Blog

This reporting period students participated in two major academic activities; these are Traveling Lecture and Expedition.

The traveling lecture was done to Jangwani Wildlife Corridor in Mto wa Mbu area. The Jangwani corridor serves as the wildlife migration corridor between core protected areas in the Tarangire-Manyara ecosystem. This connects Manyara and Tarangire National Parks, Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Manyara Ranch, and also is used as the game hunting ground.

Students learned the importance of the corridor to the sustainability of wildlife resources and how local people can participate in protection of these corridors. The Jangwani corridor also is part of the Lake Manyara Biosphere Reserve, where students held a discussion on the concept of biosphere reserve and the current challenges facing Lake Manyara and suggested possible solutions for these challenges. Furthermore, they were lectured on how wildlife hunting activity is being conducted legally in Tanzania with the conservationists dilemma of whether continue or stop hunting.

The Expedition was from February 28^{th to} March 05^th, 2013 to Tarangire and Arusha National Parks. Also students have had an opportunity to visit and have a focus group discussion with the Burunge Wildlife Management Area leadership on local community participation in the conservation of wildlife resources as the type of land use for economic and social benefits.  In Tarangire National Park, students had a field exercise on identification of elephant sex and age, and general wildlife counts. In Arusha National Park, students mainly carried out water bird counts and animal association exercises.

Ultimately, the travelling lecture and expedition were academically very enriching to students as they exposed them to true situations in the field and enabled them to conduct practical field exercises.