Tanzania: More Than 33,380 Poachers Arrested in Past 5 Years

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All Africa / Tanzania Daily News

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A total of 33,386 poachers have been arrested in the past five years, thanks to the intensified anti-poaching campaign initiated by the National Anti-Poaching Task Force (NTAP).

In the same period, 2,533 weapons were seized, the Deputy Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources, Mr Ludovick Nduhiye disclosed here yesterday, while opening four-day training for NTAP officials.

The deputy PS noted that in the period under review, a total of 5,253 cases were filed in the court, out of which, 914 were concluded leading to jail of 1,600 people.

The training, among other things, also focused on evaluating the work performed by the task force as well as mapping strategies to completely make poaching in the country a thing of the past.

Mr Nduhiye noted that in the past five years the task force managed to intercept various trophies including 14,741 pieces of ivory tusks, 25 rhinoceros horns, 10 live pangolins and 962 tortoises.

The deputy PS said that the commendable job done by the taskforce in collaboration with other security organs has seen the country recording a 90 percent decrease of poaching cases in the last five years.

Elaborating, he added that even the number of suspected poachers arrested has reduced from 547 in 2016 to 185 in 2020, implying a great increase in the population of wildlife animals. Commenting, the Director of Wildlife in the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources Dr Maurus Msuha said that elephants’ population have increased over the last half a decade from 43,330 to 60,000.

On his part, the Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Camillus Wambura stated that the training was timely and aimed at equipping them with the needed skills to combat poaching.

In a related development, a representative from the office of Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Mr Paul Kadushi said investigations into wildlife related cases faced a lot of challenges, as a result of poor cooperation between investigators and prosecutors.

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