Tanzania: Kick Out Park Invaders

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

EDITORIAL

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism and the local administration must move fast to evict people who have moved into parts of the Serengeti National Park buffer zone.

As Director of Wildlife Erasmus Tarimo rightly observed, human encroachment on national parks and game reserves is largely to blame for the rise in conflicts between human beings and wild animals. Wild animals do occasionally stray into settlements that are well beyond national park boundaries, destroying crops and causing injury and sometimes even death.

But people are to blame for most of these encounters with wild animals.Herders who have moved into parts of Serengeti National Park and set up temporary dwellings as they search for pasture for their livestock cannot blame anyone but themselves should wild animals attack them or their animals.

The district administration's move to evict herders who have settled illegally within the boundaries of the park is commendable. It should not relent until all invaders have been driven out.Tanzania has plenty of land and it is hard to understand why people should insist on living in or near national parks, game reserves and other protected areas.