Halt of anti-poaching campaign wrong, say tour operators

 

In Summary

• The ‘Tokomeza Ujangili’ security operation, which took off on October 4, 2013, was on November 1, halted over allegations of gross human rights violation.

Arusha. Tour operators have faulted the state’s indefinite suspension of the security operation against poachers, arguing that the move is tantamount to granting the poachers  victory on the table.

 The ‘Tokomeza Ujangili’ security operation, which took off on October 4, 2013, was on November 1, halted over allegations of gross human rights violation.

 Ideally, the operation was meant to crackdown on poachers, amidst reports that they have been slaughtering nearly 30 elephants for their tusks everyday, threatening a $1.82 billion tourism industry.

 Though it strongly condemned the human rights abuses during the exercise, Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (Tato) demanded the operation to resume in a bid to save the wildlife population.

“The deferral of Tokomeza Ujangili operation is equivalent to granting the poachers victory. We are urging President Jakaya Kikwete and his government to resume the operation as soon as possible,” Tato chairman Willy Chambullo told a press conference at the weekend. Mr Chambullo said that Tato believes that the operation could go in line with the investigations of the loss of human lives alleged to have taken place. “But, we shouldn’t give the poachers a lee way to decimate our wildlife population. Tato is willing to offer the state moral and material support in the war against poaching,” he noted.

“We cannot carry on trophy hunting in the face of a crisis that is screaming towards the ultimate extinction of Tanzania’s big five animals,” Mr Chambullo noted.

  He estimates that for every animal killed legally during legitimate hunting seasons in the country, another is shot dead illegally by poachers, amounting to thousands of animals per year.

 Tato senior council member Zuher Fazal said the negative effect of trophy hunting to a poor country like Tanzania outweighs any profit that can ever be accrued.  “Statistics speak volumes on the contrast between hunting and tourism industries. Hunting earns the country around $14 million per annum, whereas tourism which is a ‘non-consumptive’ undertaking, reaps the economy $1.82 billion annually,” Mr Fazal said.

For his part, another Tato council member Sam Diah urged the government to replace trophy hunting with photographic undertakings. Indeed, central bank’s latest economic review proves that travel has outshined gold as the country’s leading foreign exchange earner, thanks to the gold falling prices at the world market.

 The Bank of Tanzania said in its September Monthly Economic Review that the value of gold exports declined from $2.15 billion in the year ending September 2012 to $1.748 billion in the year ending September 2013 while tourism surged from $1.61 billion to $1.82 billion during the same period