DODOMA: LACK of community’s education and awareness about biodiversity conservation is an obstacle to conservation of white storks in Kongwa and Mpwapwa districts in Dodoma Region.
Nature Tanzania Project Officer in Kongwa Field Office in Dodoma, Neema Mwaja told the ‘Daily News’ on Sunday that white storks are migratory birds which migrate from Europe especially Germany to Africa including Tanzania.
Mwaja said that the origin of white storks is Europe but they normally move from the continent during winter season when the food becomes scarce to Tanzania between December and February in search for food especially insects like caterpillars and others.
They fly back to Europe in March. She said when the white storks migrate from Tanzania they pass through Kenya, South Sudan, Israel and finally to Germany, and while in Europe, they lay eggs and hatch chicks.
According to her, the number of white storks in Kongwa and Mpwapwa was more than 600 last year but currently there are only 100 white storks due to their migratory behaviour.
“There is still a problem of community’s low awareness about biodiversity conservation because they kill them with poison either for business purposes or for stew, but in collaboration with other stakeholders, we have already started educating the community about the importance of such birds,” said Mwaja.
She said they once took samples from killed or poisoned birds to the Government Chemist Laboratory Authority (GCLA) for investigation and the results showed that the residents of Kongwa and Mpwapwa face risk of contracting respiratory system diseases by eating poisoned white storks.
She said that Nature Tanzania is committed to changing the behaviour of killing birds illegally. In this regard, Nature Tanzania supported the communities to establish income generating activities as an alternative way to stop the illegal killing of birds.
Mwaja further noted that communities were supplied with 50 beehives, honey harvesting clothes and honey processing machines. According to her, the microproject enabled the communities to harvest more than 400 kilos of honey in two rounds of production.
Other groups including the youth (previous hunters) have been supported to form two football teams and established poultry projects together with piglet farming.
She said that there are also programmes being implemented at the school level involving primary and secondary schools, aimed at educating students and motivating them to become ambassadors of biodiversity conservation and environment protection.
“The project is running birdwatching and tree nursery programmes in six schools. In addition, the communities were provided with 15,000 seedlings to plant at their homes and open areas as part of landscape restoration,” she said.
Mwaja said the conservation of white storks in Kongwa and Mpwapwa in Dodoma started in 2021 in four villages, two in Kongwa and the other two in Mpwapwa.
She said Nature Tanzania commends its stakeholders including offices of District Commissioners of Kongwa and Mpwapwa, TFS, their donors NABU International Foundation and Sustainable Health Initiative (SHI) for giving reproductive health education to the residents.
