STOP WASTING RESOURCES ON A ‘ RECOUNT’ AND CONCENTRATE ON ANTI POACHING
(Posted 28th June 2015)
News that the Tanzanian Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism was planning a ‘recount’ in the wider Ruaha ecosystem, after the last game count established devastatingly low elephant figures sharply down from the previous game count, have met with acid comments and criticism over a waste of resources, ostensibly to save face.
Regular sources from both Dar es Salaam and Arusha poured some fair amount of scorn over senior ministry and TANAPA staff’s recent announcements and attributed it to the embarrassment the figures published recently caused. In particular did TANAPA mouthpieces perform the regular denial acts when the figures were first appearing in public but later on had to concede that indeed there was a massive downturn in elephant numbers, leaving their faces covered with the proverbial egg.
Recent changes in legislation now make it a criminal offense to publish statistics and data which are not cleared by the Tanzanian government or authorized bodies, an attempt seen to muzzle investigative journalists and silence NGO’s who dare to publish their own findings when their data do not match government sunshine publications.
Sources were swift but unwilling to go on record to say that the government should, instead of doing yet another game count so soon after the last one, use their meagre resources to boost antipoaching and not try to save face by looking for better results, or in the words of one ‘rig the next game census and then blast NGO’s and conservationists for publishing false figures aimed to discredit the country abroad’ – not a new scenario of course for those conversant with the going ons in Tanzania’s political establishment.
Others attribute this sudden flurry of statements and activities vis a vis the country’s poaching crisis to the minister’s presidential ambitions – Lazaro Nyalondu is one of about 40 CCM members who picked presidential nomination forms though he is generally given very little chance to succeed in becoming the Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s flagbearer – which if true would be electioneering in its worst form according to yet another source in Arusha.
‘Now that we have elections coming up, where were they all when the poaching crisis struck? The last five years were wasted. Our elephant herds were decimated and those responsible for their portfolios in various capacity did nothing until the s*** hit the fan. First they denied, reacted angrily calling those exposing the disaster enemies of Tanzania and all sorts of names and now they want to make us believe they can do better if they remain in power? Never trust a politician I tell you, there is no honesty in what they say during a campaign’.
As the saying goes, do watch this space for updates and to learn how verbal commitments to step up antipoaching translate into real, tangible and result driven action.
