President Jakaya Kikwete
President Jakaya Kikwete has ordered the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism to suspend plans to selling the ivory stockpile, saying it could provide a loophole for illegal dealers to unload their hoard.
He said it was better for the stockpile to be destroyed at this
time when the country has intensified the war against poaching, to deny
poachers loophole to sell their illegal hoard.
President Kikwete issued the directive on Tuesday in Dar es Salaam
during the launching of anti-poaching billboards to sensitise people to
join fight against poaching.
The president left for London to attend the Conference on Combating
illegal Trade and Trafficking of Elephant, Rhino and Tiger which starts
today.
He said the government will soon start using new technology to identify those who spot the animals and rangers.
“We are going to introduce drones for surveillance in our national
parks…we hope that other nations will give us support to completely
fight poaching networks”.
Kikwete however noted that apart from elephant poaching other
animals like lions and leopard have also been killed in the country.
“This kind of poaching involves the killing of lions and leopards
due to their skins being in high demand by some leaders who use them as
their symbols,” Kikwete said, adding however that their numbers are
still satisfactory.
Other animals were being killed for their meat, said to be in high demand in various parts of the world.
Kikwete said efforts by the government to fight poaching in the
country will not be successful unless there is a total ban on ivory
trade.
He said that during his participation in the meeting in London, his
campaign message to western countries and the world at large will be a
call for a total ban of Ivory trade.
He said the mass slaughter of elephants in the 1970s and 1980s, led
to the global ivory trade ban by the Convention on the International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
According to him, Thailand, Bangkok, Vietnam and China are the
major ivory markets in the world and if they and the world in general
agree to stop buying the trophies, they will boost the campaign against
poaching.
The president admitted that there are challenges in the fight
against poaching, including the parks being too large…Selous national
park is more than 200,000 square kilometers.
The president said in fact deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test of
ivory seized in Sri Lanka recently showed that the tusks were from
Selous and Ruaha national parks, which shows that Tanzania is
contributing a lot to the illegal international ivory market.
Earlier welcoming the president, deputy minister for tourism and
natural resources, Mahmoud Mgimwa said that inadequate money and working
tools are obstacles to fight poaching.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
No comments:
Post a Comment