Presidents Jakaya Kikwete reacts to a question during this interview
with CNN star presenter , Christian Amanpour in London last week. PHOTO |
STATE HOUSE
President Jakaya Kikwete was in UK last week to attend the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife trade.
CNN’s Christian Amanpour got a chance to interview
Mr Kikwete on, among other things, what his government is doing in the
face the increase in elephant poaching
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you first and
foremost, am I exaggerating? Are we exaggerating? How bad is the problem
for your elephants in Tanzania?
KIKWETE: It’s not an exaggeration. If I can give
you the statistics: at independence, Tanzania had 350,000 elephants.
During the first wave of intense poaching, the 1970s-1980s, when you
read the census, in 1987, there were only 55,000 elephants left.
AMANPOUR: Wow!
KIKWETE: And then of course, because it was an
unprecedented situation, so the government of the day, that time,
decided to bring in the military. We had a mammoth operation by the
military called Operation Ohimene (ph) -- Operation Life.
AMANPOUR: But now it’s bad.
KIKWETE: And then of course when it was backed by
scientists, scientists ban in 1989, and this operation then we begin to
see the numbers coming back.
In 2009, the numbers reached [...] Now 110,000. And then come 2010, another wave.
AMANPOUR: Of poaching.
KIKWETE: Of poaching. And this is madness now. You know it is just impossible.
AMANPOUR: And it’s -- they’re on the verge of extinction.
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