit in addition to $25
entry fee.
“It doesn’t make sense
for me to pay $40 for nothing, just on transit, I don’t know, but for me this
is unfair. I wouldn’t mind if I would pay these money directly to the community”
Mr Cronin says.
As a result, tour
operators have since March 1, 2013, unanimously excluded the route on their
itineraries to protest against the local authorities’ harmful fees.
“It is very unfair to
charge a tourist $40 even before seeing anything,” Tanzania Association of
Tour Operators (Tato) Chief Executive Officer, Sirili Akko says.
He adds that business was all about negotiations, not harsh laws.
The four district councils of Ngorongoro, Longido, Monduli and Karatu have out-rightly rejected a proposal by outgoing Arusha regional commissioner Magessa Mulongo to abolish the charges.
The authorities told the commission the RC appointed on the matter that their budgets would be negatively impacted if they abolish the charges imposed on tourists.
He adds that business was all about negotiations, not harsh laws.
The four district councils of Ngorongoro, Longido, Monduli and Karatu have out-rightly rejected a proposal by outgoing Arusha regional commissioner Magessa Mulongo to abolish the charges.
The authorities told the commission the RC appointed on the matter that their budgets would be negatively impacted if they abolish the charges imposed on tourists.
Worse still, Karatu
District Council executive director, Mosses Mabula says plans are underway to
review model of charging the fee on tourists in order to spawn more
revenues.
The district, which
imposed its collection barrier at Lake Eyasi entry point, considers inflicting
$10 per tourist and $5 for every vehicle carrying tourists, instead of $10 each
tourists van is currently charged.
Final blow
Coordinator of cultural
tourism at Mto wa Mbu, Wesley Kileo says the local authorities’ decision is a
final blow to the indigenous communities whose lives depend on cultural tourism.
For instance, Mr Kileo says, the cultural tourism created employment to nearly 600 youths in the form of tour guides as well as workers at various campsites and lodges surrounding Lake Natron, Engaruka ruins and Oldonyo Lengai Mountain.
“This area is dry, with no other meaningful economic undertaking other than the cultural tourism business. The myriad fees is a final blow to these indigenous people living along the route,” he explains.
For instance, Mr Kileo says, the cultural tourism created employment to nearly 600 youths in the form of tour guides as well as workers at various campsites and lodges surrounding Lake Natron, Engaruka ruins and Oldonyo Lengai Mountain.
“This area is dry, with no other meaningful economic undertaking other than the cultural tourism business. The myriad fees is a final blow to these indigenous people living along the route,” he explains.
Tourists,
mostly from overseas, have for ages been flocking undeterred to the villages
situated along the shore of Lake Natron, the foot of Mount Oldonyo Lengai, and
nearby the Engaresero River waterfalls, a hot spring and the recently
discovered Homid footprints, some 220 km northwest of Arusha City.
Lake Natron is the only regular
breeding site for 1.5 to 2.5 million lesser flamingos in East Africa, whereas
Mount
Oldonyo Lengai is among the few world’s remain mountains with active volcano,
together with the lately discovered Homid footprints are the key tourists
allures.
With
the climate change and its ripple effects hitting hard the northern Tanzania, indigenous
youths at the villages around these attractions teamed up into groups to engage
in cultural tourism.
They
collect and distribute tourism receipts to local communities to enable meeting
their basic needs.
Each
tourist wishing to kill a half or a full day visiting the waterfalls, Embalulu
Crater, Rift Valley escarpment, Lake Natron shore, orpur baboon caves, the
footprints, and a hot spring pay $25 as an entry fee.
Once
this amount of money is settled, a member of the group guides a tourist through
each attraction site, telling him the history of one godsend after
another.
“Tourists
mostly prefer to hear the history of the volcanic mountain and its name which
means the Mountain of God,” says Mr. Lesongoyo.
Maasai
believe god spits fire on the mountain peak. When the mountain rumbles and a
tremor ensues at night, residents surrounding it flee for fear of being trapped
in floods fraught with lava.
“We
last experienced such a scenario in 2007 when the group received up to 2,000
tourists a month,” Lesongoyo, whose livelihood relies on guiding the tourists,
recalls.
Sadly,
tourists have unexpectedly given the village the cold shoulder, as their
numbers keep on declining each day due to myriad fees.
A high ranking official
with Engaresero cultural tourism project Lazaro Ndirima says currently, the
vehicles taking tourists there have fallen from 15 to only six per week on
average, about 60 per cent decline, thus denying local people of the
opportunity to sell to their cultural items to tourists.
“Last year we got 1,800
tourists earning us $45,000, but this year, we are not sure if they can reach
1,000 because tourists are not coming,” Mr Ndirima explains.
Lake Eyasi Cultural
project coordinator Joseph Nyamsagori has the same story, saying this year they
projected to receive 2,500 tourists’ vehicles, but practically he is not sure
if they would hit 1,000.
Reform
Natural Resources and
Tourism minister Lazaro Nyalandu pledged to come up with a sweeping reform on
modalities of charging tourists outside national parks.
“We need tourists to
spend more days in Tanzania. We cannot afford to let every Tom, Dick, and Harry
wake up one morning and impose a barrier on the highway to collect money from
our dear tourists,” Mr Nyalandu notes.
He argues that with the
current challenges of Ebola and terrorism, Tanzania should be the last country
to impose any nuisance taxes on tourists.
According to him, the
cultural establishments along the Lake Natron route were rare example of
transferring tourists’ dollars to common people directly and through multiplier
effects.
Transferring
dollars from international tourists to poor people living around tourist
destinations has been a major challenge throughout East Africa and the world.
This might be true, for instance, lots of dollars are generated from Tanzania`s world-famous northern tourist circuit, but very little trickles down to the pockets of ordinary people living in its vicinity.
This might be true, for instance, lots of dollars are generated from Tanzania`s world-famous northern tourist circuit, but very little trickles down to the pockets of ordinary people living in its vicinity.
Pro-poor
Freddy Massawe, the
Chief Executive Officer for Tanzania Association of Cultural Tourism Organizers
(TACTO) says that at the moment the pro-poor cultural tourism handles just 30
percent of 1.2 million tourists who visit Tanzania’s wildlife-rich-attractions
annually.
This means the
segment is responsible for nearly 360,000 tourists, directly earning the common
Tanzanians roughly $32.4 million annually, but Mr Massawe sees this as paltry
amount in comparison with the potential.
Looking beyond
the numbers, experts say that this is a typical example of successful model, in
which tour companies could borrow a leaf to transfer the tourist dollars to the
poor people in the country.
Mr Massawe
underscored the need for local tour operators to incorporate culture in their
safari package in order to transfer more dollars to the local people.
“The country is
blessed with over 120 tribes who live in harmony. This is a sleeping giant tourist
product that needs a good will of tour operators to include in their itinerates
for tourists to appreciate cultural diversity and pay direct to the community”
Mr Massawe said.
“Cultural tourism if
well developed can attract million of tourists in our country given the
cultural diversity we have” he explains, adding that countries such as France,
Egypt and Morocco rely on cultural tourism solely and have attracted millions
of tourists.
For instance, he
says, French cultural tourism attracted 87.3 million international tourists in
2013, with Egypt 9.1 million and Morocco 10 million, generating a
multi-billions-dollar for local people.
“In Tanzania a multiple
taxes imposed by inter-sectoral Acts frustrate efforts to unlock the cultural
tourism potential” Mr Massawe noted, stressing that in certain instances local
government authorities do raise tourism levies without considering its impact.
Mr. Massawe argues
that cultural tourism if well developed could generate employment to thousands
of youths and women as well as bringing in the much-needed foreign currency.
More importantly, it
can also be used to combat poaching, as community will see the benefits of
tourism, he says.
Growing at a steady
rate for the past two years, Tanzania tourism is booming with latest data
confirming the industry as Tanzania’s top foreign currency earner and export
sector, outshining the gold.
Fresh figures from
central bank indicate that the tourism brought in $1.973 billion during the
year ended June 2014, up from $1.757 billion earned in previous corresponding
year.
Recent statistics
show that earnings from the Tanzanian tourism industry increased from $200
million in 1993 to $1.88 billion in 2013.
The number of
visitors also increased over the same period from 230,000 to a record one
million, creating direct employment to 156,500 Tanzanians.
The reported number
of tourists who visited Tanzania in 2012 and 2013 places the country on the map
of leading African safari destinations with million-plus visitors per year.
Other tourist
competitive African destinations, rich with resources and which have a high
record of tourists reaching a million or above are Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana,
Namibia, Zambia and South Africa.
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