The stockpiles seized during anti-poaching operations over the years should not be sold either, insisted Tony FitzJohn, now in charge of ‘Okoa Faru’ project in Mkomazi National Park.
He told visiting journalists at the park last week that the presence of stockpiles at Ivory Room in Dar es Salaam might fuel further killing of elephants for their tusks.
“It serves no purpose to continue keeping the stockpiles there. At most it can fuel poaching”, he said. Tanzania has a stockpile of 118,000 tonnes of ivory, stored at Ivory Room in Dar es Salaam.
A few years ago, the country pleaded with the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species (Cites), for which it is a signatory, to be allowed to sell the ivory, but the request was turned down.
The government had argued that should it be permitted to dispose of the ivory through sale to international markets, the revenue accrued would be spent on intensifying the fight against poaching of endangered animals such as the jumbos besides enhancing wildlife conservation in general.
But Tanzania was criticised by even its closest neighbours they share intelligence reports on poaching such as Kenya for the suggestion and was requested to destroy the ivory just as the latter had done.
Since 1989, the year the international ban on ivory trade was accounted for stemming out the killing of the endangered African jumbos, Kenya has been burning its ivory stockpiles in full view of the local and international media.
In August 2014, the ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism announced that the government had no plans to dispose of its ivory stockpiles even with significant increase of the elephant population in various protected areas followed intensified war against poachers.
It was in the same year, that there was a lively debate in the National Assembly on the stockpiles with some calling for the government to continue pressing for the permission to sell them at the international market while others opposed the idea.
At that time, the shadow minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Peter Msigwa, was quoted as saying the Ivory Room had 34,000 pieces of elephant tusks valued at $150 million or approximately Sh244 million.
Mr FitzJohn, a Briton managing the rhino protection project inside Mkomazi in collaboration with the Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa) said the stockpiles which now posed security challenges did not send a positive message on the conservation efforts.
“If the government is seriously committed to ending the carnage and protect the elephants, it should destroy the ivory and not store them. That would send a clear message that this is an illegal product”, he stressed.
On the recent death of a chopper pilot Robert Gower, also from the UK, who was on an anti-poaching mission in Simiyu Region, Mr FitzJohn said it reflected the level of the killing of animals for their trophies had reached in Tanzania.
He argued that the pilot, who was hired by an Arusha-based Mwiba Holdings, which is managing a wildlife management area (WMA) south of Serengeti National Park, should have realised that he was treading on a danger zone, especially after realising the presence of armed gangsters in the area.
On his part, he said he had received death threats from what he believe to be a syndicate of poachers, but vowed he would continue to protect the gravely endangered rhino and other animals in Mkomazi, a protected area sandwiched between Kilimanjaro and Tanga Regions, north-east of the country.
The chief park warden, Mr Donati Mnyagata, told reporters that they had managed to block large herds of livestock, which used to graze in the area, and that the move had ensured the ecology of the area had been left intact unlike in the past.
The 3,245 square-kilometre Mkomazi was elevated and gazetted as a national park in 2008. For years, it was a game reserve and borders Kenya to the east and north east.
The park, characterised by semi-arid lands and bushes, has of late become famous because of the rhino protection (Okoa Faru) project under the endangered animal, has been re-introduced through the support of conservation bodies abroad.