We shouldn’t relent on war on poaching

According to Director of Public Prosecution (DDP) Biswalo Mganga, some 200 people were handed jail sentences for being caught in possession of government trophies and other wildlife gems. In the same period, over 800 million/- was paid as fines to the government for similar offences and another 164 billion/- was due to be paid.

While these punitive actions do not bring back our animals, a strong message is definitely sent to the criminal cartels that they cannot destroy our national heritage that is wildlife that doubles as source of tourism money, and walk scot-free.

But this sweet news from the corridors of justice which was published by this paper yesterday came alongside another disturbing piece: Ugandan authorities had arrested several people suspected to be the masterminds of an illegal trade in smuggled pangolin scales believed to have been passed through our country Tanzania.

The culprits, known to be under the leadership of Malian national, were found with six tonnes of pangolin scales. At least eight of those arrested were identified as Tanzanian nationals.

This means the protracted war on poaching is far from over. We still have the enemies in our midst who seem determined to go to any lengths to inflict the damage on our collective wealth for their own self gains.

The fact that a West African has been caught leading a criminal gang in East Africa is testament to an open secret that poaching is a form of organised crime operating in cartels with members from all over the world.

The arrests and successful prosecutions the government achieved last year can be seen as proof of victory a crucial battle forming part of a very tough war. It indeed gives us hope that, if we choose to fight even harder, the enemy will have to choose to either surrender and reform or perish in the war.

In 2015, the government announced that Tanzania had lost to poachers a whole 60 per cent of its entire elephant population in a mere five years.

The revelation came as a shock to many people because Tanzania’s elephant population was known to be one of the largest in Africa. The data showed that the number dropped sharply from 109,051 in 2009 to just 43,330 in 2014.

Considering the damage already inflicted on our wildlife by poachers, this war is one we as a nation cannot afford to lose. We must fight as hard and professionally as we have resources for to conclusively beat and silence the heartless enemy.

With our wildlife rangers now being trained as a paramilitary force, and with the recent formation of an anti-poaching task force comprising men and women from disciplined forces and intelligence, we are better placed to slay the enemy than we have ever been.

But to win the war, we should not relent. This is because our enemy has soldiers right in our midst – some of our very own people.