By The Arusha News Reporter
The Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) plans to bolster security, improve infrastructure and ensure rangers are well equipped to carry out their core role of protecting and conserving nature and wildlife in the country’s parks.
Addressing a meeting of the budget committee for fiscal year 2025/26 held at Lake Manyara National Park last week, the Commissioner of Conservation, Juma Nassoro Kuji, said TANAPA also intended to introduce new tourism products to grow revenue as it also eyed an uptick in domestic tourism.
The Commissioner said TANAPA also looked to greater involvement of buffer communities in nature and wildlife conservation efforts as it also sought to find permanent solution to the emerging man versus wildlife conflicts, possibly through the use of technology to enforce park patrols.
Meanwhile, the committee also received the implementation report for 2024/25, which noted the growing number of Tanzanians now visiting national parks. There were no figures given.
The report noted that there was greater need to improve the administrative and tourism infrastructure, especially park roads and hostels to both attract and accommodate more students and other youths on study tours in national parks.
Currently, Tanzania is home to over 14,500 lions, about three quarters of the global total, found mostly in the world-famous Serengeti National Park and the Nyerere National Park, formerly the Selous Game Reserve, which alone is 30,893 square kilometres (11,928 sq mi), an area about the size of Belgium, all left to wild animals.
