Thursday, April 2, 2009

OPENING SPEECH OF HON. AMBASSADAR JOHN LOMOY (NORWAY)

Official opening was done at 11:00 by Hon. Ambassador John Lomoy(Norway).He said why he involved in this pragramme of strengthening the capacity of Environmental civil society of 6tanzania by mentioning several reasons like the dilemma of Natural resource we have such as Forest, Wildlife, Water bodies and Minerals.

Although Tanzania is endowed by great varieties of natural resource but still 90% of people are still poor .Therefore there is need of changes on utilization of those natural resource we have from unsustainable utilization to sustainable utilization which lead to sustainable development.

He gave an example of his country (Norway) that the country was very poor several years ago in Europe but she transformed from poor to rich through different pillars which are strong government used to collect tax, formation of civil society organization like FBOs and strong private sectors which were put pressure to the government. All these brought development of Norway and now days is the richest country in the world. Also Hon. Ambassador suggests that here in Tanzania we are supposed to follow that truck so as to come out with development therefore we need to put more emphasis on private sector, civil society organizations and strong government.

Furthermore Hon Ambassador mentioned some conflicts which are caused by natural resource user such as conflict between farmers and pastoralists, and also between two ministries and sub sectors. For example conflict between ministry of water and ministry of energy and minerals, ministry of agriculture and ministry of natural resources and tourism and he suggested that the solutions to these conflicts is for two side to sit together and distribute the resource equally based on the priority and demand of the time being.

Moreover Hon Ambassador said Tanzania is challenged by strong corruption in the use of natural resources, workshop diseases, lack of transparency, selfishness of government leaders which lead to poor/weak government, weak private sectors and all these hinder the development of our country.

Now its time for Tanzania to change by following the same truck of Norway so as to stop swimming in the pool of poverty, it’s the time for the private sector to change and be strong so as to help local community to transform from poor to rich society as what happened in Norway.

Happy Shayo
shayo.happy@yahoo.com

THE BIG CHALLENGE IN TANZANIA IS GOVERNANCE

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is conducting a training programme for young envirnmentalists (YETs) so as to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) in Tanzania.The training was inaugurated by the Honorable ambassador of Norway in Tanzania, Jon Lomoy whom in his speech centered on a biggest challenge that faces Tanzania despite her vast wealthy of natural resources, failure to accommodate challenge accounts to her poverty.
Tanzania has large forests diversity, high population of wild animal, large part of water bodies, valuable minerals and the productive land; however it is among the poorest countries in the world, 89 percent of the total Tanzanian population survives on a single meal per day.
The big challenge is governance, in his speech, the ambassador Lomoy declares that we need three pillars; the strong government, strong civil society and a vibrant private sector. The strong government that efficiently collect tax, wisely use laws to effect changes, the civil society that act as a “watchdog” and the vibrant private sector that can work hand in hand with the government. It’s high time for Tanzanians to quit themselves from swimming in a pool of poverty since decades of our grandparents, our esteem leaders should remember that “charity starts at home”.
He was accompanied by WWF Tanzania country representative Mr Stephen Mariki.
The training will be conducted at the interval throughout the year with the aim of acquainting knowledge and practice to young environmentalists who will act as change agents to effect environmental conservation specifically concentrating on the wildlife, fishery and forestry sub sectors of natural resources.

Beatrice Benjamin
bbn_83@yahoo.com

Revealed; Tanzania’s areas of vast wealth

The article reveled all the facts that is, it is true Tanzania is wealth in term of top five metal out of eleven provable minerals, the five key minerals which produced in term of millions of tones in Tanzania are Gold, Nickel, Diamonds, Copper and Ion, its hardly to believe but this is realty in Tanzania where 38 million plus population live in object poverty below a dollar per day while 89 percent the total population survive on a single meal per day, this article is very important for the communities of this country because it make people understood the facts and educate them to be aware of the richness of the natural resource available in the country and find the solution and reason on why big population of citizens of Tanzania still swimming in the deep see of poverty.
Apart from minerals richness also Tanzania has many area of vast wealth which including forestry fisheries and wildlife resources, the uniqueness of our protected areas with plenty of different species of animals, the beautifulness and peacefulness of the mountain Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti pain Ngorongoro crater and The great Selous game reserve all this attracting the massive tourist and tourist agents. Through entrance fees hunting and photographic tourism, sale of wildlife tourisms industry all this are present significant monitory value.
Another is fisheries, fisheries representing a significant source of revenue and foreign exchange and sustain livelihood in term of food security, employment and income for poor people. the county is loaded in the water bodies both marine and fresh water The fisheries industries produce the millions of tones of the fish, Tanzania fresh water fishery over the last ten years has increased from 294 to more than 300,000 tones in 2003.and the large part of it and its products were transported outside the country and again this is monetary value.
Forestry, there a lots of large forest reserves with different species of valuable trees in Tanzania, and forestry industry produce a lots of tones of timber and its products again part of it sale outside the country, once for instance look at charcoal alone, where varied but not very big variation estimates exist for production and consumption. Once estimate indicate that the charcoal industry in 2002 have utilized 624,500ha of woodland, provide 43.7 millions of charcoal to 6.8millon, most urban consumer. The annual value of this charcoal trade was 4.8million USD.
But so far the data shows that forestry, fisheries and wildlife contribute very less under expectations to the national economic growth.
The usefully solution of this problem is that needed for seriously changes toward good and strong governance as well as transparent and democratic government, individual participations on management of natural resources, benefit share with local communities to improve the livelihood of the people in communities.
The keystone who responsible for actions are individual person, community, civil society organization and committed government for the country.
The civil society organization should participate in and influence decision making and governance for more sustainable and equitable management of natural resource especially wildlife forestry and fisheries.
Therefore the individual person should be change to be the change want to see for the good of the country.

Nginyi Kimaai
nginyikariongi@gmail.com