Tourism to Benefit Locals

By Christopher Majaliwa and Alvar Mwakyusa

Dodoma — PLANS are underway to allow local communities living around Tourism attraction features including mountains and parks to get dividends from the funds generated from tourism activities in their areas.

The Minister for Tourism and Natural Resources, Mr Lazaro Nyalandu, told the National Assembly that the communities for a number of years were benefiting from such features only through minor donations.

Reacting to Mr Mbatia, who wanted to know how communities around such attraction spots were benefiting from the resources, the Minister said that the government is looking on how it could allocate some funds generated from tourism activities to the local communities.

Mr Mbatia in his supplementary question noted that tourism activities contributes 19 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) thus it was high time the government retained some fund and direct to local communities to enable them to benefit from such resources.

Minister Nyalandu noted that by allocating such funds which will be invested in various areas like power connection, local communities will refrain from unnecessarily cutting down trees for burning charcoal thus helping in environmental conservation.

"Charcoal burning is one of the main reasons leading to deforestation and devastation of our forests and mountains. Statistics also shows that over 70 per cent of all charcoal produced in the country is consumed in Dar es Salaam.

"We must see how to empower these communities through funds we get from their areas," he noted.

Mr Nyalandu said that the ministry had also come with some strategies to ensure that Mount Kilimanjaro, which is the highest in Africa, is preserved.