East African Business Week

ARUSHA, TANZANIA-Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) has this financial year set aside a total of Tsh700m meant for supporting community initiative projects throughout the country.
"The funds were allocated in this year's budget totaling Tsh700m to support community initiative projects in and around the national parks and the aim is to make society feel that they are also responsible for conservation of the environment in the national parks," said the authority's public relations manager Pascal Shelulete.
"This is because they have got a big role to play on conservation and also feel the impact of wildlife conflicts for example when animals cross to land and destroy their crops, so to make them feel that we are also responsible we support them through projects initiated by themselves," he told East African Business Week in an interview last week at his offices in Arusha, Tanzania.
He said that the authority introduced a policy where they contributor 70% of the proposed project and the community contribute the remaining 30%. "We get the project ideas from for example if they a school to be constructed, water wells and then we discuss on how to implement the project," he explained.