Dar es Salaam. The Wildlife Conservation Foundation of Tanzania (WCFT) yesterday donated three Land Cruisers worth Sh354,019,602 to the Wildlife Department for anti-poaching activities and wildlife conservation in the Selous Game Reserve.
Concerned about the wave of poaching in Tanzania, the WCFT has been organising gala dinners locally and also in the United States and France to raise funds to support anti-poaching activities and wildlife conservation.
In total, the WCFT has donated 20 four-wheel-drive vehicles equipped with state of the art communication gadgets, including radios and global positioning systems (GPS) worth billions of shillings to the Wildlife Division in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.
WCFT Trustee Eric Pasanisi handed over the three vehicles to the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Lazaro Nyalandu, on behalf of former French President Valery Giscard D’Estaing. Speaking shortly after the ceremony, Mr Pasanisi said the WCFT would donate more fully-equipped vehicles to the Wildlife Department in the near future.
Mr Pasanisi added that his hunting companies will support the employment of 100 game scouts in the southern part of the Selous Game Reserve beginning next month.
Mr Nyalandu thanked the WCFT for its timely donation which, he said, would make it possible for game scouts to work to do their work efficiently. The minister appealed to the international community to support Tanzania in sustainable wildlife conservation, including protection of elephants.
On Friday, Mr Nyalandu announced that the government will employ 950 game scouts by the end of this year to boost the anti-poaching drive. “The days of poachers killings our elephants are numbered,” the minister warned at a two-day conference on stopping wildlife crime and advancing wildlife conservation that ended yesterday in Dar es Salaam.
According to the Tanzania Elephant Protection Society, some 30 or so elephants are killed for their ivory every day. This works out to around 11,000 each year.
Founded in 2001 by Mr Gerard Pasanisi under the patronage of former US President George H.W. Bush, former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and the Archduke Lorenz of Austria-Este, the WCFT’s major agenda is to raise funds to support the government of Tanzania in its fight against poaching.
In the nine years of its existence, the WCFT has organised gala dinners in Dar es Salaam in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. The event was held in Paris in 2003, 2005 and 2010 and once in Dallas in the United States in 2006.


From the http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/Ne...n11s5nz/-/index.html

Good news..too bad they could not have moved quicker. Pasanisi, especially, had a lot to lose..and did.

Basically back to 1989 all over again.. Eles will recover IF these protections stay in place. Just like 1989 it will be 15 years before
the Selous starts producing good sport hunted ele trophies again.