The evolution of wildlife conservation policies in Tanzania during the colonial and post-independence periods

Abstract

This paper discusses the way wildlife policies evolved in Tanzania during the periods of colonial rule and after independence. Using the historical–qualitative data analysis technique, the study examines how the formulations and practices of policies during these periods instigated the scramble for resources in Africa, and in particular in Tanzania. Historically, pre-colonial societies in Tanzania lived and intermingled freely with wildlife, and conserved their resources according to their cultures. With colonialism in place, the wildlife conservation practices tended to alienate the local community from their natural resources. After independence, the government inherited most of the colonial policies, including those for wildlife conservation, and the practices of those policies made the use of these resources still more socially exclusive. This resulted in a struggle for access to and utilisation of the resources, a phenomenon that shows there is a continual scramble for resources in Tanzania, and in Africa in general.

1. INTRODUCTION

There have long been conflicting interests between politicians, policy-makers and the government on the one hand, and the local people on the other, over the use of resources in Tanzania. One of these resources is wildlife. Most developing countries depend heavily on their natural resources, and Tanzania is no exception. The country's economic development and social well-being depend to a large extent on the development and sustainable utilisation of natural resources such as land, water, minerals, forests and wildlife. To achieve these goals, Tanzania has, since political independence in 1961, formulated policies to guide wildlife conservation activities. Some of these policies date back to the colonial period.

This article discusses the development of wildlife conservation policies during the colonial period, how they were inherited by and transformed in independent Tanganyika (later Tanzania), and the implications for local communities of the ongoing scramble for resources. The paper also explores the contending forces as these policies evolved.

Until 1919, Tanganyika was part of German East Africa. It then became British Tanganyika Trust Territory under the League of Nations and later the United Nations. In 1961 the colony became independent Tanganyika. In 1964 the Republic of Tanganyika united with the People's Republic of Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Therefore, for the sake of consistency, the name Tanzania will be used in this paper in place of Tanganyika.

2. THE INTERFACE BETWEEN PRE-COLONIAL AND COLONIAL WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

Wildlife conservation is an ancient phenomenon, dating back to the pre-colonial era. The pre-colonial society conserved wildlife in Tanzania through, for example, taboos against the hunting and eating of certain species of animals. Certain animals were totem symbols, and in some areas there was tree, stone and mountain worship (Kjekshus, 1996:69–71).

Kjekshus (1996) contends that wildlife conservation practices during the colonial period were dominated by extensive separation of human beings from their natural environment through various policies, some of which Kjekshus traces back to late European feudalism. Under feudalism, wildlife was reserved for the feudal nobles, for whom hunting and hawking were sport. The hunting of boars, deer, bears and wolves was particularly popular. Boar hunting was considered the most glorious (albeit dangerous) practice. While the nobles relished the sport, ordinary people were excluded from it (New & Phillips, 1960:267–9). The practice continued into the capitalist era. The Europeans then introduced the same practices of wildlife conservation, based on excluding the community, to their colonies. The case of Tanzania shows that in colonial Africa new forms of wildlife conservation were based on excluding the local community.

Contemporary wildlife conservation practices have both ecological and economic implications. In Tanzania, there has been a continuous loss of key wildlife species because of poachers entering protected areas such as the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). Arguably, poaching is partly influenced by exclusionist wildlife conservation practices. As local communities are excluded from the natural resources in their immediate locales, a feeling of alienation ensues. On top of this, the community does not benefit directly from these resources. There is little doubt that proper wildlife conservation provides viable avenues for the economic and cultural utilisation of land, such as game viewing, hunting (for both tourist and locals), ranching and farming. If used properly, wildlife can greatly increase the overall economic value of the broader ecology. However, one should not ignore the effects of the global demand for animal products such as ivory and hides. Such demand is a further reason for the poaching in Tanzania's conservation areas.

3. THE NATURE AND SOCIAL ORIGIN OF THE COLONIAL POLICIES ON WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

Many protected areas (game reserves and national parks) were established to serve the interests of the settlers, European visitors and hunters, rather than to support indigenous biodiversity conservation practices in colonial Tanzania. In addition, the people at the forefront of the advocacy for creating game reserves and national parks in colonial Tanzania were not the colony's natural resource professionals but the political elite in London. These people formed their environmental and wildlife institutions and societies in Europe. For instance, they established the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire, which greatly influenced policy-making in the colonies, including the British colony of Tanzania.

To justify the establishment of game reserves and national parks, the British colonialists made reference to the Yellowstone National Park in the US and the Kruger National Park in South Africa (Neumann, 1997). In reality, however, most of the wildlife conservation policies, programmes and practices in colonial Tanzania not only involved denying local peasants, pastoralists and hunter-gatherers access to their traditional resources, but also led to the destruction of indigenous modes of natural resource utilisation. Put simply, the colonial era wildlife conservation and utilisation in Tanzania were externally driven – with the main aim of satisfying the tastes and yearnings of a powerful European elite.

4. WILDLIFE CONSERVATION POLICIES DURING THE COLONIAL ERA

Over the past century, the colonial government in Tanzania has pursued policies of wildlife conservation that have alienated people from wildlife rather than promoted harmony between people and the ecology. The policies also seem to have transformed popular notions of wildlife among local people: it is now seen as more of a threat and something that could cause problems if tampered with. The establishment of national parks and game reserves, which attract tourists and provide foreign exchange for the government, have often displaced rural communities from land they traditionally considered to be theirs. Anti-poaching laws turned centuries-old practices of subsistence hunting into a crime, and people were even prevented from killing dangerous animals to protect their crops, their livestock and themselves. This means that rural people have borne the significant cost of living with wildlife but have progressively been excluded from benefiting from the new ‘economics’ of conservation. In recognition of this, Adams and McShane write:

Countless African societies historically co-existed successfully with wild animals, but throughout the last two centuries they have been perceived as threats. African hunters have been branded ‘poachers’, a word laden with value judgments about the supposed heroes and villains of conservation. (1992:xv)

Goldstein (2005) supports the idea that wildlife conservation has alienated local people from their valuable resources in Tanzania. He contends that, during the colonial period, conservation laws transformed some of social and economic activities of the local communities into illegal practices. Collection of fuel wood became ‘wood theft’, hunting became ‘poaching’, and pasturing cattle became ‘grazing trespass’.

During the colonial period, wildlife conservation underwent changes that necessitated the promulgation of laws and policies to govern it. Historically, legislation targeted at wildlife conservation started around 1896 with German colonialism. Large tracts of land were set aside for the protection of wildlife, in the form of national parks and game reserves. Game laws that instituted these practices were enacted in the 1880s. Thenceforth, several game reserves were set up to protect wildlife from over-exploitation (Pennington, 1983:128–30). As Pennington notes, the Germans wanted to protect the African species from uncontrolled commercial hunting and illegal poaching. These measures were taken following signs of decline in the population of species such as African elephants.

The protected areas in Tanzania can be grouped into six categories, according to the degree to which they protect the land and wildlife resources. The three most protected and restricted categories are national parks, game reserves and the NCA. The relatively less protected categories are game controlled areas, partial game reserves and forest reserves (Goldstein, 2005). As is shown above, the first three categories have the most direct effect on local communities.

In 1919, a game department responsible for wildlife matters was established in the country, with a policy for protecting native crops and life. The department was responsible for protecting human life and property from dangerous animals, particularly elephants in South Eastern Tanzania. In essence, however, the policy aimed to control and protect elephants from attacks by Africans. However, it was necessary to control elephants, especially after 1900, for reasons such as an increase in the elephant population following the cessation of the slave trade, which went together with the ivory trade. By 1930 there were 11 complete game reserves and one partial reserve in Tanzania. The first national park, Serengeti, was legally established in 1951. The ideas and movement for creating the national park had been introduced in London, not in Tanzania, by the 1933 International Convention for Wildlife Conservation, popularly known as the London Convention – 18 years earlier (Rodgers, 1980:25).

The colonial government established two more national parks soon afterwards – Lake Manyara National Park and the NCA. These were established in Arusha in 1960, and together they formed the current Arusha National Park. The British colonial government in Tanzania introduced all these national parks and game reserves areas as a response to the 1933 London Convention for the Protection of African Fauna and Flora.

The first comprehensive conservation legislation in Tanzania was the Game Preservation Ordinance of 1921, which was introduced by the British. According to a leading Tanzanian environmental activist, Tundu Lissu (2000), this law declared some areas – particularly the Serengeti–Ngorongoro area (the present-day Serengeti National Park and the NCA) – game reserves. Later, in 1928, the Ngorongoro Crater was declared a closed reserve. The move brought in its wake several limitations. All forms of hunting and cultivation were henceforth prohibited by law. The local community was prohibited from hunting while Europeans continued to hunt as a leisure occupation. The local community were deliberately deprived of their own resources and the enjoyment of their own land.

There was also a new Game Ordinance enacted in 1940, which was seen as a response to the International Convention for Wildlife Conservation signed in London in November 1933. This indicates the externally oriented nature of the wildlife conservation laws, policies and practices in colonial Tanzania. The colonial state also enacted a law known as the Fauna Conservation Ordinance. This ordinance followed policies for establishing the least restrictive conservation areas (Douglas & John, 1987:98). These areas were very important in wildlife conservation in the country. The major role of these national parks and game reserves in wildlife conservation is to serve as buffer zones. It should be noted that most of the legal hunting was and still is done in these areas. Animals do not observe boundaries in these areas, and therefore the state of wildlife is determined by the activities in the wildlife-controlled areas (Rodgers, 1980:30).

In 1954 the Fauna and Flora Conservation Ordinance was enacted for improved conservation within national parks. This legislation met with public resistance. It was particularly resisted by the dispossessed local communities around and within the established national parks (such as the Serengeti National Park). In response to the resistance, the government set up the Serengeti Committee of Enquiry in 1957 to investigate the basis of the grievance and to make recommendations to the colonial government and the then leading political party, the Tanganyika African National Union (Douglas & John, 1987; Brockington, 2002).

It was the recommendations of this committee that resulted in some of the policies that brought about some changes in wildlife conservation practices. For instance, the western Serengeti (currently the Serengeti National Park) and easternmost Serengeti plains and Ngorongoro highland, currently known as the NCA, were converted into multiple-land-use areas. These areas were designated as conservation areas; but the pastoral Maasai and other indigenous peoples were allowed to continue using the natural resources located in them. It must, however, be noted that mixed use did not mitigate the sense of ‘restrictiveness’ felt by the indigenous populations, as their everyday interaction with the ecology was highly regulated.

Further changes included an amendment to the Fauna and Flora Conservation Ordinance and the revision of the management plan. Despite all these efforts of the colonial government, the conflicts between local communities, such as the Maasai, and the conservation authorities continued during the colonial and post-colonial periods. These conflicts largely represented the contending interests and scramble for these strategic resources in Africa. They also signified the grassroots struggle and resistance to the scramble for wildlife resources in Tanzania, and Africa in general – a problem that continued into the post-independence period (Kaiza-Boshe, 1988).

Wildlife conservation policies and practices often evolved from several different sources. The first was the activities and experiences of the colonialists in Europe, the US, and other former or early colonies such as India. Second was the fact that colonial policies were formulated after certain laws had been enacted in the metropolitan countries (the First World countries) and thus represented their scramble for resources in Africa. The third source was the misunderstanding or conflict of interests between the colonial government and environmentalists on the one hand, and Africans – mainly pastoralists and cultivators – as the dispossessed locals on the other. These dynamics played a significant role in the evolution not only of wildlife conservation policy issues but also of environmental matters in general in colonial Tanzania. They also show how the intensifying scramble for natural and strategic resources was taking shape in Tanzania, and Africa in general.

5. EVOLUTION OF POST-INDEPENDENCE WILDLIFE CONSERVATION POLICIES

5.1 Colonial legacy

At independence, the Tanzanian Government retained most of the legal system and structure that had been used by the British colonisers for strengthening their exploitation of the country's natural resources. Accordingly, the government inherited the colonial legal philosophy and its practices of wildlife protection, with its general attitude of excluding and dispossessing the local community.

In most cases, the government legislative elite and policy-makers ignored the local community in their policy-making and practices. This may have been because they were moulded by the colonial education and ideological frameworks, and because they were operating during the neo-colonial era, when most of the activities in the newly independent African countries such as Tanzania and others were still regulated and guided by the former colonisers. The colonialists, who still had an interest in African resources, influenced policy initiatives in these countries in ways that continued to serve their entrenched interests. It may also have been because many of the African legislators and policy-makers were preoccupied with consolidating their political power and implementing ambitious development strategies, aimed mostly at boosting the tourism sector in order to gain badly needed foreign exchange. Conservation policies driven by these factors could only spawn hostility and resistance from the local people.

Independent Tanzania also turned huge tracts of its land into protected areas – and more specifically into national parks – in an effort to boost the tourism industry, which relies heavily on wildlife resources (see Table 1). The total land area reserved as national parks and game reserves, including the NCA, is approximately 28 per cent (or 242 000 square kilometres) of Tanzania's land surface (United Republic of Tanzania [URT], 1998:3). However, 40 per cent of Tanzania's total land area falls under the protected area system (Goldstein, 2005).

Table 1: Game reserves and national parks in Tanzania

Reserve	Gazetted as a reserve	Gazetted as a park	Area/km^2
Selous	1922	–	50 000
Ngorongoro	1928	1959	8292
Serengeti	1929	1951	14 763
Gombe Streams	1943	1968	52
Mkomazi	1951	–	3234
Rungwa	1951	–	9000
Ruaha	1951	1964	10 380
Arusha	1953	1960	137
Kilimanjaro	1956	1973	756
Lake Manyara	1957	1960	330
Biharamuro	1959	–	1300
Maswa	1962	–	2200
Mikumi	–	1964	3230
Ugalla	1965	–	5000
Rubundo Island	1965	1977	450
Saadani	1968	–	300
Tarangire	1967	1970	2600
Uwanda	1971	–	5000
Katavi	1971	1974	2253
Burigi	1972	–	2200
Ibanda	1974	–	200
Rumanyika	1974	–	800
Mahale Mountains	–	1980	1577
Moyowosi	1981	–	6000
Kizigo	1982	–	4000
Kigosi	1983	–	7000
Udzungwa	–	1992	1900
Saa Nane	1994	–	0.5
Grumeti	1994	–	2000
Ikorongo	1994	–	3000
Kijereshi	1994	–	300
Muhesi	1994	–	2000
Pande Forest	1994	–	12
Note: These data were obtained in 1995. Since then more game reserves and national parks have been declared, but the author was unable to access them for this article.
Source: Modified from Brockington (2002).

Tanzania did not have a definite environmental policy until around the 1980s; a wildlife policy came onstream only in the late 1990s. In the case of wildlife conservation, the policy seems to have been aimed at boosting tourism (Tanzania National Parks Authority, 1995). Instead of formulating environmental or wildlife conservation policies, the authorities merely provided plans and guidelines for tourism development – and it was through these that wildlife was conserved because it was the main base of the tourism sector.

5.2 Change of government attitude and local community inclusion

The country began to enact laws to deal with wildlife conservation around the mid-1970s. Among these was the Wildlife Conservation Act of 1974 (URT, 1974), the first and principal wildlife conservation and management law, enacted in the same year the Tanzanian Government ratified the African convention of 1974 (Lissu, 2000). It was not a coincidence, therefore, that the division of wildlife-protected areas and the provision of the Wildlife Conservation Act of 1974 were almost the same, with categories whose provisions were comparable with those of the African convention. Strikingly, however, Tanzania's Wildlife Conservation Act does not reflect the African convention's call for a ‘participatory wildlife conservation approach’ – an important pillar of which is the recognition and privileging of indigenous cultures and community–ecology relationships.

Under the 1974 Act, all wildlife resources in Tanzania belonged to the government. However, this failed to take into consideration the fact that some land was public and some privately owned. The management of wild game was entrusted and left to the Wildlife Division of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, which controls the Tanzania National Parks Authority and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority. These agencies operate along the lines that were defined by the wildlife conservation legislation and they have attempted to devise strategies that will involve local community members in wildlife activities in these areas. However, there has been only limited success in this endeavour, partly because these agencies have not made an effort to address the cultural framework of the relationship between these communities and wild animal populations. At the same time, the provisions of the guiding law, the Wildlife Conservation Act of 1974, have done very little to assist in these efforts.

In terms of the Act, the president has the power to declare any land in the country a game reserve. The Director of National Parks is also empowered to declare any land a partial game reserve, and the minister responsible for wildlife may declare any land a game-controlled area. In empowering these authorities to exercise their respective powers, the Act does not provide a mechanism to ensure they will take into account the local people's wildlife-related needs, traditions or cultures when demarcating their lands as protected areas.

The situation of local communities' access to the protected areas changed during the 1960s and 1970s. The practical application of wildlife conservation created more restrictions on entry to and residence in the areas. Few people lived in the areas, and only under very strict conditions. At the same time, the interests of local community members who were living in the areas around the protected land were not considered by the government. The interests of local hunters, who hunted for traditional and subsistence purposes, were ignored (Lissu, 2000). This increased the enmity between the government and wildlife authorities, who had mixed local and global interests, on the one hand, and the local communities, on the other. This enmity has made the local communities reluctant to participate in wildlife conservation programmes and activities, and has increased the destruction of the environment as a result of illegal and unsustainable hunting practices. While many local communities viewed wildlife resources as alienated property, the government continued to put more areas under protection and also converted protected (or reserved) areas to national parks (see Table 1).

Another change that occurred in wildlife conservation during the early years of independence was the massive exclusion of the local communities from conserved areas. The Maasai, for example, were totally excluded from the management of the NCA from 1962 until 1981. In 1981 the Ngorongoro constituency in Ngorongoro district had a Maasai as a Member of Parliament. This MP, the Honourable Matei Ole Timan, happened to be a resident of the NCA, and was therefore included in the management as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority. This marked the beginning of changes in the way wildlife conservation was practised not only in the NCA, but also in Tanzania in general.

From 1982 the government started to include local communities in wildlife conservation programmes. For instance, it established the Environmental Legislation Management, which was made up of local government authorities. The Environmental Legislation Management was established through the Local Government (District Authority) Act No. 7 of 1982, and the Local Government (Urban Authority) Act No. 8 of 1982 (Lissu, 2000). The aim was to institute greater local participation in protected areas management as a way of mitigating conflict between government authorities and the local communities at various levels of wildlife management.

In the early 1980s Tanzania experienced a number of major socio-economic and political transformations, which eventually led to major policy changes. It became clear that if the government was to make coordinated and effective efforts in all the sectors related to the environment, a national environmental policy would have to be developed. This policy would provide the framework for environmental management in the country and be required to take care of subregional, regional and global environmental concerns, including those of biodiversity (Bagachwa & Limbu, 1995). However, even before the formulation of the National Environmental Policy (NEP), the government had established a number of agencies tasked with responsibilities related to environmental protection, and for drafting the policy itself.

The National Environment Management Council (NEMC), created in 1983, was one such agency. It acted as an advisory body to the government on all matters relating to the environment, and was charged with the task of formulating policies on the environment, including wildlife conservation and management. However, the NEMC did not come up with a concrete policy document that specifically addressed the worldwide concern about the way local communities were affected by wildlife conservation (Bagachwa & Limbu, 1995). While the NEMC assumed the role of environmental protection agency, it had no legal power and was thus constrained in performing the functions of a fully fledged environmental protection agency.

The extent of the NEMC's powerlessness was first demonstrated in 1996 when it did not approve the establishment of the Rufiji Delta Prawns Farm Project. In the agency's view, this project fell short of acceptable environmental standards. However, the non-approval was overruled by the government. It took sustained protests by local community members and non-governmental organisations such as the Lawyers' Environmental Action Team and the Journalists' Environmental Association for the government to reverse its decision (Lissu, 2000). The project eventually did not take off.

The Tanzania Wildlife Corporation is another government agency that is primarily concerned with the preservation of wildlife. It also operates within a national conservation framework that, unfairly, attaches little importance to the concerns of people in the neighbourhood of areas protected for wildlife.

5.3 Establishment of specific environmental and wildlife policies

The NEP was adopted in November 1997 and publicised in December of the same year. This policy was the result of extensive consultation among various levels of government, and between the government and non-governmental organisations, the private sector, community-based organisations, and academic institutions. One of the major environmental problems addressed in the NEP was the loss of wildlife habitat and biodiversity. The loss of wildlife was viewed as a natural heritage threat and a disincentive to growth in the tourism sector. For this reason, the government sought to make environmental management everybody's responsibility, while assigning key roles to governmental institutions and non-governmental organisations. In terms of the policy, the role of the government and non-governmental organisations includes creating awareness in local communities and persuading them to engage in environmental conservation, including wildlife conservation.

However, because of the relatively wide coverage of the policy, it was important to devise a way of narrowing the focus to, say, wildlife conservation, so as to address problems in the wildlife sector and meet national challenges such as how to conserve areas with great biological diversity. In addition, a narrowly focused policy would not only extend the protected areas network where necessary but would also help to reduce conflicts, besides fostering the sustainable use of wildlife resources.

In March 1998 the Tanzanian Government issued an environmental policy with this narrow focus, targeting wildlife conservation. The Wildlife Policy of Tanzania, as it was known, became the first comprehensive wildlife conservation policy since independence. The policy acknowledged that:

Despite her long-standing history of wildlife conservation, Tanzania never had any comprehensive wildlife policy. Wildlife was all along being protected and utilised by use of guidelines, regulations and laws implemented by the department of wildlife and other institutions entrusted with the responsibility of conserving the same. (URT, 1998:2)

As stated in the policy document, the main reasons for the delay in having an elaborate wildlife policy relate to Tanzania's low levels of development in science and technology. Even so, with a population of about 8 million and an inadequate scientific and technological advancement at the time of independence, there were relatively fewer land-use conflicts. However, when the population increased to more than 30 million in the 1990s, and science and technology began to develop to a higher level, land scarcity increased and conflicts over land multiplied accordingly. These in turn necessitated the adoption of a specific and elaborate wildlife conservation policy (URT, 1998).

The framework for the Wildlife Policy implementation is much broader compared with what was provided for in the 1974 Act, which merely represented cosmetic changes to colonial wildlife conservation laws. The new policy includes conservation of the terrestrial invertebrates and terrestrial species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians that were not covered in the Wildlife Conservation Act of 1974. These classes of wildlife were not even covered by the NEP of 1997.

The policy gives prominence to what it calls a community-based conservation method of wildlife conservation, which makes for greater local participation in environment and wildlife conservation issues. One interesting feature of the policy is its recognition of the role of women in wildlife conservation. It aims at involving and integrating women in all environmental (wildlife) management areas, particularly in sustainable utilisation of forest resources as part of wildlife resources. As stated in the policy:

In general, women and children are the source of labour in rural communities. This trend shows that women and children interact more with natural resources and the environment and therefore are very important in the conservation of the same … This policy recognises the role of women in the conservation of natural resources and the need for them to participate and benefit from the conservation of the resources. (URT, 1998:20–2)

Addressing women-and-children issues in wildlife conservation and management is part and parcel of promoting the rural community in the programme of wildlife conservation through a community-based conservation strategy.

Other issues addressed in the 1998 Wildlife Policy are the conservation of biological resources, the sustainable use of these resources, and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits by all role players in wildlife conservation and management. The policy promotes the sustainable use of wildlife resources; the protection of wildlife against illegal and uncontrolled use (which is one way of encouraging major biodiversity); and conservation education, awareness, training, research and monitoring. It stresses the government's commitment to raising the awareness of the people of Tanzania. The government is also committed to providing appropriate training at all levels in order to sustain the wildlife sector, especially by institutionalising research and monitoring within wildlife agencies. It further recognises the responsibilities of the other institutions and their policies, particularly those institutions responsible for land, forestry, fisheries, mining, livestock and water.

The 1998 Wildlife Policy recognises the significance of international, regional and local community cooperation for effective wildlife conservation. It emphasises cooperation particularly with neighbouring countries, such as Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Zambia. Specific areas of cooperation include the conservation of migratory species, and trans-boundary ecosystems (URT, 1998).

Despite the apparently good intentions of the wildlife policy, Tanzania still faces major wildlife problems, not least the fragmentation of habitats due to the loss of wildlife corridors. This has been a major threat to small parks like the Lake Manyara National Park. The problem is the lack of adequate legal provisions and institutional arrangements to deal with these corridors. Tanzania National Parks Authority does not have the legal mandate to manage these. The 1998 Wildlife Policy does provide for the establishment of wildlife areas containing wildlife that do not currently fall under protected areas. This, some argue, could be a solution to the problem (Katalihwa, 1998).

Another problem is what might be termed the ‘tourism bias’. The policy somehow attaches greater importance to tourism than to local people's access to the resource. For instance, it provides for hunting tourism in many areas of Tanzania such as game reserves, game conservation areas, and open areas within forest reserves, while the residents can hunt only with licences in open areas and game reserves that are not reserved for tourists to hunt in. This implies that the local communities still have a long way to go to gain greater participation in management and access to resources in Tanzania. However, the policy is a good start and is on the right track to achieving the sustainable use of the country's natural resources.

6. CONCLUDING REMARKS

The crux of this paper was to examine the evolution of wildlife policies in the colonial and post-independence periods and to compare the access to resources they allowed for foreigners and for the local communities. The paper concentrated on the changing patterns of the scramble for natural resources, with specific emphasis on wildlife. It discussed the forces that shaped these policies and the way the policies have defined (or the impact they have had on) indigenous ecological relationships. For instance, while the British colonialists established a system of wildlife conservation whereby the local communities were separated from wildlife, much of the policy discourse and practice in post-colonial Tanzania has failed to promote a wildlife conservation practice that is ethnographically and ecologically sensitivity. In other words, Tanzania's wildlife policies and practices have historically led to antagonism and conflicts between the government and local communities.

A new wildlife policy is now in force in Tanzania. For it to promote sustainable wildlife conservation, it needs the cooperation of local people. This cooperation can be enhanced through a community-based conservation system. This system, which is already in place, integrates the local communities in wildlife conservation practices and management, something that did not happen during the colonial era and the early years of independence. However, this system requires special grassroots campaigns so as to rule out an entrenched notion of wildlife as a resource for the gratification of foreign tourists and foreign investors.