Tanzania plans to enforce new rules that confine tourists to national parks, a move that will affect communities living around wildlife conservation areas.
Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa) announced the regulations, which if enforced, will compel tourists who wish to visit communities or stay outside the parks to pay multiple entry fees.
Currently, tourists pay a single fee in a particular park and are issued with a permit that allows them multiple entries within 24 hours. This has allowed tourists to visit or stay at the community-based wildlife management areas (WMAs), where they spend an estimated $24 million per year.
“We have been directed by the ministry to strictly enforce the new regulation, and double or multiple entries with a single permit will cease to exist,” Tanapa director-general Allan Kijazi said.
Although Mr Kijazi did not specifyy the exact date for the commencement of the new order, sources said the rule will be enforced any time between January and March.
Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (Tato) chief executive Sirili Akko said the new rule was a dark cloud over the 32 WMAs established through USAid support.
The WMAs, which cost $17 million, were supposed to involve communities bordering national parks in conservation and enable them derive benefits from the use of the natural resources. The new order kills the model of transferring tourists’ dollars to the community.
Last week, villagers in western Serengeti protested the move and threatened to poison the wildlife if the rule was enforced.
“We had started seeing the benefits of WMAs and now the government wants to take them back,” said John Kisiroti during a WMA extraordinary meeting at Ikona in Serengeti district.
Official data shows that the Ikona WMA earns about $750,000 per annum from bed fees and rent from hunting and photography companies. Ikona which borders Tanzania’s flagship park of Serengeti, offers attractive locations for hotel and lodge investments.
WMA authorised association secretary Steven Makacha says that the area is home to 17 investors, employing 714 locals with substantial multiplier effects in the five villages and beyond.
Ikona WMA’s vice-chairman, Jacob Begha said that the proposed numerous fees will discourage tourist flow to the community establishments, investors also will lose interest and ultimately the whole concept of WMAs will become a white elephant.
“Through WMA, we have seen poaching decline. People now see the direct benefit fromprotecting wildlife, but with the new regulation, Western Serengeti will reclaim its infamous name of poachers paradise” Mr Begha said.
Willy Chambullo, chairman of Tato said that should the Tanapa go ahead with the new rule, there will be no option but to close down their lodges and camps.
Mr Chambullo warned, “If the community does not feel direct benefit of the wild animals in the areas they inhabit, then the overall outstanding value of our parks will be at stake.”
A natural resources and environmental law Lecturer at Tumaini University Makumira, Elifuraha Laltaika, said, “If the community in and around wildlife protected areas significantly benefits from the resources, they will fight poaching in a more sustainable manner.”
The WMAs make a particular important contribution to conservation in Tanzania as most of them are adjacent to national parks — they provide buffer zones around the parks, link corridors used by migrating animals, and conserve special areas important to specific species.
But as important as these areas are to the local wildlife, Tanzanian people are the biggest beneficiaries, in more ways than just increased income.
The current tussle is not the first as Tanapa in 2013 attempted to enforce the regulation, but the former minister for natural resources and tourism Khamis Kaghasheki suspended the move.
The East African
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