Tanzania’s conservation and strategies have undergone significant changes since the mid-1980. During the 1990s, tourism has become the country‘s most important foreign exchange earner, and there are real efforts by some government departments and conservation.
Tourism dollars are, for the first time, providing funds to run Tanzania’s national parks and local community projects. There is optimism and conviction among TANAPA official that if local people are involve in the conservation and benefit from tourism, Tanzania’s wildlife will survive. Scatted around the country are some fine examples of private entrepreneurs running tourism projects with sensitivity for the environment and the community. But genuine ecotourism projects are few, small in scale, and often underfunded. And despite the rhetoric, the government has developed no overall tourism strategy. “Tanzania is going to kill its goose”, contends Kenya ecotourism operator Stive Tunner. “There’s effort to control tourism. I’s the biggest make-for-all I’ve ever see”.
Tanzania’s formerly president, Benjamin Mkapa, who took the office 1996, also believed that the government, not the marketplace, must economic polices and provides social services. Mkapa, who was a foreign minister and ambassador to the United State under Julius Nyerere, quickly staked out a position supporting sustainable tourism development. “We will not let our shoot term needs for money obscure our long term commitment to conserve and preservation”, Mkapa said. With a none too veiled reference to Kenya, Mkapa contended that “while others have overexploited and over-commercialized their natural resources…..we have the advantage of being able to learn from the experience of other and, therefore, avoid costly mistakes”.
The Mkapa government’s minister of natural resources and tourism, Zakia Meji, was a competent and principle former university professor who has taken several wise measure to improve conservation, tourism, and tourism revenue. One of her first moves to halt construction of new hotels in Serengeti national Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area, while actively counting investors for the southern parks and those along the coast. In early 1998, Mejia made the controversial decision that Tanzania should sell its ivory stockpiles as part of an effort to raise funds for improving tourism facilities. Parallel with moves, however, corruption remains widespread and mkapa’s government failed to carry out most of its pledges, including a long scheduled nationwide environmental impact study and master plan.
Tourism is now viewed as Tanzania’s best hope for development, and ecotourism, loosely defined to include nature tourism lite, and genuine ecotourism, is widely hailed by government as the model Tanzania is pursuing. In terms of the definition of real ecotourism, Tanzania stacks up as follows.
1. Involves travel destinations. Tanzania rates high on this criterion. Its Northern Circuit including some of the finest and least spoiled wildlife and game parks in the world, and the government is making a concerted effort to open up to both wildlife viewing and sport hunting the largely and little vast little explored southern game parks. Along the coastline and islands such as Mafia and, most important, Zanzibar, Tanzania is viewed as a pristine alternative to Kenya’s over developed coast line. Tanzania’s tourism sector remains largely “enclave” tourism, with the game parks and islands, rather than the entire country, being marketed for ecotourism.
2. Minimizes impact. To date, damage has been done mainly in the heavily visited destinations, Kilimanjaro Nation and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Although poaching has taken a serious toll, the negative environmental affects of nature tourism have been relatively limited. After independence, the Tanzania n government built game park that were architecturally respect full though not very environmentally sensitive in terms of conservative of freshwater, waste disposal, or staff housing. There is a recognition that no new hotels should be built inside the parks of the Northern Circuit, that hotel staff and guards must be moved outside the parks boundaries, and that only tented camps should be permitted. But there principles continuo to be bent and broken. And with a few exceptions, most notably wwf’s Mafia island project, Tanzania is pushing conventional beach tourism, based on overseas package tours, and supports no real community involvement. The fact that Tanzania’s extraordinary natural resources are largely unspoiled reflect the reality that tourist numbers are still relatively low, the number of game lodges is still small, and the parks themselves are difficult to reach. New reads, particulary paved road from Arusha into the Northern Safari Circuit, could rapidly change this, and the government, now locked into tourism as its principal source of foreign exchange, has failed to make an overall environment.
3. Builds environmental awareness. In this category, Tanzania receives high marks for education of foreign visitors but not for that of coterie of local, high- quality naturalist guides, park rangers and guards, scientists, and, on Mount Kilimanjaro, mountain guides and porters. In addition, there are now a number of private camps, lodges, and tour companies practicing solid ecotourism and giving their guests their guest highly informative tours. Some tours companies prepare visitors before hand with articles and list books. Environmental education is, however, far less widespread among Tanzanians themselves, for whom even a basic primary education is not always available, particularly in rural areas. Visiting Tanzania’s park is expensive (even with cut-rate prices for those living in the country), so domestic tourism remains low. Although the number local and international environmental organization Tanzania has grown in recent years and there is more popular awareness of environmental issue, for most Tanzanians the national parks are simply a source of foreign exchange and, for the Maasai, a source of their own exploitation.
4. Provides direct financial benefits conservation. Conservation is being benefited, but much more needs to be done. Unlike the situation in Kenya, Costa Rica, and South Africa, their vitually no private parks or reserves, so all foreigners who go on safari do so in the national parks. In the late 1990s, the government made an appropriate decision to rain park entrance fees in the northern Safari Circuit from $20 to $25 per day, while lowering them from $20 to 15 in the less visited parks in Southern Circuit in an effort to better disperse. Now entrance fees from July 2007 Serengeti National Park are $50, Kilimanjaro $60, Gombe $100, Mahale 80 and others in the Northern Circuit is $35 and Southern is $20. With the increase in tourism numbers and the hike in the entry fees, more money is coming into the national parks’ coffers. But TANAPA also faces many more demands, including several new parks to manage, the need for new or upgraded facilities and infrastructure, and necessity of training more guards and park officials. At the same time, a rising percentage of its profits are going to Community Base projects in local communities. Therefore, both TANAPA and Wildlife Division, remain severally Underfunded.
5. Provides financial benefits and empowerment for local people. There is same small, but largely positive, progress in this area. Although benefits have greatly increased, local development and ecotourism projects rarely lead to empowerment of local people. Many of the communities in Tanzania’s parks are now get tangible benefits from gate fees, tourism projects, and hunting concessions. Although this project speaks of a “partnership” with the local communities, it is an uneven and often paternalistic partnership in which rent is paid for land use but local people have no say in the way the tourist project or park is run. Financial and material benefits are, therefore, sometimes little more than bribes or buyouts. But there are some exceptions, including the Retour Project in Loliondo, the interactive negotiations between the Maasai and Dorobo and Oliver’s Camp, and some TANAPA’s Community Base projects represent an important movement from individual ecotourism projects to a national program, ma step toward moving ecotourism from a niche market to a set of principles and practices to reshape the country’s tourism and an environment impact assessment and strategy illustrate, the government remains weak and lacks consistent national planning , a clear sense of direction, and strong leadership.
6. Respect local culture. Tanzania scores poorly in this regard. Despite some efforts, much prejudice remains towards the Maasai and other pastoralists. They continue to be viewed by government officials, tour operators, and visitors as tourist attractions and sources of souvenirs. Most tourists continue to come to Tanzania to see the wildlife, not to learn about local culture or history. Little seems to have changed: dollars are exchanged for photographs or beards but there are little real interchange or understanding on either side. Now Tanzania Tourist Board which is responsible for promoting tourism create new branch Culture Tourism Program which will be responsible for promoting culture tourism. Although Tanzania’s tourism has not resulted in serious problems with prostitution or other social ills largely because the game parks are fairly isolated from population centers there is a need to develop more culturally sensitive and educational forms of interaction.
7. Supports human rights and democratic movements. Indirectly, ecotourism has did so. Tanzania, though not fully democratic, is not a dictatorship, and in recent years there has been an increase in the number of NGOs and independent community and rural organizations and in political activism. The rise of ecotourism is one of the forces giving impetus to these struggles. Some Maasai leaders, TANAPA officials, private tour operators, and local and international NGOs are trying to use ecotourism to provide both financial support and political empowerment to local people.
The Mkapa government has done disappointingly little to curb corruption, revamp basic social services such as public health and education, or building a national development strategy that incorporates the principles and practices of ecotourism. The democratic “flowering” seen around the 1996 elections remains very fragile. It is uncertain how much political leeway be given in the future grass roots democratic organizations and how much the Maasai and other living around the parks will really be included in decision making and profit sharing. Mainland activists are worried by the government’s continuing support Zanzibar’s unpopular and undemocratic leader, Salimin Amour whose the 1995 or Abed Karume (2005) election has been widely disputed. Regrettably, tourists traveling to Tanzania remain largely ignorant of the demands, desires, and aspiration of those living around the parks. Because Tanzania’s political struggles have been largely peaceful and low—key, many tourists are not aware of them and tour operators and naturalist guides rarely discuss politics urged to do so.
