By Prudencia Paul Kimiti
Africa-Press – Tanzania. These wild creatures amid the wild places they inhabit are not only important as a source of wonder and inspiration but are an integral part of our natural resources and our future livelihood and wellbeing.’
Do those words seem relevant today? To me, it feels that they could have been written for the situation in which Africa, and indeed the world, finds itself today. In fact, those words were spoken by Julius Nyerere in 1961.
In his very next sentence, Mwalimu went on to speak of a ‘trusteeship’ of a ‘rich and precious inheritance.’ I will return to that idea in a moment, but first wanted to offer some personal reflections.
As many of you may know, I now live in Britain. I think it’s probably fair to say that most British people have a fairly limited knowledge of Africa.
Many, if asked to name African landmarks would go straight to Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti.
So, in some ways, our environment here in Tanzania has come to typify a vast, diverse continent. Why is that important? Well, it goes to Mwalimu’s point about the environment being key to the livelihood of Tanzania.
I have a friend in Britain whose dream holiday is what he would call a ‘safari’. The word ‘safari’ has, in Britain and elsewhere, become synonymous with wildlife.
People in Britain pay lots of money to go to ‘safari parks’ and see the lions, giraffes, leopards and so on that we are blessed with in our countryside. Anyway, back to my friend.
The place he would like to come to more than anywhere else in the world is here, to Tanzania, not only to see the famous Serengeti, but also the Ngorongoro crater and other, less obvious places.
He could tell you about the fish in our great lakes and even about the viper that was discovered here in southern Tanzania a few years ago.
My point is that here, on our doorstep, is an environment that is, rightly, the envy of the world – a ‘rich and precious inheritance’ indeed!
The economic potential of that inheritance is obvious. I make no apology for highlighting that fact.
Experience around the world shows that the most successful environmental conservation programmes are those which factor in the needs of the local communities.
When the needs of nature and the needs of people come into conflict, it is the needs of people that will prevail.
The secret of successful conservation lays in educating people that their own best interests are served by protecting wildlife and the environment.
Nowhere is that truer than here in Tanzania.
So, what of the trusteeship that Mwalimu spoke of? When he was speaking, in 1961, there was only one national park in Tanzania. Now, there are twenty.
Around a quarter of all the land in Tanzania is under some form of protection, as a national park or as a game or forest reserve.
That is an achievement of which we should be proud as a nation. It is in the tradition of our people’s partnership with the environment that goes all the way back to the earliest human history. It is in this part of Africa, after all, that the human story began.
We are right to be proud of that tradition, but we should not be complacent.
Pressures on the environment increase every day, from climate change, development and population expansion, to name just a few factors.
The charge that Mwalimu Nyerere laid upon us was to be trustees of this inheritance and to deliver it safely to our children’s grand-children.
The work that our President Mama Samia Suluhu Hassan is doing is a key element of fulfilling charge.
Prudencia Paul Kimiti is the member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) living in UK
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