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| United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark |
TANZANIA (eTN) - During a four-day tour of Tanzania, United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark, expressed the
agency’s commitment to support wildlife conservation in the country.
Concluding her official tour to Tanzania on Tuesday of this week,
Madam Clark strongly stressed a need for the Tanzanian government to
involve local communities in wildlife conservation activities and
strengthen legal justice to combat illegal wildlife poaching and
trafficking.
The UNDP Leader, a former New Zealand Prime Minister, called on
governments around the world to increase the fight against elephant
poaching and illicit trade in wildlife products, including blood ivory.
Speaking at a just-ended, high-profile, anti-poaching conference in
Tanzania’s capital city of Dar es Salaam, Clark said crimes like
poaching and the blood ivory trade have enormous consequences for the
most vulnerable people in developing countries, mostly in Africa, by
robbing the nation’s wealth, destroying natural resources for future
generations, and fueling crime and corruption, while undermining
community and national security.
“These criminal activities put women, children, and others in poverty at further hardship and at greater risk,” she said.
The two-day, high-level conference promoted efforts to curb poaching, wildlife trafficking, and illicit ivory trade. It was attended by international conservation experts and Tanzanian conservation and tourism stakeholders from governments and international wildlife conservation institutions as well as other policy-making agencies.
She drew attention to the need for stronger law enforcement, reducing
demand for illegally-traded wildlife products, and stable
income-generating activities for communities in Tanzania and other
elephant and wildlife host nations, mostly in Africa.
The UNDP leader pledged that the UN Agency is committed to supporting
initiatives against wildlife trade by helping in governance, the rule
of law, poverty eradication, and environment protection support to
governments and with other partners.
“Strengthening governance is also critical to combat illegal wildlife
trade, and law enforcement must be tackled on site and in strengthened
national systems,” she said.
“Poaching of elephants and illegal blood ivory trade in Tanzania and
across Africa has increased tremendously in recent years and poses a
threat to [the] survival of African wildlife with security, economic,
political, and ecological ramifications,” the UNDP leader added.
“I thank the government of the United Republic of Tanzania for
hosting this important conference addressing the elephant poaching
crisis in this country and the illicit trade in wildlife products,” she
told the conference participants.
The conference endorsed several recommendations and actions for
implementation on addressing the escalating poaching scourge in
Tanzania. Among key issues was the establishment of a Tanzania Wildlife
Authority to replace the current Wildlife Division.
It was agreed that Tanzania government should recruit additional
managers to enhance the government’s “boots on the ground” initiative,
and the establishment of a code of conduct and enforcement board to
regulate the professional conduct of rangers, expansion of the current
anti-poaching Task Force to an Inter-ministerial Task Force for Wildlife
Management in this country, and the establishment of an ivory registry
for record-keeping and secure storage of ivory stockpiles.
Other pertinent issues agreed upon for implementation are the
improvement of coordination and governance of community engagement in
wildlife conservation, and religious communities to work together to
address the anti-poaching challenges, including public awareness and
industry leaders and the private sector to set up a Natural Resources
Stewardship Council.
Speaking at a closing function, Clark said the conservation of
wildlife species in Tanzania is of great importance for biodiversity and
ecosystems, and it is also of considerable economic and social benefit
to local communities and the nation as a whole.
“Ending poaching, conserving wildlife, and ending the illegal
wildlife trade will help reduce poverty and contribute to sustainable
human development which is at the heart of UNDP’s work around the
world,” she said.
She said the UNDP was committed to working in partnership with the
government of Tanzania and other governments and partners to stop
illicit blood ivory trade.
“We bring to the table our global expertise in building strong
institutions and the rule of law, and on poverty eradication and
environmental protection. We see the poaching crisis being addressed
through three key strategies to be implemented, which are generating
sustainable livelihoods for communities, strengthening law enforcement,
and reducing the demand for illegally-traded wildlife,” she added.
The poaching crisis poses development, environmental, and security
challenges. On this continent and elsewhere it is pushing vulnerable and
endangered species toward extinction; it fuels corruption and conflict,
it destroys lives, and it deepens poverty and inequality, according to
the UNDP leader.
She told the conference participants that addressing rural poverty
and creating opportunities for sustainable livelihoods is a critical
element of curbing wildlife poaching and trafficking. This illegal trade
seriously undermines community livelihoods and prospects for
sustainable development.
The social and economic benefits of conservation of wildlife in
Tanzania’s parks and reserves should be going to local communities and
the nation. Community-based tourism, jobs in wildlife and park
management, and government revenue-sharing from tourism can all help
reduce poverty and inequality, including for women, youth, and
marginalized groups.
The illegal trade, however, benefits lawbreakers who are often not
from the local community, with the big profits flowing to sinister
criminal syndicates.
Community-based natural resource management has been shown to be
effective in reducing illegal wildlife trade. It encourages local
support for conservation through income generation, and it helps with
the management and the monitoring of the whole ecosystem, including that
of wildlife, Clark added.
The UNDP already works closely with partners in a number of countries
to design and implement public, private, and community-level
partnerships which co-manage wildlife resources.
“Where rights are devolved to communities, we have seen massive
recovery of wildlife populations. Namibia and Kenya are emerging
examples of this with their conservancy approaches. Tanzania is also
doing a huge amount of work through its wildlife management areas,” she
said.
Community-based initiatives must be given the support they need to
deliver incomes to rural people through tourism and other sectors. If
local communities are kept out of the equation, however, they may turn a
blind eye to poaching, or, driven by poverty, local people may be
recruited into poaching gangs and organized syndicates.
“But if they can get a bigger share of the legal revenues from
tourism and more secure rights to land and natural resources to support
their livelihoods, and if measures are put in place to protect their
crops, livestock, and lives from the dangers of human-wildlife conflict,
then they will be an important part of the solution to the trafficking
problem,” she said
Strengthening governance is critical to combating the illegal
wildlife trade. Illegal practices flourish where institutions and law
enforcement capacities are not as robust as they need to be. Once these
practices are entrenched, they breed corruption, undermine the rule of
law and democracy, and increase the risk of conflict and more crime, she
concluded.
She also observed a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between
the UNDP, the International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF) of the
United States of America, and Tanzania’s Ministry of Tourism for
coordinating and organizing a regional Wildlife Conservation Conference
in Tanzania that will be convened in October.
The conference is scheduled to attract ministers responsible for
wildlife from the five members of the East African Community and other
ministers from neighboring countries in Africa.
Organized by the Tanzanian government in collaboration with the ICCF
and the United Nations Development Program, the just-ended, two-day
elephant conservation conference attracted national and international
stakeholders in the conservation of wildlife.
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