AfricaPress-Tanzania: TANZANIANS have been called upon to stop cutting trees to preserve the country’s ecosystem which is among important components of the tourism industry.
Protecting the country’s ecology would boost development of the tourism sector because some foreign visitors came in the country to only witness its beautiful natural environment.
“Tree felling without proper deforestation plans would affect the tourism industry,” said Mary Masanja, the Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism.
She was speaking in Mwanza recently during a meeting with tourism stakeholders including government institutions responsible for development of the tourism sector.
Masanja said there are many challenges in the tourism sector with the major one being tree cutting. She said people cut and harvest trees randomly, thus posing risks to the country ecology system.
According to her most of the people especially those in rural areas cut trees for firewood and charcoal making. She called upon local government authorities to come up with by-laws to protect the environment and set up plans for proper harvesting of trees.
The Deputy Minister noted that the government is also planning to use this year’s celebrations of the International Women Day March 8th to promote the available tourism attractions.
Masanja said Tanzania is endowed with a number of tourist attractions as well as natural resources but some of them are not known to the world. She said promoting them would increase the number of tourists visiting the country.
Government data indicates that the number of foreign tourists coming in the country increased from 1,137,182 in 2015 to 1,527,230 in 2019. The increase is attributed to various initiatives taken by the government to improve the sector.
She gave an example of Rubondo National Park in Lake Victoria which has a lot of attractions, but it has not been properly promoted. Other parks in the Lake Zone include the Burigi-Chato National Park and Saanane Natioanl Park.
The number of tourists who visited the Burigi National Park until December last year reached 1,171 whereas among them, 996 are Tanzanians and 175 foreigners.
Revenues collected from Burigi National Park reached 492.741, 622m/- in December 2020.
Revenues from the tourism sector have increased from $ 1.9 billion equivalent to 4,436.7bn/- collected in 2015 to $ 2.6bn/- (6,071.3bn/-) in 2019.
The sector also supports nearly 1.6 million direct and indirect jobs.
