Villagers recover tusks worth 200m/- in Songea
23rd February 2013
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Game Frontiers Personnel carry two ivory tusks impounded at the Selous game reserve at Namtumbo village in Ruvuma region recently. The anti-poaching unit in collaborations with the village game scouts with the facilitation from Game Frontiers Tanzania Limited, have impounded 200m/- worth of ivory tusks, one rifle and a muzzle loader. (Photo; Guardian Correspondent)
The anti-poaching unit of the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources and village game scouts have recovered elephant tusks worth 200m/- from the Selous game reserve at Namtumbo village in Ruvuma region.
According to the reserve’s acting head of the western zone, Bernard Lijaji, the game rangers, with the facilitation from Game Frontiers of Tanzania (GFT) and the Mbaran'gandu WMA Community, have also seized one rifle (Number 458).
The anti-poaching unit, working with the people living near game reserves had launched routine patrols after being facilitated with transport and other communications gadgets from Game Frontiers of Tanzania. The company has committed to sponsor the anti-poaching patrols for the whole of the season from January 2013 to June 2013 when the hunting operations close.
Game Frontiers Managing Director Mohsin Abdallah commended the good relations between his firm and the Selous Game Reserve management at Likuyu Seka Maganga and communities around the Mbaran'gandu WMA hunting block.
Tanzania loses 30 elephants to poaching every day, a shocking 10,000 every year, and the government says the situation cannot effectively reverse for lack of resources.
The country’s elephant population now stands at 150,000, according to some reports; in the rest of Africa jumbo populations have shrunk from 1.3 million down to 470,000 since 1977.
The government has called on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to allow the sale of its consignment of ivory in a bid to raise resources to fight poaching.
“Elephant poaching is very serious and needs a lot of resources to scale down the magnitude of the problem…,” says deputy minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Lazaro Nyalandu.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
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