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Tanzania targets 100,000 elephants by 2030

Xinhua, July 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

Tanzania's minister for tourism on Thursday unveiled a 15-year wildlife recovery plan which sets a target to increase the population of elephant to 100, 000 by 2030 in the country's national parks and game reserves.

Tanzanian government is putting measures in place to ensure that the number of wild animals is restored in the country's sanctuaries, Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Lazaro Nyalandu said when speaking at a convention involving representatives from different Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) across the east African nation.

The convention is meant to provide a platform for conservation and tourism stakeholders to extensively discuss sustainable measures of managing the country's wildlife resources, which of recent are overwhelmed with a number of challenges including poaching and human-wildlife conflict.

The recovery plan will include increasing the number of elephants which are estimated to be around 43,000 as the 2014 elephant population census shows, the minister said, adding that in this program, Tanzania's government is targeting to increase the number of elephants from the current to 100,000 by the year 2030.

He said involvement of local communities living close to protected areas will be among the strategies towards implementing the wildlife recovery target.

"That's why we're encouraging people to form WMAs in their respective areas, as it has been proved to be effective tool towards conserving wildlife and environment in general," Nyalandu said.

"As government, we believe that if wildlife is not disturbed in their ecosystems, there is a big possibility of quick recovery in terms of numbers," he said.

On the sustainability of WMAs, the minister implored the need for the authorities to embrace good governance practices for sustainable measures towards promoting conservation of wildlife sector.

In 2003, Tanzania started implementing the idea of WMA and until now there are about 21 WMAs of about 36,237.7 square kilometers.

WMAs are aimed at enhancing conservation and poverty alleviation through sustainable utilization of natural resources. Endi