AfricaPress-Tanzania: RESIDENTS in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) benefit from ‘Simba’ Project aimed at protecting lions through a community involvement approach.
A three-year project, from last October, is implemented by Kopelion Inc in collaboration with NCAA, implementers of the project. NCAA offered 3m/- to each beneficiary village as motivation to protect the lions.
According to the organisation’s founder and researcher, Ms Ingela Janssan, commonly known as ‘Mama Simba’, project beneficiaries are six villages – Olorobi, Kayapus and Mokilal of Ngorongoro Ward, Misigyo, Loongoijoo and Kaitakiteng in Misigyo Ward.
“The aim is to resolve human-lion conflict in the area. The residents should consider a lion as their best friends and not enemies. There was a good number of lions in the world between 50 and 100 years ago, but currently only 20,000 are in Africa. You can see how Lions have decreased in the past 25 years,” she said.
“Our organisation, therefore, in collaboration with other stakeholders, including NCAA, has been collaborating with communities within conservation areas to protect the lions.
“Let people make lions their friends. They should report to relevant authorities whenever they see the lions in or around their residents, instead of harming them to make them increase.”
Organisation Board Chairperson, Dr Bernard Kissui, reiterated that historically there were a lot of lions in the world, but various surveys showed that the number had been decreasing as a result of human-lion conflict.
“We started this project last year as a pilot scheme in these two wards. It showed remarkable success in the past four months.
The community is well mobilised to protect the lions, the reason behind our 3m/- offer to each village. We plan extending the project to other areas depending on how the current one will be succeeding,” said Dr Kissui.
NCAA Project Coordinator Bashir Nchira urged villagers to be patriotic during project implementation for betterment of themselves and the nation.
“Through this community involvement approach, soon the lions will be friends of people in the conservation area. Enhance your cooperation since many organisations are coming for research in this area,” said Dr Nchira.
Representative of Ngorongoro District Executive Director, Mr Nganana Olemooti, commended the work done to protect lions, calling on more projects for the protection of other animals like hyenas and elephants.
