Analysis
By Sosthenes Mwita
While
we praise the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism for its quest
to double the number of tourist arrivals by the end of this year we tend
to forget the stark fact that the nation has too few hotel beds and
other facilities.
And most of its
feeder roads are impassable. During peak tourism seasons, especially
between June and November, tourist hotel fill too full and the nation
falls embarrassingly short of beds.
Tanzania has about
15,000 beds in tourism facilities against a requirement of 1.6 million
by the end of this calendar year. The situation calls for a scramble to
construct tourist hotels and other facilities if the December 2015
target is to be met comfortably. Neighbouring Kenya has more than 28,000
tourist beds on the Indian Ocean coastline alone.
The city of Nairobi
has more than 15,000. This means that Kenya, which logs 1.5 million
tourist arrivals every year, will keep sprinting ahead in the tourism
industry if too little or nothing is done to sell Tanzania as a tourist
destination more vigorously. The nations natural wonders include
Tarangire National Park. Manyara Region has a natural forest reserve
spanning 992,795 hectares.
The forests are
scattered in all five districts - Babati, Hanang, Kiteto, Mbulu and
Simanjiro. The region also has two major national parks Tarangire and
Lake Manyara, which are rich in wildlife. Tarangire is a rich wildlife
sanctuary with both friendly and hostile weather. During the dry season
the sun sucks the moisture from the landscape, baking the dusty red
earth
The withered grass
becomes as brittle as straw. The Tarangire River shrivels but remains a
popular drinking hole for wildlife. Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch
the dry river-bed for water while wildebeests, zebras, buffaloes,
impalas, gazelles, hartebeest sand elands crowd the shrinking lagoons.
Tarangire is the greatest concentration of wildlife outside the
Serengeti ecosystem.
During the rainy
season, the seasonal visitors scatter over a 20,000 square kilometres
and graze until they exhaust the green plains. At this juncture, River
Tarangire calls once again. Tarangire's herds of elephant are easily
encountered during the wet and dry seasons.
The swamps in the
river host about 550 species of wild birds. The park is the most popular
place in the world for various species of birds, according to a
brochure published by the Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa).
Some species of
birds home in to breed and them migrate to other parts of the world.
Other birds are permanent residents. On drier ground tourists find the
Kori bustard, the heaviest flying bird; the ostrich the world's largest
bird and smaller parties of ground hornbills blustering like turkeys.
Bird watchers might
keep an eye open for screeching flocks of the dazzlingly colourful
yellow-collared lovebird and the somewhat drabber weaver and ashy
starling - all endemic to the dry savannah of north-central Tanzania,
especially in the Tarangire. Disused termite mounds are often frequented
by colonies of the endearing dwarf mongoose, and pairs of red
and-yellow barbet, which draw attention to themselves by their loud,
clockwork-like calls.
The withered grass
becomes as brittle as straw. The Tarangire River shrivels but remains a
popular drinking hole for wildlife. Herds of up to 300 elephants scratch
the dry river-bed for water while wildebeests, zebras, buffaloes,
impalas, gazelles, hartebeest sand elands crowd the shrinking lagoons.
Tarangire is the greatest concentration of wildlife outside the
Serengeti ecosystem.
During the rainy
season, the seasonal visitors scatter over a 20,000 square kilometres
and graze until they exhaust the green plains. At this juncture, River
Tarangire calls once again. Tarangire's herds of elephant are easily
encountered during the wet and dry seasons.
The swamps in the
river host about 550 species of wild birds. The park is the most popular
place in the world for various species of birds, according to a
brochure published by the Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa).
Some species of
birds home in to breed and them migrate to other parts of the world.
Other birds are permanent residents. On drier ground tourists find the
Kori bustard, the heaviest flying bird; the ostrich the world's largest
bird and smaller parties of ground hornbills blustering like turkeys.
Bird watchers might
keep an eye open for screeching flocks of the dazzlingly colourful
yellow-collared lovebird and the somewhat drabber weaver and ashy
starling - all endemic to the dry savannah of north-central Tanzania,
especially in the Tarangire. Disused termite mounds are often frequented
by colonies of the endearing dwarf mongoose, and pairs of red
and-yellow barbet, which draw attention to themselves by their loud,
clockwork-like calls.
Tarangire extends
into two game controlled areas. Before the rains, herds of gazelles,
wildebeests, zebras, and giraffes migrate to Tarangire National Park's
scrub plains where the last grazing land still remains and during the
dry season elephants abound.
Families of the
pachyderms play around the ancient trunks of baobab trees and strip
acacia bark from the thorn trees for their afternoon meal. A tourist, Mr
Rogers George, said recently that Tarangire was "simply a wonder
world." The park is largely famous for the elephants and baobab trees.
"In fact, the number of elephants has reached a level where it is
beginning to cause a headache to the authorities," he observed.
After their only
natural enemies (humans) decided to protect them, there is nothing to
keep their numbers in check. There are about two elephants per square
kilometre in Tarangire and the animals are converting the entire area
into a vast desert at an alarming rate, the tourist said. Elephants eat a
lot and destroy much more than they eat and they can easily make a
Sahara out of a mud swamp, he said.
"This is mainly due
to the fact that they are one of the few animals to look down upon
these noisy machines (motor vehicles)," he said. "I saw a mother
elephant charge at one of the vans when it came a bit too close to her
calf for her comfort.
Luckily no damage
was done," the tourist said. Apart from the pachyderms, there are lots
of baboons, giraffes, herbivores and also some lions in the park. The
giraffes found in the Tarangire, also known as the Masaai giraffes, are the tallest of their kind in the world.
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