Review of Tanzania's Wildlife Policies and Laws

Book excerpt: Tanzania is one of the most bio‐diverse countries on the African continent with a long history of conservation. The Tanzanian government remains committed to conserving wildlife resources and their habitats. Legislation on wildlife conservation in Tanzania dates as far back as the 1890’s and from that time, it has been transformed to address modern day challenges and changing wildlife conservation methods. Tanzania is also a party to various international instruments including CITES, UNCAC and UNCTOC. These instruments make provisions for parties to enact legislation that will enhance wildlife law enforcement. They include provisions on regulation of wildlife trade, prevention of organized crime and money laundering and addressing corruption. Tanzania has domesticated these provisions by enacting various pieces of legislation including anti‐money laundering laws, prevention of organized crime laws and anti‐corruption laws. These laws support the main wildlife legislation in providing harsher penalties for wildlife offences and addressing corruption as a driver of wildlife crimes. Despite all the policy and legislative efforts made by Tanzania to prevent wildlife crime, there has been a worrying loss of wildlife in the recent past. This has been attributed to high demand for wildlife products in Asia, poverty in Tanzania that incentivises wildlife crime, penetration of organised criminal groups into Tanzania and corruption in law enforcement. Tanzania has been working to overcome these challenges and has seen wildlife poaching and trafficking kingpins arrested and handed very hefty penalties which will hopefully deter other wildlife offenders.