TANZANIA: Katavi National Park Is A Promising Holiday Destination

Seldom visited, Katavi National Park is a true wilderness, providing few intrepid souls who make it here with a thrilling taste of Africa, as it shoukd have been a century ago.

The park was created in 1974, now located in Katavi region in the remote southwest, covering 4,471 square kilometers, which makes it the third largest national park in Tanzania. It encompasses the Katuma River, the seasonal Lake Katavi and Lake Chada floodplains.

The park provides tourists with walking, driving and camping safaris. Near Lake Katavi, people can visit the tamarind tree inhabited by the spirit of the legendary hunter Katabi, for whom the park is named, and offerings are still left there by locals seeking the spirit's blessings.

Acting Chief Park Warden, Mr Frederick Mofulu says the park that is within a truncated arm of the Rift Valley has a lot to offer to tourists, but faces enormous challenges in conserving it and getting rid of poachers.

Warden Mofulu says the park authority has intensified patrols using airplane to track and control poachers and use of arms by individuals and groups in the area. He says that the park in collaboration with the police has been running operations to ensure no arms proliferation in the area and also see to it that they bring an end to poaching.

Mr Mofulu says by using airplane to patrol the park now the situation is good. He says it is believed that some refugees in the district from Burundi have firearms and use them for poaching. "We use intelligence to track the firearms outside and within the park.

We cooperate with police outside the park so as to preempt poaching missions and we are succeeding and no elephant has been killed for a while now. We have successfully got some from the people," says the chief.

He notes that they collaborate also with traditional leaders, encouraging good neighborhood and raise awareness to their people of importance of conserving the park and avoid intruding the park that is famous for having hippopotamus.

The Chief Park Warden says patrol against grazing cattle in the park has been successful, highlighting that since March this year people have been charged fines for entering about 4,000 cattle in the park.

Mr Mofulu notes that the situation in Burundi before and after the general election has caused number of refugees to go down. He says that most foreign tourists come from the country that shares a boarder with the park.

In 2014/15 there were a total of 4,335 tourists in the park but the trend shows that in 2015/16 the number will not reach that, attributing the fall to Burundi political crisis. Mr Mofulu calls upon Tanzanians to make internal tourism in the park.

A special committee has been formed to find a solution to water problem as at times Lake Katavi is found with little water while hippos, crocodiles and other animals and birds rely on it for their survival.

He notes that people have been using water from Katuma River, diverting it from going to the lake, hence causing huge concern to park authority and that a research is being carried out on better water management from the river.

Katavi Region is a home to two refugee camps, which are Katumba and Mishamo and sometimes refugees mix themselves with citizens. Mr Mofulu says that Katavi National Park's most singular wildlife spectacle is provided by it hippos.

Towards the end of the dry season, up to 200 individuals might flop up together in one place, so does male rivalry heat up. "Bloody territorial flights are an everyday occurrence, with the vanquished male forced to lurk hapless on the open plains until it gathers sufficient confidence to mount another challenge and such thing are for tourists to enjoy," he notes.

The bulk of Katavi supports a hypnotically featureless cover of tangled brachystegia woodland, home for substantial but elusive populations of the localized eland, sable and roan antelopes.

But the main focus for game viewing within the park is the Katuma River and associated floodplains such as the seasonal lakes Katavi and Chada. During the rainy season, the lush, marshy lakes are a haven for myriad water birds, and they support Tanzania's densest concentration of hippos and crocodiles. It is during the dry season when the floodwaters retreat that Katavi truly comes into its own.

The Katuma, reduced to a shallow, muddy trickle, forms the only source of drinking water for miles around, and the flanking floodplains that support game concentration that defy belief.

A huge number of elephants might converge on the area, together with several herds of 1,000 plus buffalo, while abundance of giraffe, zebra, impala and reedbuck provide easy pickings for the numerous lion prides and spotted hyena clans whose territories converge on the floodplains. Mr Mofulu the park that is on the east of Lake Tanganyika can be reached by charter flights from Dar es Salaam or Arusha or by road.

"A tough but spectacular day's drive from Mbeya (550 kilometers) or in the dry season from Kigoma (some 390 kilometers). It is also possible to reach Mpanda by rail from Dar es Salaam via Tabora then catch public transport to Sitalike, where game drives can be arranged. If travelling overland, one must allow plenty of time to get at the park and back," he says.

The best time is the dry season, that is May to October as roads within the park as always flooded during rainy season. Wildlife features include large animal herds, such as buffaloes, zebras, wildebeests, giraffes, and elephants.

Along the Katuma River there are many crocodiles and hippos, which upon annual dry seasons results in mud-holes that can be packed with hundreds of hippos. Carnivorous animals that roam the park are cheetahs, wild dogs, hyenas, leopards, and lions. Some sources claim a very high biodiversity in the park.

There were reports of wildlife decline due to illegal hunting and poaching, but according to Mofulu, the situation is all but contained. Katavi National parks is the core of the western Tanzanian wildlife reserves and one of the biggest and richest wildlife areas in Tanzania with concentration of diverse habitat mammals and bird species in the parks wetlands, lakes, woodlands and shrub lands holding dear some endangered and unusual species.

TANZANIA: Elephant Slaughter Continues In Tanzania

There are few more dangerous places on earth for elephant than Ruaha in central Tanzania.

Over the past year, poachers have had a devastating impact.

They’ve killed thousands of elephants. It is slaughter at an unprecedented rate.

Our guide, Zacharia, has lived here all his life. He’s seen odd and depressing changes to the elephant population.

There are no longer any animals with really big tusks. They’ve been taken by poachers.

You might call it unnatural selection.

"We’re also seeing more elephants with one tusk," he says.

"I believe it’s a genetic problem, but because the poachers leave them alone, they’re becoming more common."

It’s just over a year since more than 40 nations gathered in London to promise action to end the trade in ivory and other illegal animal products; a trade reckoned to be worth some £12billion - on a par with drug smuggling, arms dealing and people trafficking.

This week, they’re meeting again in Botswana to assess progress.

At best, it is patchy.

"It’s no use having laws against ivory smuggling if the legislation is not enforced properly," says Mary Rice of the Environmental Investigations Agency.

In Tanzania, a special task force including the military, is being deployed in what many are calling Africa’s new war.

On their biggest raid, our cameras followed them to the remote west of the country; to Katumba.

In the dead of night they surround and surprise a sleeping gang of poachers.

There are ninety arrests and weapons seized. But whatever ivory they had is long gone.

The gang are blamed for killing hundreds of elephants in the Katavi National Park and using the proceeds to arm rebel groups in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

It’s just one example of poaching’s malign links to wider African problems.

The ivory trade is big business, the gangs highly organised, fuelling corruption that leads to the top.

"They arrest the small time players who might make a few hundred pounds from each elephant," says Mary Rice.

"But the people making millions seem to act with impunity."