Tuesday March 02, 2010
Local News

Animals killed 78 people last year


AMINA JUMA, 2nd March 2010 @ 11:00,

THE Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources, through the Wildlife Department, has paid a compensation of 47m/- to the families whose relatives were killed by wild animals and those whose farms were destroyed by wild animals.

Speaking with the 'Daily News', the Director of Wildlife, Mr Erasmus Tarimo, said that the compensation was paid in the 2008/09 financial year after receiving requests from the various districts.

''The Ministry has the mandate of making sure people are not affected by wild animals and we are taking measures to avoid it because the government spend a lot of money on compensation,'' he said.

Mr Tarimo said that since 2007 the ministry, through the Wildlife Department, started the procedure of paying 200,000/- for the family that loses a relative and 100,000/- for a farm that covers more than one hectare.

He said that the amount which paid for the period of last year included 15,600,000/- which was paid as condolence for 78 families that lost their relatives and 31,600,00/- was used to compensate the destruction caused on 316 hectares of farms with various food crops.

The Districts which got the compensation includes Urambo, Manyoni, Singida, Kondoa, Iramba, Dodoma, Morogoro, Bahi, Mkuranga, Nanyumbu, Kilwa, Morogoro, Kigoma, Bukoba, Shinyanga, Ruangwa and Serengeti.

Others are Masasi, Kondoa, Tunduru, Pangani, Mvomero and Bunda. Mr Tarimo said the ministry was taking some measures to stop the destruction caused by wild animals by educating the communities that live in the vicinity of national parks.

''We are training Village Game Scouts in the colleges of wildlife management to enable them to guard people and their property against the onslaught of wild animals,'' he observed.

He said that the ministry has also started to involve village leaders in various researches concerning wild animals in West Kilimanjaro, Serengeti, Kilosa, Liwale and Rombo.