STATEMENT ON THE PROPOSED CHANGES TO BE CONSIDERED IN THE NEW MINING ACT

The mineral policies in Tanzania once called "new" are new no longer, and many of their objectives remain unattained. A decade ago, Tanzania embarked on mining sector reform, formulating a policy in 1997 and passing corresponding legislation 1998. The reform's main objective was to create an enabling environment for private investors in an industry that was previously state-controlled. Unfortunately, the goal of increasing the sector's contribution to national growth and poverty reduction has proven to be far-fetched. New reforms are underway, but the question remains, what really went wrong?

Tanzania's government has been preparing new mining legislation and the Draft Bill is now tabled (April 2010) for introduction in Parliament that would establish a new fiscal regime and legal framework to enhance the contribution of the country's mining sector. For the past ten years of implementation of the mining policy and law, the contributions of the mineral sector to the GDP reached only 2.7% despite becoming a top export earner.

We are all responsible in making oil good for people

Early 2009 I met a girl that changed my life; her name was Esther Kyosaba and we met in the most unlikely places – a district hospital of Buliisa in mid-western Uganda. Esther was 14 months old; she never knew her father and she had been abandoned for dead in a mud and wattle hut by her mother. After two days, the neighbors broke into the hut and rescued her, they passed her on to her polygamous grandfather who in turn abandoned her the second time to Buliisa Hospital in the care of his young wife that didn’t care much. That’s when we met.

New report on illicit financial flows

$854 Billion Removed from Africa by Illicit Financial Flows from 1970 to 2008

Hundreds of billions that could have been used for poverty alleviation and economic development lost, finds new report from Global Financial Integrity
WASHINGTON, DC - Africa lost $854 billion in illicit financial outflows from 1970 through 2008, according to a new report to be released today from Global Financial Integrity (GFI). Illicit Financial Flows from Africa: Hidden Resource for Development debuts new estimates for volume and patterns of illicit financial outflows from Africa, building upon GFI's ground-breaking 2009 report, Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2002-2006, which estimated that developing countries were losing as much as $1 trillion every year in illicit outflows. The new Africa illicit flows report is expected to feature prominently at the 3rd Annual Conference of African finance ministers in Malawi, which is currently underway. "The amount of money that has been drained out of Africa-hundreds of billions decade after decade-is far in excess of the official development assistance going into African countries," said GFI director Raymond Baker. "Staunching this devastating outflow of much-needed capital is essential to achieving economic development and poverty alleviation goals in these countries."

Illegal fishing still persists in Tanga`s coastal belt

By The Guardian Correspondent
17th April 2010

The wind was blowing towards the sea shore and the air was cool. Fishermen were busy, either filling their hurricane lamps with kerosene or loading their fishing gear onto dhows which were to set out shortly after before night fall for a fishing expedition.

YET-presentation on Youtube

A short video-introduction to the YET-programme can be viewed on Youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmhYm2nMTj4

TANZANIAN YOUNG’S ELECTED TO HOLD VARIOUS POSTS IN SCIENTISTS NETWORK WORLWIDE:

Following the inauguration of International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) in 2007 by the UN general assembly at the headquarter of UNESCO Paris, France. Youth all over the world took an initiative to support idea of IYPE and implementing its various themes by joining their hands and form a network called Young Earth Scientist (YES) network. The network comprised of young scientists (Both practitioners and academicians) working in different fields of earth sciences aged below 35 years old. YES network at first were gathered in Beijing China in the first world YES congress held at China University of Geosciences (October 25-28, 2009), addressing the key points of IYPE which are making earth science knowledge available for society and to promote the education and commitment of young generations to the earth-system science. After UN sees the successful of IYPE, the general assembly meet in Lisbon, Portugal 2009 and decide to institutionalize IYPE, and therefore YES network recognized legally as one of the implementers of the IYPE programs in different countries all over the world.

LAKE NATRON FLAMINGO STILL IN DANGER???

In Courtesy of Birdlife International May 2008, Tata Chemicals Ltd (TCL) has finally withdrawn its much discredited Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) Report for the proposed Lake Natron soda ash plant. The development has been opposed by national NGO's in Tanzania, the Lake Natron Consultative Group (a consortium of 32 mainly East African NGOs), BirdLife International and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB; BirdLife in the UK), for posing serious threats to the survival of Lesser Flamingos Phoeniconaias minor and the livelihoods of local communities.

TANZANIA TOWARDS A NEW MINING LAW: ENDING THE RESOURCE CURSE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

For many years now, the Tanzanian legal regime has been sited as the lead obstacle towards realizing a beneficial mining sector. Historically the country has passed through two major reforms that in a way affected the mining sector. The first reform was adopted way back in the mid 1980’s aimed at restoring macroeconomic balance and stimulate economic growth by creating an individual initiative and market-oriented economy rather than a centrally controlled economy. This saw the mining sector being officially opened to the public for extraction by private individuals and companies. The second reforms occurred in the 1990’s aiming at creating macro-micro linkages at a period where most Sub Saharan economies were facing huge dept problems thus necessitating the creation of conducive environment for foreign investor as a prerequisite of assistance by World Bank and IMF1.

TANZANIA COASTAL RESOURCES STILL “MEANINGLESS”

Coastal Resources in Tanzania include many resources which are wealthiest like valuable fishes and fishing grounds, sea water, mangrove forests, Beaches grounds and coral reefs. Tanzania coastal land and sea cover a length of 1,424km from Tanzania Kenya boarder to Tanzania - Mozambique boarder according to (www.indexmundi.com/Tanzania/Coastal.html) which shows a greater extent of vast resources.The whole coastal land of Tanzania covers regions like Tanga, Dar es Salaam, Pwani, Lindi and Mtwara with people almost identified by the Swahili culture.

COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTION SHOULD BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT TO LESSEN THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

The effects of climate changes is visible and it is still increasing at an alarming rate and more people are in a great danger due to this, we have seen the increase in frequency of extreme weather events such as tornados, hurricanes, cyclones and others in major parts of the world, and all of these are mainly caused by changes in climatic conditions. Climate change is mainly caused by the increase of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere such as Oxides of Sulphur (SOx), Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx), Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4) and others. The major threatening greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2), this is because it is released in gigantic amount to the atmosphere in a short period of time. The increase in concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere causes the thickness of greenhouse gasses to increase and as the result of this the terrestrial radiation fail to escape to the upper spaces, this causes the increase in concentration of solar radiations which tend to cause the increase in the global temperature (global warming). The global average temperature has increased to 0.74oC due to the increase of greenhouse gasses (from 280ppm to 400ppm). If serious actions won’t be taken to halt this increase in greenhouse gasses, in few years to come the world will be the most dangerous planet to live in.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION MAKING IN RELATION TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT ACT. No.20 of 2004

Climate change debates have recently become the forefront of national, regional and global issues. Its effects are alarming, they can be evidently seen everywhere, take an example of the blazing sun and increasing humidity levels in Dar es Salaam and the torrential rains elsewhere in the country and the world.

With these increasing environmental concerns, public participation in decision making is very important. This is because the public is the main stakeholder in our environment. The first question that arises is what is the public? According to section 3 of the Environmental Management Act (EMA), 2004, the public means individuals, civil society organizations and institutions, community based organizations; public and private institutions.

CLIMATE CHANGE, WHO TO BE BLAMED?

In recent years, climate change effects have been putting the world in a disastrous situation affecting the ecosystems, communities’ livelihoods and economic developments. These changes manifest as global warming, prolonged drought and unreliable rainfall.