Tanzania records three-month zero poaching in largest game reserve

DAR ES SALAAM, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- After years of massive elephant poaching, Tanzanian authorities said on Thursday night that there had been no poaching of the jumbos in the Selous Game Reserve for the past three months.

Poaching of elephants in the 50,000-square-kilometre reserve, one of the largest protected areas in Africa, was rampant throughout the 2000s, forcing UNESCO's World Heritage Committee in June 2014 to inscribe the reserve on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Tanzanian minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Lazaro Nyalandu, said the fight against poaching in the East African nation has begun bearing fruits.

"We have recorded zero elephant killing in the Selous Game Reserve in the past three months (July-September 2014)," said the minister when closing the one-day Swahili International Tourism Expo (SITE) in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Nyalandu commended game rangers and other stakeholders who he said have given their lives to protect the wild animals in the area.

"We will not get tired because we are yet to win the battle against poachers," he told participants to the SITE, the first of its kind to be held in Tanzania which was jointly organized by the Tanzania Tourism Board (TTB) and South African based Pure Grit Project and Exhibition Management Limited.

The Swahili tourism exhibition attracted 160 exhibitors from 13 countries and 25 tour operators.

The Tanzania Elephant Protection Society, a nongovernmental organization dealing in elephant protection and conservation, said in 2013 that about 30 elephants were killed daily in Tanzania, warning that if the situation continued unabated the elephant population will be exterminated by 2020.

At the Selous Game Reserve, rampant poaching has caused a dramatic decline in the wildlife populations, especially of elephants and rhino, whose numbers have dropped by almost 90 percent since 1982 when the game reserve was inscribed on the World Heritage List.

Nyalandu said he was looking forward to seeing the tourism industry stabilizing by increasing the number of wild animals and tourists coming to Tanzania.