Saturday May 29, 2010
Local News

Tanzania in acute shortage of game wardens



By LEONARD MWAKALEBELA, 29th May 2010 @ 12:03,

TANZANIA faces serious shortage of game wardens, a factor that makes it difficult to deal with poachers.

Industry sources say at least 300 more wardens need to be recruited. They said due to the shortage, a single warden now covers 108 square kilometres, instead of the international standard of 25 square kilometres.

The Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Ms Shamsa Mwangunga and the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr Ladislaus Komba, separately told the 'Daily News' recently that poaching was more rampant in game reserves where there is more shortage compared to national parks.

"Selous Game Reserve is hardest hit by poaching due to its size. It is the largest game reserve in the country. Its size is bigger than all 15 national parks combined," Ms Mwangunga said.

Ms Mwangunga said that despite various efforts to rectify the situation, it has not been easy to solve the problem because the country has only two wildlife colleges that train few game wardens.

The colleges are Mwika Wildlife College in Kilimanjaro Region and Pansiansi Wildlife Institute in Mwanza Region.

The minister said that her ministry had resolved to start recruiting youths from the National Service (JKT) in a bid to offset the shortage.

"These (wardens) are not mere soldiers, they need special skills and training due to the nature of their job. But due to the magnitude of the problem, we have decided to start recruiting youths who have ungergone military training with JKT.

"They will be given special in-house training as game wardens. We have asked the government to allocate more funds in the next budget so that we will be able to employ more game wardens," explained Ms Mwangunga.

The minister, however, said the ministry recently launched special crackdown on poachers which was a success.

"We recently conducted two operations in which 114 poachers were netted," she added.

Dr Komba said his ministry through the wildlife department had planned to recruit over 70 game wardens in the next financial year.

"We need at least 300 game wardens to contain the problem (poaching), so our wildlife department plans to recruit 70 and TANAPA (Tanzania National Parks Authority) will recruit 100 wardens in the next financial year," he noted.

Rhinos and elephants are among the most targeted animals by the poachers. These animals are among the top five that are darling of tourists, others are buffaloes, lions, leopards and giraffe.

Speaking during handing over ceremony of five black rhinos out of 32 from South Africa on May 21, President Jakaya Kikwete said that due to the possibility of becoming extinct, each black rhino in the country has got a bodyguard like him.

For instance, number of black rhinos in the country has plummeted from 10,000 in 1960s to less than 1000 in 1990s and to mere 58 at present.

Tanzania is expensive.

But I would pay more if I could be sure that it would go towards effective anti-poaching efforts.

Trouble is that the poaching is aided and abetted from very high places.

Until that stops, there will be no hope for a solution.