TANZANIA WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY (TAWA)

 

Wildlife development

Wildlife development infers to the undertakings in the protected areas (Game Reserves, Game Controlled Areas and Ramsar Sites) that supports wildlife conservation, wildlife utilization and wildlife protection. The activities include conducting wildlife census, quota setting, fire management and diseases control, wildlife habitat manipulation, airstrips and accommodation construction to support conservation and tourism activities. 

What we do

Wildlife census

Wildlife census is important to know the status of wildlife population whether there is an increase or decrease of population so that remedial measures can be taken.  For example, elephant census was conducted in 2014 to know the extent of elephant poaching in the Selous ecosytem whose tusks are in high demandin Asia.  Census also helps to know the population status of wildlife animals and the number of species in question of which might results in competition of pasture, in this case, cropping must be undertaken.  It can have decreased due to several factors such as poaching which must be combated.    

Desease control

Wildlife has coexisted with disease coursing organisms through their time. This coexistence has tremendously boosted their immunity over time and has made the wild animals to the greater extent carriers of these diseases. The authority strives to controls the spread of these diseases from the wildlife to the domestic animals and perhaps to human being. This is conducted in variety of ways. Among those ways are putting on holding grounds the ready to be transported life animals like bird. This is done on the specified period of time and under an intensive care of the wildlife and veterinary expert.  The authority also liaises with the Wildlife Research Institute to take measures and immediate actions on any outbreak that may have an impact to both human and wildlife. The authority through its ecology section will introduce vaccination of the domestic canines (dogs) to reduce risk of rabies outbreak. Moreover, the authority also controls Tsetse fly to reduce impacts transmission yellow fever and nuisance to the tourist. 

Habitat manipulation

One of the difficult moments to wildlife is during the hard environmental situations. These are especially during excessive drought seasons. These seasons’ results to the degraded habitats, lack of food and water to support life, disease outbreak and break of uncontrolled fires. Sometimes this harshness beyond human control. However, in some conditions habitat manipulation is vital in our Protected Areas. The Authority has from time to time constructed dams to provide water for wildlife during the dry season. It has also been using fire as the tool to control unwanted fires, reduce biomass risky for heavy fires, and control of Tsetse flies. 

Fire management

Fire management is the important tool in habitat management. It has been used in reducing biomass that would in excessive and with erroneous introduced fires would cause serious fire catastrophes in the Protected Areas that would not only affect wildlife habitats but also may claim innocent wild lives. It also makes fresh forage to wildlife during early burning and increases wildlife visibility for both photographic and hunting tourism. This is timely and scientifically practiced in the Game Reserves and other wildlife areas to ensure sustainable wildlife management is attained. In some cases, after unplanned firebreaks, wildlife rangers together with community’s works together to suppress it in order to safeguard human and wild lives together with properties. Fire also is used to activate germination of the most species of the Miombo Woodlands in the Selous Game Reserve and in most Miombo Woodlands. While its illegal to cause unplanned fires in the protected Areas, the authority strives to control these unplanned fires at all costs.