THE WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ACT, 1974,

AND THE WILDLIFE POLICY OF TANZANIA:

THE PLACE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES

Martin T. Walsh

MBOMIPA Project, Iringa, Tanzania &

Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, U.K.

paper commissioned by EPIQ/Tanzania and presented to a Workshop to Review

the Wildlife Conservation Act, 1974, Wildlife Division, Ministry of Natural
Resources and Tourism, Arusha, 21-23 February 2001

_________________________

Dr Martin Walsh
MBOMIPA Project
P.O.BOX 398
Iringa
Tanzania

tel. 026-2702686
fax. 026-2702807
e-mail. mbomipa@twiga.com
 THE WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ACT, 1974,
AND THE WILDLIFE POLICY OF TANZANIA:
THE PLACE OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES

Martin T. Walsh

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author

alone and are not necessarily shared by colleagues or
the institutions to which he is attached.

1 Introduction
The consultant was asked to prepare a thematic paper that:

 Provides an historical review of the involvement of local communities in

wildlife conservation and management law and policy making processes in
Tanzania;

 Reviews the extent to which the provisions of the Wildlife Conservation

Act, 1974, and the Wildlife Policy, 1998, are consistent with the notion that
local communities should actively participate in devising and implementing
wildlife conservation and management initiatives in Tanzania; and

 With respect to such participation, discusses any notable shortcomings and

constraints inherent in the Wildlife Conservation Act, 1974, and the
Wildlife Policy, 1998, and the implication of these for local communities’
participation in wildlife conservation and management initiatives in
Tanzania.

In addressing these terms of reference, it was further suggested that the consultant
should focus, where appropriate, on the experiences of the MBOMIPA Project.

2 A Brief (and Biased) Historical Review

Setting aside colonial experiments and the special case of the Ngorongoro
Conservation Area (which has its own legislation), the modern history of
community wildlife management in Tanzania began in the mid-1980s. Important
early milestones include the start of the Serengeti Regional Conservation Project
(1986) and of the Selous Conservation Programme (1988); preparation of the first
draft Policy on Wildlife Conservation and Utilisation (1988); and the start of
TANAPA’s benefit-sharing programme (1988), later to be institutionalised as its

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Community Conservation Service (CCS) (Hartley 1997: 11-12; Barrow et al. 2000:
77-79).

The history of the two successive ODA/DFID funded projects in Iringa District,
REWMP (Ruaha Ecosystems Wildlife Management Project) and MBOMIPA
(Matumizi Bora ya Malihai Idodi na Pawaga, ‘Sustainable Use of Wild Resources
in Idodi and Pawaga’) has been closely intertwined with that of community
wildlife management in the country as a whole. The community component of
REWMP began in January 1993 and ended in June 1996. This was followed by a
period of transition between projects, which ended in October 1997 when
MBOMIPA began. MBOMIPA is currently due to end in October of this year
(2001), though an extension has been recommended (though not yet formally
requested).

Both projects have been collaborations between the Wildlife Division and
TANAPA, working together with Iringa District Council and villages in Idodi and
Pawaga Divisions, adjacent to Ruaha National Park. The two divisions cut across
the southern part of Lunda-Mkwambi Game Controlled Area, the protected area
which forms the basis for current community wildlife management activities. One
of the primary objectives of MBOMIPA is to pilot implementation of the new
Wildlife Policy of Tanzania (1998); specifically to initiate the conversion of (at
least a portion of) LM GCA into a WMA managed by the Idodi and Pawaga
villages – of which there are now nineteen, with a total population estimated at
over 30,000 people.

REWMP and MBOMIPA have played an active role in the development of the
policy and – more recently – of guidelines for its implementation. This experience,
together with lessons gained from working in Iringa District, have formed the
primary inspiration for the observations and suggestions which I make in the
sections to follow.

3 Community Participation and the Existing Legal and Policy

Framework
3.1 The Wildlife Conservation Act, 1974

As might be expected, neither the Wildlife Conservation Act, 1974, nor the
Wildlife Conservation (Amendment) Act, 1978, make direct reference to the active
participation of local communities ‘in devising and implementing wildlife
conservation and management initiatives’. This is not surprising given that these
Acts were drafted and enacted well before the popularisation of CBNRM
initiatives in Tanzania. The general philosophy behind the two Acts is one of
‘protection, regulation and punishment’; and the principal powers of wildlife
conservation and management are vested in the President, the Minister responsible,
the Director of Game (Wildlife), and the Game Officers appointed to administer
this legislation..

The principal Act (WCA, 1974) does, however, envisage a possible collective role
for local communities in the consumptive utilisation of wildlife (note utilisation,

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not conservation or management). The relevant sections and subsections are 26 (1)
and 27 (1 & 2):

“26.-(1) The Minister may, by order in the Gazette, declare any body of persons,
whether corporate or unincorporated, or any ujamaa village to be an authorized
association for the purposes of this Act.

(2) The Minister may, by order in the Gazette, declare any body corporate to be a
designated organization for the purposes of this Act.

27.-(1) A licensing officer may grant a game licence for the hunting of a
specified animal to any authorized association:

Provided that the licensing officer shall not grant a game licence for the hunting
of a specified animal to any authorized association unless he is satisfied that the
meat of the animal hunted will be made available for consumption by all the
members of the association.

(2) A game licence granted to an authorized association under subsection (1)

shall entitle any member of the authorized association who has attained the
apparent age of eighteen years to hunt, in accordance with the conditions of the
licence, the animal specified therein.”

Section 26 (1) gives the Minister considerable latitude in declaring an ‘authorized

association’ (AA): no criteria are given that must be satisfied by a ‘body of
persons’ or ‘ujamaa village’ before it can be gazetted as an AA. It is clear from the
following section, however, that the main function of AAs (at least as far as the
Act is concerned) is to hunt game and share the resulting meat among their
membership. There are no other references to AAs in either the principal or
subsidiary legislation. While this need not exclude AAs (e.g. a registered village
gazetted as an AA) from natural resource management functions, the legislation
clearly does not give them any active role of this kind in the types of protected area
with which it is concerned: game reserves, partial game reserves, and game
controlled areas.

Notwithstanding these limitations, have the few provisions of the WCA, 1974,
regarding AAs ever been put into practice? Have any ‘ujamaa’ (or other) villages,
or local communities in any shape or form, ever been gazetted as AAs for the
purposes of the Act? Has any attempt ever been made to gazette or otherwise
declare villages to be AAs outside of the context of current donor-funded CBNRM
projects? Why has this not (or rarely?) happened?

Villages in the ‘pilot’ projects that have supported community hunting (i.e. SRCP,
SCP, and REWMP) have functioned much as the WCA envisaged that its AAs
would. At least in the case of REWMP, however, the letter of the law was not
followed. In 1994 the project requested its first quota for community hunting, and
was granted one for that year by the Director of Wildlife. For strategic reasons this
quota was not used until May following year (1995), when the Director himself
urged the project to press ahead with its community hunting programme. Another
quota was then requested and granted for the 1995 hunting season, and a second
community hunting exercise began in August. This whole process was embroiled

3
in controversy, bringing the project into direct conflict with resident hunters and
the regional and district authorities (Hartley 1997: 25, 29-34).

The project was given a mandate to organise community hunting by the Director of
Wildlife, and strong support from headquarters was instrumental in enabling the
project to survive the various challenges it faced. As far as I am aware, no attempt
was made to follow the provisions outlined in the WCA. According to these, the
Minister could have been asked to declare the participating villages to be an AA
(or number of separate AAs), so that they could then undertake community hunting
under the terms envisaged by the Act. In hindsight, gazettment of a village AA or
AAs at an early stage might have put the project in a much stronger position,
giving its promotion of community hunting a sound legal base. Instead the project
was extremely vulnerable, and very much dependent on the support and
interventions of the Director and other senior staff.

Needless to say, the project became even more vulnerable when participating
villages opted (with project encouragement) to sell their annual quotas to resident
hunters rather than hunt the animals themselves (with project and district
assistance) and sell the game meat among themselves. There is no provision at all
for this kind of arrangement in the WCA. The first auction of village game quota
was held (against much opposition) in June 1996, just as REWMP was drawing to
an end. Villagers’ right to sell their quota was enshrined in a document prepared
by REWMP, agreed by the project’s District Steering Committee, and endorsed by
the Director of Wildlife. This document outlined a Strategy for Transition between
REWMP and its successor project, MBOMIPA, and included details of how
villagers might sell their quota, if they chose to do so (REWMP 1996: 3). The
Director’s endorsement of this provided the project and participating villages with
the mandate to proceed with the sale of village quotas.

It should be evident that this is a fragile basis on which to proceed. Fortunately,

and following the negotiation of an effective compromise with resident hunters in
1997, MBOMIPA has not had to face the severe challenges from them which
REWMP did. Nonetheless, the Wildlife Division is keenly aware of its legal
vulnerability in this regard, and this has had some negative effects on project
development. Last year (2000), for example, project villages requested that their
quotas should be sold in open auction. The project’s District Steering Committee
(chaired by the District Commissioner) endorsed this request, and began to draw
up plans for the nationwide advertisement of the sale. However, the Director of
Wildlife advised that this would be unwise, one concern being that a national
announcement might expose the Wildlife Division to the possibility of legal
challenge over the sale. As in the previous years, the project therefore facilitated
negotiations over the sale of the quota to two existing local groups of clients.

In this and other respects the project and participating villages are operating in a
legal limbo. In some cases it is possible to interpret the WCA ‘creatively’,
‘bending the law’ in our favour. An example of this is the prosecution of farmers
invading hunting blocks in the GCA, the basis for prosecution being their
possession of agricultural implements, presumed to be ‘weapons’ according to the
definition provided by the WCA (section 2, ‘Interpretation’, and section 11 (1)
(b)).

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In many other cases the project has to rely on support from other authorities (e.g.
Wildlife Division headquarters, the District Administration) and/or has to fall back
on its own resources, among them sheer bluff. Pressure from potential tourist
investors has caused the project particular difficulties in this respect. Lack of legal
support or published guidelines has fuelled the suspicion in some quarters that the
project has been deliberately blocking investments; whereas, in fact, it has been
trying to ensure proper planning and to protect villagers from unscrupulous
operators. Canny investors, meanwhile, are well aware of the loopholes in the
existing legal framework, and in some instances have been quick to take advantage
of them.

3.2 The Wildlife Policy of Tanzania, 1998

The new Wildlife Policy of Tanzania (WPT) makes ample reference to the
participation of local communities in wildlife conservation and management, as
well as their role in utilisation. The philosophy of the WPT contrasts sharply in
this respect with that underlying the WCA, and provides a good starting point for
amending the earlier legislation. The present paper is, indeed, being written as a
part of this process.

Although criticisms might be levelled at the WPT, many of them quibbles over
points of emphasis and wording, it is perhaps more important to consider how
relevant parts of the policy are being implemented. The WPT is now almost three
years old, and earlier drafts of it were in circulation for much longer. In that time
significant progress has been made in some of the projects piloting community
wildlife management (perhaps most notably in SCP and REWMP / MBOMIPA),
and over the past year plus considerable progress has also been made in drafting
Wildlife Management Area (WMA) Guidelines. Indeed, an important synergy has
developed between the two, between project experiences and the development of
the Guidelines, with each feeding productively off the other. MBOMIPA has
played an active role in this process.

I will focus my comments here on the forthcoming Guidelines, as I understand

these are developing. Community participation in wildlife management in the
WPT hinges largely (though by no means exclusively) on the proposed creation of
a new category of protected area, community-run Wildlife Management Areas
(WMAs). This is what most of the pilot projects are piloting, and the Guidelines
will provide a lot of guidance on exactly how WMAs should be established and
managed. In addition to clarifying points which remained vague in the WPT (e.g.
the way in which an AA might be constituted), the Guidelines will spell out the
details of how to go about hitherto difficult and sometimes controversial aspects of
community wildlife management (including procedures for developing
investments, and for sharing costs and benefits).

There is perhaps a risk that the Guidelines will become too detailed. In this respect
the drafters are caught in a dilemma. Specificity is demanded by many of the
challenges to community-based management which the Guidelines are designed to
address. I have already referred, for example, to the ease with which some

5
investors can slip through legislative loopholes, possibly to the disadvantage of
community stakeholders. On the other hand, too much detailed direction may act
to reduce the options available to communities, and dampen the potential for
innovation. There is also a danger that the procedures outlined in the Guidelines
for establishing WMAs will discourage communities by their cost and bureaucratic
complexity, and that WMAs will therefore only be formed in areas where
significant external support can been obtained (many game-rich communities are
among the poorest and most undeveloped in other respects).

From this point of view, the WCA and the Guidelines can be thought of as
representing two extremes. The WCA is not at all community-friendly. If they are
written in the spirit of the WPT, the Guidelines will be just the opposite. At the
same time, there is a danger that they may become stifling in their attention to
detail. In the next and concluding section I will suggest how this dilemma might
be best resolved.

4 Conclusions
4.1 Shortcomings in the Legal and Policy Framework

First, let me summarise some of the main points I have made so far.

The WCA, 1974, makes no explicit provisions for the role of local communities in
the conservation and management of wildlife. The two sections which provide a
possible role for community-based AAs limit that role to consumptive utilisation.
In any event, these sections of the WCA appear to have been little used. Pilot
projects like REWMP and MBOMIPA have largely been forced to develop in
something of a legal limbo, relying instead on a mixture of goodwill and
persuasion, not to mention the all-important support of successive Directors of
Wildlife. This unsatisfactory state of affairs will continue until the WCA is
amended to reflect current policy.

The good news is that the WPT of March 1998 has provided a firm foundation for
the development of community participation in wildlife conservation and
management. The draft Wildlife Management Area (WMA) Guidelines have taken
this positive process an important stage further. There are, however, are number of
possible risks lying ahead. One is that the Guidelines will emerge as a set of
overbearing regulations which stifle instead of encourage community initiatives.
Another is that the possible costs and complexity of putting them into practice will
act as a further discouragement to the development of community associations and
WMAs. To this extent the Guidelines might backfire, contrary to all the good
intentions and hard work which are being put into their formulation.

4.2 How Can These Shortcomings Be Addressed?

The WCA (including both principal and subsidiary legislation) clearly needs
substantial amendment to reflect the changed priorities of the WTP and especially
the role the latter gives to local communities in wildlife conservation and

6
management. At the same time, we should ensure that the Guidelines remain as
open and flexible as possible, and responsive to the needs of the communities
which may use them.

I propose the following way forward. The Guidelines, I suggest, should be

converted into regulations under the provision of the following existing section of
the WCA, 1974:

“84.-(1) The Minister may make regulations for the better carrying out of the
purposes of this Act and for the better conservation of wildlife…”

At the same time, ‘flexibility clauses’ should be incorporated into the Guidelines,
and provision should be made for their regular review and revision. New and
untried elements in the Guidelines will need to be tested in the field, and it is
particularly important that they remain responsive to changes suggested by the
experiences of the pilot projects and other community initiatives. Serious
consideration should be given to the development of simplified Guidelines,
appropriate to different local potentials for establishing WMAs (in the same way
that simplified versions of the Land Use Planning guidelines are being developed).
We should neither assume nor insist, for example, that WMAs might only be
developed in game-rich and extensive areas of the kind found in current pilot
projects. We should give communities every possible incentive to form AAs and
designate WMAs, not least by making sure that the regulatory framework is as
community-friendly as possible.

This approach further suggests that only the most necessary elements of the WMA
Guidelines / regulations be incorporated into amendments to the WCA. Although
the WCA makes little reference to the role of communities, the majority of its
existing provisions are not necessarily inconsistent with such a role. A relatively
small number of additions and changes, albeit critical ones, might be sufficient to
amend the WCA so that it reflects the spirit of the WTP and the most important of
the provisions required by the WMA Guidelines. In particular, basic provisions
relating to the gazetting of WMAs can be added on the model of existing sections
about the creation of GRs and GCAs (replacing the latter). The present small (and
largely ineffective) provisions about AAs can also be changed and expanded to
reflect key relevant components of the Guidelines. Again, the important point is
that only the most essential amendments should be made, and that these should
provide for flexibility in the event that the details of the Guidelines / regulations
will themselves change.

References
Barrow, E., Gichohi, H., and Infield, M. (2000) Rhetoric or Reality? A Review of
Community Conservation Policy and Practice in East Africa (Evaluating Eden
Series No.5). London: IIED / IUCN.

Hartley, D. (1997) Community Wildlife Management: A Review of the ODA’s

Experience in Tanzania, report to the Overseas Development Administration,
London.

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Ruaha Ecosystem Wildlife Management Project (REWMP) (1996) Strategy for
Transition between REWMP and “Matumizi Bora ya Malihai Idodi na
Pawaga” (MBOMIPA). Documentation agreed by REWMP District Steering
Committee and endorsed by Department of Wildlife. REWMP, Msembe.

The United Republic of Tanzania (1974) The Wildlife Conservation Act, 1974.

The United Republic of Tanzania (1978) The Wildlife Conservation (Amendment)

Act, 1978.

The United Republic of Tanzania (1998) Wildlife Policy of Tanzania, Ministry of

Natural Resources and Tourism, Dar es Salaam.