By ADAM IHUCHA--Tanzania plans to
enforce new rules that limit tourists to national parks, a move that will
affect communities living around wildlife conservation areas.
Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa)
announced the regulations, which if enforced, will require tourists who wish to
visit communities or stay outside the parks to pay multiple entry fees.
Currently, tourists pay a single fee in a particular park and are issued with a
permit that allows them multiple entries within 24 hours.
This has allowed tourists to visit or
stay at the community-based wildlife management areas (WMAs), where they spend
an estimated $24 million per year.
“We have been directed by the ministry
to strictly enforce the new regulation, and double or multiple entries with a
single permit will cease to exist,” Tanapa director-general Allan Kijazi said.
Although Mr Kijazi did not specify the
exact date for the commencement of the new order, sources said the rule will be
enforced any time between January and March.
Tanzania Association of Tour Operators
(Tato) chief executive Sirili Akko said the new rule was a dark cloud over the
32 WMAs established through USAid support.
The WMAs, which cost $17 million, were
supposed to involve communities bordering national parks in conservation and
enable them derive benefits from the use of the natural resources.
The new order kills the model of
transferring tourists’ dollars to the community. Last week, villagers in
western Serengeti protested the move and threatened to poison the wildlife if
the rule was enforced.
“We had started seeing the benefits of WMAs
and now the government wants to take them back,” said John Kisiroti during a
WMA extraordinary meeting at Ikona in Serengeti district.
Official data shows that the Ikona WMA
earns about $750,000 per annum from bed fees and rent from hunting and
photography companies.
Ikona which borders Tanzania’s flagship
park of Serengeti, offers attractive locations for hotel and lodge investments.
WMA authorised association secretary Steven Makacha says that the area is home
to 17 investors, employing 714 locals with substantial multiplier effects in
the five villages and beyond.
Ikona WMA’s vice-chairman, Jacob Begha
said that the proposed numerous fees will discourage tourist flow to the
community establishments, investors also will lose interest and ultimately the
whole concept of WMAs will become a white elephant.
“Through WMA, we have seen poaching
decline. People now see the direct benefit fromprotecting wildlife, but with
the new regulation, Western Serengeti will reclaim its infamous name of
poachers paradise” Mr Begha said.
Willy Chambullo, chairman of Tato said
that should the Tanapa go ahead with the new rule, there will be no option but
to close down their lodges and camps.
Mr Chambullo warned, “If the community does
not feel direct benefit of the wild animals in the areas they inhabit, then the
overall outstanding value of our parks will be at stake.”
A natural resources and environmental
law Lecturer at Tumaini University Makumira, Elifuraha Laltaika, said, “If the
community in and around wildlife protected areas significantly benefits from
the resources, they will fight poaching in a more sustainable manner.”
The WMAs make a particular important
contribution to conservation in Tanzania as most of them are adjacent to
national parks — they provide buffer zones around the parks, link corridors
used by migrating animals, and conserve special areas important to specific
species.
But as important as these areas are to
the local wildlife, Tanzanian people are the biggest beneficiaries, in more
ways than just increased income.
The current tussle is not the first as
Tanapa in 2013 attempted to enforce the regulation, but the former minister for
natural resources and tourism Khamis Kaghasheki suspended the move.
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