Lake Manyara National Park to issue electronic permits for tourists

ARUSHA, Tanzania  -- Tanzania said is to start issuing electronic permits for tourists visiting the northern Lake Manyara National Park.
"This is a pilot implementation of new computerized gate permit system," Allan Kijazi, director general of the Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) said.

The move by the country’s wildlife watchdog is meant to boost park fee collections as well as reducing unnecessary inconveniences for visitors visiting the park, which is located on the floor of the Great East African Rift Valley.
Kijazi said on Saturday that the new system will be parallel with the current manual permit system till further notice.
"The objective is to improve customer care and services," he said in a statement, adding it is important for tour operators to register online through TANAPA website.

Adam Nswila, one of the Arusha-based tourism experts described the move as marvellous and it will take Tanzania’s tourism extra miles.
He said on-line registration will reduce time for tourists visiting the park as no paper work required at the park’s entrance gate.
Being part of Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem, the park is a home to many wild animals.
.

Elephant poaching contained in northern Tanzania’ s park

ARUSHA, Tanzania (Xinhua) -- Elephant poaching has been contained in the Lake Manyara National Park (LMNP) for the past one year, thanks to the joint wildlife management team for its tireless efforts of carrying out 24-hour patrol around the northern Tanzania’s park, local authorities said Monday.

"We have been seeing the number of elephants started growing up in the park. Last year, the number was 200, but now they are nearly 250 in the park.
"To us, as wildlife managers, this is a big success, our challenge remained on the wildlife, which gets out of the park, where we don’t have that control," acting park warden Marco Meoli.
He said LMNP has kept a close eye on the wildlife by deploying all the needed approaches including aerial patrol as well as ground patrols.
"Currently, we are in the Tarangire and Manyara Ecosystem Task Force, which works for almost 24 hours to monitor the park.
"Apart from this, we are also working with local communities, who play a good job in addressing poaching," he said.

He however disclosed that early this year two jumbos were poached in areas, which are outside the park—one of the sixteen national parks across the east African nation.

"The killing incidents happened between January and February this year, but they happened outside the park, as you aware that wild animals have no boundaries," the official said.
"Despite the fact that poaching happens outside the park, as park managers we don’t relax; we have been acting on those incidents and sometimes arresting the suspects.
"And sometimes, we use our medical doctors to rescue a snared wild animals outside the park," he added.

According to Meoli, high demand of bush meat has increased pressure on wildlife as there are people who get into poaching for the vice and they are targeting wild animals like eland, Thomson’s gazelle, buffaloes, giraffe, zebra and wildebeest.
The park warden further said LMNP is currently overwhelmed with the increasing number of people, who end up blocking the wildlife migratory corridors.

Yustina Kiwango, park’s ecologist, cited lack of transport for wildlife protection as another challenge that thwarts parks’ efforts towards managing wildlife.
"As a result, some wild animals fall prey of poachers when they get out the national park," she said, adding that the park is surrounded with 85 villages that makes very difficult to reach where the poaching incident happened in time.

Mushrooming of settlements in areas which before were used as wildlife migration corridors also remained a thorn to wildlife management as when wild animals want to use those corridors for their survival they become victim of poachers.