THE Burungwe Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Babati District, Manyara Region, has urged the government to provide military training to game rangers as a new way of curbing poaching.
Speaking in Babati District recently, Burungwe WMA Secretary Olays Olekoin said military training of game rangers would ensure sustainable security for WMA.
"Poaching has decreased considerably compared to past years, but we feel that there is a need for our game rangers to go for military training to intensify the fight against poaching," he said.
He noted that poachers in Burungwe WMA always came up with more techniques of killing wildlife.
"Poachers have been inventing new ways of killing animals and for this reason we feel it is good for our game rangers to go for military training, which will make them more effective," he said.
The government recently established the provision of military training to game rangers from key government-controlled wildlife protection areas such as Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa), Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) and the Wildlife Division of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.
Anti-poaching training aims at equipping game rangers with military strategies that target the protection of wildlife, mostly elephants and rhinos living in protected areas and those roaming freely in areas outside wildlife parks and game reserves.
Burungwe WMA is made up of 10 villages from three administrative wards, whose revenue from tourism and conservation is sent back to support local communities to implement socioeconomic development activities.
"For instance, in 2017/18 we collected 2b/- revenue, where 60 per cent of it was allocated to villages," said Mr Olekoin. He noted that each village received over 100m/- for construction of development projects.
WMA borders Tarangire and Lake Manyara national parks, which together share rich wildlife resources in northern Tanzania.
It is 18 kilometres from the Tarangire National Park gate and 10 kilometres from the southern boundary of Lake Manyara National Park.
