Author Archives: editor

TANZANIA IN THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

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by Donovan McGrath

Tanzanian opposition leader Freeman Mbowe in court to face charges
(Aljazeera online – UAE) Extract: Freeman Mbowe, leader of Tanzania’s main opposition party, has appeared in court to face “terrorism” charges, in a case denounced by his supporters as a politically motivated move aimed at crushing dissent. The 59-year-old chairman of the Chadema party has been behind bars since July 21 when he was arrested along with other senior party officials in a night-time police raid just hours before they were to hold a public forum to demand constitutional reforms… The opposition has denounced the arrests as a throwback to the oppressive rule of Tanzania’s late leader John Magufuli who died suddenly in March. There had been hope that [Salmia Suluhu] Hassan would bring about a new era of democracy after the increasingly heavy-handed rule of Magufuli but Chadema leaders say the arrests of Mbowe and his colleagues reflect a deepening slide into “dictatorship”…. (31 August 2021) Thanks to John Rollinson who informed me of two brief mentions of Freeman Mbowe’s court appearances published in the weekly politics section of the Economist – Editor

‘No power to stop it’: optimism turns to frustration over east Africa pipline
(Guardian online – UK) Promised an income, those affected by $20bn oil project are losing their land and resources instead. Extract continues: The villagers in the Kijungu settlements welcomed the project when the route was announced in 2017, hoping that the government and companies involved would buy their land and change their lives for good. Their optimism has since given way to frustration. Adrin Tugume, 53, depends on her land to feed her 10 children and sell bananas, cassava, beans and maize. Although construction is not yet under way, she has been asked to stay off the portion of land where the pipeline will be built. “I was stopped from using my land for three years. It is where we get food for our children… The opposition to the project is not just about humanitarian concerns. The east African crude oil pipeline (EACOP) will transport oil 900 miles (1,450km) from the shores of Lake Albert on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo through Tanzania to the port of Tanga on the Indian Ocean… Uganda and Tanzania signed agreements with the French oil and gas company Total and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). The pipeline will pass through the habitats of at-risk species. It could jeopardise community water sources and pollute the air, and its construction will be intrusive and noisy. In Shinyanga in Tanzania, local government authorities have admitted that environmental disturbance is inevitable. The $20bn (£14.8bn) project … comes as world leaders are aiming to divest from fossil fuels. The pipeline will contribute to the climate crisis, locking in more oil use and planet heating emissions for decades to come. Total did not respond to a request for comment, while CNOOC’s spokesperson said it was committed to avoiding environmental damage… In Tanzania … an environmental impact statement prepared for the companies noted that vulnerable or endangered species had been found in the pipeline’s path, including elephants, hippos and lions… (7 November 2021)

Tanzania: Seven die in Zanzibar after eating poisonous turtle meat
(BBC online – UK) Seven people, including a three-year-old, have died on Tanzania’s Pemba Island after eating poisonous turtle meat. Extract continues: The meat is a common delicacy among those living on Tanzania’s islands and coastal areas but the authorities have now banned the consumption of turtles in the area. In rare cases turtle meat can be toxic because of a type of food poisoning known as chelonitoxism. Its exact cause is not known but it is thought to be linked to poisonous algae which the turtles eat, according to the Turtle Foundation charity. At least five families on Pemba, which is part of the semi-autonomous Zanzibar islands, ate the turtle meat … local police commander Juma Said Hamis told the BBC. The effects were first felt the next day and the three-year-old was the first to die. Two others died that night and then four more [later on]. A further 39 people were admitted to hospital… [I]n Madagascar, 19 people, including nine children, died after eating turtle meat, the AFP news agency reported at the time. Cases have also been reported in Indonesia, Micronesia and India’s Indian Ocean islands. (29 November 2021)

Twitter removes more than 3,000 accounts related to state-linked operations from countries including China, Russia and Mexico
(Mail online – UK) Extract: …The Twitter accounts that were removed were linked to operations attributed to six countries: Mexico, China, Russia, Tanzania, Uganda and Venezuela. In a blog post, Twitter said that ‘every account and piece of content associated with these operations has been permanently removed from the service.’ … It is not yet known how Twitter knew which accounts to remove, but the blog post did outline that: … [in the case of Tanzania] A network of 268 accounts dedicated to filing bad faith reports against free speech platform Fichua Tanzania were removed … (2 December 2021)

In conversation with Jane Goodall on climate change – and remaining hopeful for the future
(Washington Post online – USA) Extract: A half century ago, Jane Goodall was spending months at a time sitting in the Gombe forest in what is now Tanzania waiting for wild chimps to approach her so that she could observe their behaviour. Her superhuman patience paid off. The young researcher discovered that chimps are more like us than we had imagined – lavishing affection on their young, forming social hierarchies, making tools and even warring with rival bands. But Goodall says that her most vital work began when she left the forest and started traveling across the globe to talk about climate change and the tragic loss of biodiversity. The pandemic has kept the 87-year-old naturalist at home in Bournemouth, England, where she continues to speak out online, especially with young people participating in “Roots & Shoots,” a volunteer program which she organized that empowers young people in 60 countries to work in their communities to improve the lives of humans, animals and the environment. She’s also been working on “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times” [published October 2021]. In a series of dialogues with co-author Douglas Abrams, she spells out her four reasons for hope: the amazing human intellect; the resilience of nature; the power of young people; and the indomitable human spirit. In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Goodall spoke on climate change, the state of the planet and why she has not yet given up hope on the human species… Q: Isn’t it a bit audacious to come out with a book about hope at this moment when so many are feeling anxious and fearful? What makes you hopeful? A: I was 5 years old when World War II began. There was a time when Britain stood alone in Europe against the might of Nazi Germany. The rest of Europe was overrun and defeated, or they capitulated. Actually there was no good reason for hope. We didn’t have the defenses. We hadn’t built up an adequate army, navy or air force. But we did have some very brave young men, and we had [Winston] Churchill saying “We’ll fight on the beaches, we’ll fight in the cities, we’ll fight in the lanes and we will not be defeated.” I think we can prevail now with the same spirit… “We will defeat covid, we will fight to prevent another pandemic.” Q: Some people say that we need to go through a period of real destruction before humans are moved to actually change the way we operate. A: Well yes, when I say “good news” don’t get me wrong, but the good news for climate change is that no longer is it mainly in the news about countries like Bangladesh, but it’s hitting the Western world. Think of the recent Hurricane Ida in the U.S., think of the flooding in Europe. It’s when people get personally hit by these things that they start to realize – “Wow, this is really terrible we need to do something about it.” Q: Much of the land around Gombe forest has been deforested. You speak in the book about how you’ve been inspired by young people and others are helping to restore it. A: Years ago I flew over this bleak landscape, the Gombe Forest surrounded by bare hills because there were more people than the land could support struggling to survive, cutting down the trees on the slopes in a desperate effort to get more land for crops and to make charcoal. That’s when it hit me: If we don’t help these people to find ways of making a living without destroying the environment, we can’t save chimps, forests or anything else. Now we don’t have bare hills around Gombe thanks to our TACARE [or “Take Care”] program, which has been planting trees and working with the villagers to help improve their lot. Alleviating poverty is a major task. But we need to do it if we are going to save the environment… Q: You say in your new book that humans are intellectual but not necessarily intelligent. What’s the difference? A: The intellect solves problems and it can do intricate mathematics and work out what’s out there in the universe, galaxies and solar systems and so on. But if your intelligent, you don’t destroy your only home, that isn’t intelligent. We seem to have lost wisdom… (19 October 2021)

Britain moves to ban big-game hunters from bringing trophies back into country
(Washington Post online – USA) Extract: Trophies of endangered and threatened species killed by hunters will soon be banned from being shipped to Britain, according to a government proposal that has been called one of the toughest in the world. The proposed ban … would cover nearly 7,000 animal species, including lions, rhinoceroses and elephants that many big-game hunters seek. It would be notable for including some 1,000 animals with “near-threatened” status. Over the past half-century or so, the world’s wild animal population has dropped by an average of 68 percent across different monitored species, according to a World Wildlife report from 2020. The decrease is primarily attributed to the loss of natural habitat, although some species, such as the Plains zebra, are threatened by hunting… Big-game hunters say that they contribute to local economies, a point disputed by conservation groups, which regard the activity as cruel and bad for biodiversity… British hunting enthusiasts often travel abroad – top destinations for trophy hunters globally include Tanzania and Zimbabwe – where they can obtain licenses to shoot wild animals according to animal welfare advocacy groups… (11 December 2021)

Fossil footprints hint at mystery hominin with unusual walking style
(New Scientist online – UK) Extract: Ancient footprints that were originally thought to have been made by a bear walking on two legs were actually made by an extinct human species. The discovery means there are now three known sets of hominin footprints from the same locale in Tanzania. It isn’t clear which hominin species made the prints. The authors of a new study say they don’t match the other sets of footprints at Laetoli, a site in Tanzania, so were probably made by a different species. If this is true, it would mean that two hominin species coexisted in the same region at the same time… (1 December 2021)

Bidders for Unilever’s tea business pulled out on plantation concerns
(Business Fast online – UK) Extract: Two of the three final bidders for Unilever’s tea division baulked at taking on the company’s plantations because of concerns about working conditions, according to people familiar with the matter. The tea division, which included PG Tips and Lipton brands, was sold … to CVC Capital Partners for €4.5bn. But the Luxembourg-based buyout group was left as the only bidder willing to buy the whole division after Carlyle and Advent International decided they could not take on tea plantations in east Africa, which face difficult questions over human rights and fair pay… Advent had grown increasingly concerned about accepting responsibility for the health, welfare and security of thousands of plantation workers, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Bosses on the plantations have power not only over workers’ jobs but also their housing and medical care, as the sites are often in remote areas and rely on workers brought in from elsewhere… Around 8,500 people are permanently employed on the Unilever plantations in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda, and this rises to about 16,000 when temporary workers are added in peak season, Unilever said… (19 November 2021)

Climate change will melt Africa’s last glaciers ‘within two decades’
(Times online – UK) Extract: Africa’s last mountain glaciers will disappear within two decades, the United Nations has said. The UN World Meteorological Organisation’s latest annual report said that the glaciers on Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro and the Rwenzori range along the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda are receding faster than the global average and will have melted entirely by the 2040s. The glaciers of all three ranges have shrunk by more than 80 per cent in the past 100 years as a result of rising temperatures caused by man-made climate change. Mount Kenya is expected to be the first peak to lose its glaciers completely, with the ice at its summit forecast to melt away within the next 10 years…(24 October 2021)

Fastest growing cities in Africa 2021
(Business Insider Africa online – Nigeria) This article gives a top ten list of the fastest growing cities on the African continent in 2021, according to the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) research. Tanzania, which is of interest here, is listed in tenth place (Ghana’s capital, Accra, is listed in first place, and Nairobi in ninth place). Extract: According to Brahima Coulibaly, director of Brookings’ Africa Growth Initiative, “About half of the world’s fastest-growing economies will be located on the continent, with 20 economies expanding at an average rate of 5% or higher over the next five years, faster than the 3.6% rate for the global economy.” By 2050, Africa’s population is anticipated to reach about 2 billion inhabitants, and more economic activities are taking place, counterbalancing the increasing population. … Dar es Salaam has more than 6 million inhabitants making it the largest city in the country… Considering the population of 3.4 million from the census data obtained in 2005, it is projected that by 2025 the population of Dar es Salaam will be about 6.2 million [a rise of] 82%. (3 December 2021)

REVIEWS

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by Martin Walsh

SWAHILI SOCIAL LANDSCAPES: MATERIAL EXPRESSIONS OF IDENTITY, AGENCY, AND LABOUR IN ZANZIBAR, 1000-1400 CE (STUDIES IN GLOBAL ARCHAEOLOGY 26). Henriette Rødland. Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Sweden, 2021. xii + 321 pp. (paperback and e-book). ISBN 978-91-506-2896-8 (print). Print copies available from online booksellers: free to download at http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1584047/FULLTEXT01.pdf.

I am delighted to review Rødland’s work. Swahili Social Landscapes makes an important and thoughtful contribution to our study of Zanzibar’s rich history. Based on her doctoral dissertation, it focuses on the “social and productive landscapes” of Tumbatu and Mkokotoni. Tumbatu is an island off the northwestern coast of Unguja (Zanzibar) Island, while Mkokotoni lies on Unguja itself, across the channel from Tumbatu. Both sites were occupied between the 11th and 15th centuries CE.

This study questions traditional narratives of the Swahili that are based exclusively on Indian Ocean trade networks, Islam, stone towns, and hierarchically organised societies. Instead, Rødland explores how Swahili social identity and status were expressed through labour, foodways, gender, and material culture. In short, she seeks to decentre much of the focus of Swahili archaeology until now, looking instead at how social identities were created and maintained by other means. Thus, rather than focusing on how elites gained status through a display of imported ceramics, Rødland examines how space, craft production, and its attendant knowledge were all used to create and maintain identities. As Rødland points out, even though Tumbatu and Mkokotoni were part of ‘the Swahili World’, both sites revealed scant evidence for status distinction. Rødland interprets this to mean that imported material culture was not monopolised by an elite, but rather was available to most of the population.

Rødland’s assertion that the two sites were “neighbourhoods” of the same settlement, with Tumbatu being devoted to trade and Mkokotoni devoted to production, is backed up by strong evidence. It is difficult to disagree with her conclusion that space and its use played a powerful role in the creation of social identities.

My hope is that Rødland’s work will serve as a model for future conversations about the Swahili and the creation of identity. As Rødland notes, the term “Swahili” itself has been in use only for 200 years, and it is a term originally used by Omani Arabs to refer to some of the local population. Rødland’s wry observation that no one consulted the Swahili about their preferred identity hits home, especially in archaeological studies, where “Swahili” is used to describe peoples on the East African coast for at least the last millennium.

All in all, Rødland’s work shows us the importance of breaking from traditional narratives about the Swahili, and in exploring new ways in which precolonial African populations conceived of themselves and generated social identities. Hopefully, Rødland’s work heralds a new phase in the archaeology of the East African coast, where more nuance and sensitivity is employed to understand the past.

Akshay Sarathi
Akshay Sarathi is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Florida Atlantic University. His research concerns the movement of meat across landscapes. His current work is focused on the site of Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar.

THE SLOPE OF KONGWA HILL: A BOY’S TALE OFAFRICA. Anthony R. Edwards. Agio Publishing House, Victoria BC, Canada, 2011. 420 pp. (paperback). ISBN 978-1-897435-65-6. £22.89. Also available as an e-book: a pdf sampler can be downloaded from the publisher’s website here: http://www. agiopublishing.com/authors/tonyedwards/.

Kongwa town, 60 miles east of Dodoma, will be known to readers, first, for the cattle ranch of the National Ranching Company (NARCO), and secondly, for the British government’s notorious and ill-fated Groundnut Scheme of 1949-52 (reviewed in Tanzanian Affairs 129). But the Scheme left a legacy which is less well-known – first, the good health of the local people, nourished on a plentiful supply of groundnuts, and secondly, the establishment of Kongwa School for European children.

This book is the story of that school, seen through the eyes of a boy whose father served as Mayor of Lindi. Hundreds of children from many parts of East Africa attended the school from 1949 to 1958, when it moved to Iringa, until it was liquidated with the approach of independence. True to the English public school tradition, it featured fagging, bullying and corporal punishment – a life of misery for young children snatched from their mothers’ arms sometimes at far too young an age, but exciting for older teenagers who were asked to bring their rifles to school so that in times of meat scarcity they could go out and hunt their own. The beginnings of romantic experiences in this mixed school are described, also the hospitality and kindness received from local villagers on the rare occasions when a group of children broke bounds to go exploring. Even incursions from the Mau Mau of Kenya were thought to be a threat, but the incident when they set up camp near the school, communicating with one another by Morse code, was found to be a fictional tale invented by one boy’s over-fertile imagination.

Remnants of those far-off days are still visible – the English style village church on the hillside, the swimming pool, the hospital, the teachers’ houses called ‘Millionaires’ Row’, the railway station – all inherited from the Groundnut Scheme. Perhaps the most significant legacy is the local Mnyakongo Primary School, with 800 pupils using the same old buildings. In 2008 a group of now quite ancient alumni paid a nostalgic visit to their old School and were so warmly welcomed by the teachers and children of Mnyakongo that they have set up an ongoing partnership, with gifts of books and equipment, described in an appendix with a collection of photographs of those far off days both in Kongwa and in Lindi.

This book is a snapshot from the ‘bad old days’ of colonialism, but the school left in the minds of those boys and girls a love of Africa and a respect for Africans which makes old sentiments of racial superiority or segregation quite meaningless, and is bearing fruit 70 years later. The book is an easy read, interspersed with Swahili and Cigogo and full of personal touches.

Roger Bowen
Roger Bowen taught at St Philip’s Theological College, Kongwa, in the 1970s and chaired the Swahili Theology Textbooks programme of East Africa.

PROTECTED AREAS IN NORTHERN TANZANIA: LOCAL COMMUNITIES, LAND USE CHANGE, AND MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES (GEOTECHNOLOGIES AND THE ENVIRONMENT 22). Jeffrey O. Durrant, Emanuel H. Martin, Kokel Melubo, Ryan R. Jensen, Leslie A. Hadfield, Perry J. Hardin, and Laurie Weisler (editors). Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 2020. viii + 179 pp. (paperback). ISBN: 978-3-030-43304-8. £69.99. Also available in hardback and as an e-book.

This edited collection of papers on Protected Areas in Northern Tanzania is the outcome of a collaboration between the College of African Wildlife Management at Mweka and researchers – mostly geographers – at Brigham Young University in the United States. Following a foreword by the Rector of Mweka, Professor Jafari R. Kideghesho, the volume is introduced with a brief overview of Tanzania’s protected area system and its history by Jeffrey O. Durrant and Rebecca Formica. This introductory chapter is followed by eleven more on different aspects of protected area and natural resource management in northern Tanzania.

In order to give potential readers a fair idea of this book’s varied contents, the following paragraphs are taken from the summary that is tacked onto the end of the opening chapter:

“Chapter 2 illustrates some of the real costs of population growth and modern society’s move toward mass production of agriculture, such as at coffee plantations. While cavity-nesting birds have done well in protected areas, [Hamadi] Dulle et al. found the birds are facing some irreversible forces through population growth and changes in land use outside of protected areas. Dulle et al. found that heavy losses of deadwood near coffee plantations are negatively impacting cavity-nesting birds. Dulle et al. examined the effects of providing artificial nesting boxes and suggest them as one option to address losses of these nesting birds that is seen as irreversible.

[Leslie] Hadfield takes a historic look at how Africa’s colonial past is impacting current tourist interaction with the porters and guides on Mount Kilimanjaro (Chap. 3). Hadfield examines how some attitudes from the use of porters in colonial expeditions have evolved to modern-day tourism. Even with current porter organization efforts to prevent colonial-type practices that require constant service to outsiders with little regard for the health and well-being of the local porters and guides, challenges such as heavy loads, poor equipment, and inadequate food and safety remain.

Looking at Arusha National Park, [Obeid] Mahenya [and Naomi Chacha] (Chap. 4) study how the individualized impacts to those living nearby affected their attitudes toward the Park. Mahenya et al.’s [sic] study found that the attitudes of locals were more positive toward Arusha National Park in relation to giraffes, since giraffes present few problems to the residents and are associated with the positive benefits of tourists. However, more negative attitudes resulted from interactions with more destructive animals such as baboons or when people had been fined for domestic livestock grazing in the Park.

Similarly, [Kokel] Melubo et al. (Chap. 5) found that having personal experiences in protected areas contributed to better attitudes and ability to manage protected areas. Melubo et al. studied students at CAWM who had been involved in a wilderness training program that involved at least a short overnight experience in a protected area. Students who participated in these programs were found to be better equipped to operate and manage protected areas in their future careers.

Extending the theme of effective protected area management, [Rehema Abeli] Shoo evaluates the impact of having an effective management structure in place on the success of ecotourism (Chap. 6). Shoo found that a sound management plan can help managers avoid obstacles that often prevent successful ecotourism, such as environmental deterioration and inequitable development among the local communities. Shoo studied Lake Natron, which has a high potential for ecotourism development However, Shoo found that without a sound general management plan, Lake Natron suffered from inadequate funding at the operational level, lack of mechanisms to secure a fair distribution of ecotourism benefits, and poorly developed tourism infrastructure and facilities that reduced the potential for successful ecotourism at the park.

[Alfan] Rjia and [Jafari] Kideghesho examined nine poacher’s strategies used in the Serengeti ecosystem (Chap. 7). They argue that increased enforcement of wildlife crimes has influenced adaptability in poacher’s strategies. Field rangers and wildlife managers can use the nine strategies they described to more effectively combat wildlife crimes, and the authors provide three recommendations to help inform field patrols and other mitigation efforts.

In Chap. 8, [Alex] Kisingo and [Professor] Kidegheso present findings from previous community governance studies using a V3 model. They found some changes in community governance with regard to conservation, livelihood improvement, and social benefits. They also note some setbacks in community governance that need to be addressed. Several chapters examine biophysical characteristics of protected areas in northern Tanzania.

[Emmanuel] Martin et al. (Chap. 9) used temporal remote sensing data to study land use and land cover change near the Kwakuchinja Wildlife Corridor in northern Tanzania. They found that while a paved road provided better connections between two towns, it also impacted animal movement between two national parks by providing a physical obstacle and bringing in more settlement. Satellite remote sensing data showed that over time, the most significant changes were from bare ground to “savanna with some agriculture” and “agriculture with some grassland.”

[Gideon] Mseja et al. used transect lines in Mkomazi National Park to count wild animals as ground reference information for the population density (Chap. 10). A total of 22 species were estimated, and African Buffalo (Syncerus caffer) was the most common species, while Gerenuk (Litocranius walleri) was the least. Mseja et al. suggest other methods be used to count more elusive species. For example, camera traps could be used to estimate carnivores and dung counts for elephants. The combination of these methods can give a benchmark for future population estimates.

In Chap. 11, [Emmanuel] Martin et al. used MODIS land cover data and scripts in Google Earth to examine vegetation change within Mkomazi National Park in northeastern Tanzania both before and after it became a national park in 2008. The data showed relatively subtle changes and most likely reflect that only subtle changes in land management policy have occurred since its conversion from two separate game reserves.

Finally, in Chap. 12, [Professor] Kideghesho et al. review the challenging dynamics between wildlife conservation and human population growth and urbanization. The authors provide recommendations on the best manner to minimize the negative impacts of human population growth on large mammals.”

As this summary indicates, this is very much a mixed bag of papers, and there isn’t a very strong or even coherent theme to the volume. The nature of the collaboration between the two institutions involved is not explained, and the book appears to have been assembled hastily and without proper proofreading. A paragraph introducing the above summary of chapters is repeated word for word, except that the first time round (on p. 11) it states that the book has eight further chapters, and the next time (on p. 12) it says ten, when there are actually eleven more chapters.

This is not good enough for a publisher of Springer Nature’s status and such a costly volume. No doubt many researchers will find something of interest in this collection, but I suspect that most would rather consult it in a library than dig into their purses and wallets.
Martin Walsh
Martin Walsh is the Book Reviews Editor of Tanzanian Affairs.

Also noticed:
BIRDS OF EAST AFRICA: KENYA, TANZANIA, UGANDA, RWANDA, BURUNDI. SECOND EDITION (HELM FIELD GUIDES). Terry Stevenson and John Fanshawe. Illustrated by John Gale and Brian Small. Helm, London, 2020. 640 pp., 287 colour plates (paperback). ISBN: PB: 978-1-4081-5736-7. £31.50. Also available in hardback and as an e-book.

This new edition of Birds of East Africa substantially updates the first, which appeared in 2002 and is described by the publisher as “the best-selling Helm field guide of all time” – a reflection, in part, of its comprehensiveness and the popularity of birding in East Africa. The authors describe the changes they have made to the species accounts as follows:

“This second edition covers 1,448 species, which represents around 70% of the birds that have been recorded in sub-Saharan Africa. […] Recent taxonomic changes include the creation of three new families: Modulatricidae, Nicatoridae, Hyliotidae.

Although our knowledge is steadily increasing, there is still an enormous amount to learn about East Africa’s birds. New species and races are still being described: Udzungwa Forest-partridge, not only a new bird but also a new genus to science, was found in the montane forests of south-central Tanzania in 1991. New species in this edition include range extensions, taxa now considered specifically distinct, and additional scarce and vagrant species.

In our first edition, the taxonomy and nomenclature were largely based on the East African list that was published in 1980 (Britton, P. L. 1980, Birds of East Africa, East Africa Natural History Society). Since then, the growth in birding and citizen science worldwide has seen the emergence of four major global lists: the IOC World Bird List, the Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, the eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World (in collaboration with Cornell University), and the HBW (Handbook of the Birds of the World) and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist. All of these lists are compared online by the comprehensive and regularly updated resource, Avibase.

While taking close account of the first edition and the three other global lists, we have chosen to base the majority of this revised Birds of East Africa on the HBW/BirdLife taxonomy and nomenclature. Throughout, we have provided alternative common names, as well as explaining any scientific name changes in notes. Although this means that a number of changes in common names have occurred, we hope that it actually represents a move towards wider stability in names, both in East Africa and worldwide. If hyphens and capitalisation are excluded, there is agreement on 85% of the common names in the HBW/ BirdLife, IOC and eBird/Clements lists. For the birding community, working together to agree and stabilise taxonomy is crucial for citizen science and conservation.”

As this implies, birders will always find something to quibble about. But whichever way you look at it, this is a superb resource. My main wish, as with the first edition, is that arrows had been used on the distribution maps to indicate the presence of species on the region’s larger islands. Those tiny splotches of colour can be hard to see without a magnifying glass.

Martin Walsh

OBITUARIES

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by Ben Taylor

Al Noor Kassum (known to many as Nick) died on 18 November 2021 in Dar es Salaam, aged 97. Continuously from 1977 until his retirement from Government in 1990 he served Presidents Nyerere and Mwinyi as the Minister for Energy, at different times also having responsibility for Water and Minerals. As is apparent from his fascinating 2007 book, Africa’s Winds of Change: Memoirs of an International Tanzanian, Nick had an illustrious career in both the public and private sectors, at the national and international levels spanning the colonial and Independence eras.

Educated in England and India (from where his family migrated to Tanganyika in 1896), he qualified as a lawyer in London and later established a legal practice in Dar. Before Independence he was a member of the Legislative Assembly, MP for Dodoma and TANU’s Chief Whip. After Independence he held junior Ministerial positions covering Education and Information, and then Industries, Minerals and Power. In the mid-1960s he moved to work with the UN in Paris and New York before the UN Secretary-General U-Thant appointed him Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 1967. In 1970, he returned to Tanzania as Deputy General Manager of Williamson Diamonds and then from 1972 he served as Minister of Finance in the East Africa Community in Arusha. After 1990 Kassum held several senior University, Foundation and Board positions in Tanzania. He was also The Aga Khan’s Personal Representative in the country.

Having known Nyerere from pre-Independence days, Nick Kassum was the only serving Cabinet Minister to be awarded the ‘Order of Tanzania’ when Mwalimu retired in 1985. Nyerere particularly valued his ability during the acutely difficult economic years of the early 1980s to keep the nation supplied with critical oil imports, an almost impossible task for a country with meagre foreign exchange and burdened with huge outstanding international debts.

Within the Tanzanian Government, Kassum also then led the development of the country’s only known hydrocarbon resource (the gas field at Songo Songo) and spear-headed the considerable petroleum and mineral exploration efforts by the many multinational companies which signed sole-risk agreements with Government. He also oversaw the largest expansion of the national electricity grid that the country had ever witnessed. Effectively, he laid the foundations for Tanzania’s substantial offshore gas discoveries in the 1990s and 2000s, also bequeathing a strengthened TPDC and Ministry staffed with an expanded cadre of excellent Tanzanian professionals. At one Cabinet meeting in the early-1980s, Nyerere told him: “Nick, you are the only optimist among us. One day you will be remembered for all this”.

I worked closely with Nick Kassum in Tanzania during the 1980s and we remained in contact subsequently. It was a privilege to know him, and his wife Yasmin too, whose tragic and untimely death in 2016 was a blow from which he never really recovered. Rightly, many warm tributes have been paid to Nick since his passing – applauding his abilities, humanity and generosity. He features large in my own memoir, to be published in early 2022.

Roger M Nellist
Roger Nellist is a former analyst and advisor to the Tanzanian government on energy and minerals. He also covered the energy and minerals brief for Tanzanian Affairs between 2013 and 2021.

Zacharia Hans Poppe, a prominent figure in the Tanzanian business community, well known particularly for his leadership role at Simba Sports Club, died in September 2021 at the age of 65.

Born in Dar es Salaam to a Greek father and Tanzanian mother, Poppe was brought up in Iringa by his mother. He joined the Tanzania People’s Defence Force (TPDF) shortly after completing his secondary education, and served in the war against Idi Amin’s Uganda. He reached the rank of Captain before being dismissed and sentenced to life in prison in 1983 for his role in an unsuccessful coup plot against President Julius Nyerere.

“Some of us got fed up and decided to look for change. The only viable option to achieve change at that time was through the use of force. We had nothing personal against Nyerere. The only thing was that he was surrounded by hypocrites whose survival depended solely on maintaining the status quo,” he later recounted.

In 1995, the second-term President, Alhaj Ally Hassan Mwinyi released Poppe on a presidential pardon.

While in Butimba Prison, Poppe founded the Prison’s Premier League and formed the Simba Prison team. His love of football, and of Simba in particular, was deep. He became a prominent figure at the club, in the influential role as head of the Player Registration Committee, responsible for signing new players.

Poppe was also a leading figure in the transportation sector, both for his own fuel and truck businesses and as president and founder of the Tanzania Association of Transporters (TAT).

Tanzania Truck Owners Association’s spokesperson Raheem Dosa said: “During his lifetime Hans Poppe was a loud voice when he saw things were not going well. He was honest, open and fearless, a very talented person who had made a significant contribution to the development of the country and the region.”

Professor Reginald Herbold Green who died in Sussex, England in October 2021, was a seasoned “old Africa hand.” Often dishevelled or eccentric in appearance, he was nevertheless hugely respected as a sharp-minded, deeply moral, progressive economist, at least by those on the left of economic debates.

As an American at a time when US involvement in African politics was controversial, people sometimes looked at him with suspicion. But he earned the trust of many African leaders including President Julius Nyerere as well as leaders of liberation movements from Mozambique to Namibia.

From the late 1960s, he worked as advisor in the Tanzanian Treasury, economic advisor to President Nyerere, and taught economic planning in the Master’s degree programme at the University of Dar es Salaam. An ardent supporter of the thrust of President Nyerere’s policies and programmes, he nevertheless steered clear of the sharp ideological debates between “Ujamaa” and Marxism.

He left Tanzania in 1974 to take up a post at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, where he remained until his retirement in 2000. He remained in touch with Tanzania’s political leaders and academic community [and was a contributor to Tanzanian Affairs].

Professor Green wrote prolifically, including more than 500 published professional articles, papers, book chapters and books. His influential early book, Unity or Poverty: The Economics of Pan Africanism (1968), made the case for African countries to coordinate as a key condition for development. But his most impactful contribution was probably Children on the Front Line (1987), in which he estimated that more than two million children under five in Mozambique and Angola had died as a result of South Africa’s destructive economic and military policies targeted on these countries. The study helped bring a change in western support to the apartheid regime of South Africa.

SAMIA’S FIRST SIX MONTHS

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by Ben Taylor

Six months into the presidency of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, it remains unclear what her leadership will bring. In some areas she has shown a clear change of direction compared to her predecessor, while in others the difference brought about by the change of leader has been barely discernible.

There are three areas where the change is considerable. The first of these is her handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, where she has abandoned some of the more idiosyncratic approaches employed by President Magufuli [see separate article].

Second is her diplomatic outlook. Her predecessor rarely travelled outside the country and delivered a pugnacious style of foreign policy, based on the starting assumption that everyone else’s intentions towards Tanzania are malign. In contrast, President Hassan has employed a more open style and a gentler touch. And she has travelled more: already visiting Uganda (twice), Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, meaning she has made as many foreign trips in her first six months as President Magufuli took in his entire time in office.

She has taken steps to patch up relations with Kenya, particularly over trade in agricultural produce. A Presidential visit to Kenya delivered a bilateral deal to abolish the restrictions that Nairobi had imposed on Tanzanian maize, which in turn led to a reported six-fold increase in maize exports to Kenya.

Under her leadership, the Tanzanian government has also ratified the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement. This is expected to attract more investors and provide access to a large market for the country’s produce and workers. If implemented successfully, the newly formed free trade area will unlock a regional market of 1.2 billion people with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $3.4 trillion for international investors. The AfCFTA agreement, signed in March 2018, hopes to double intra-African trade. The official start of trading was delayed in 2020 by the Coronavirus pandemic, but it began officially on January 1st 2021. Tanzania now joins 41 other countries as part of the agreement.

The third area of difference is her attitude towards economics, and business in particular. President Magufuli’s “bulldozer” style encompassed his approach to economic matters, including a no-nonsense stance on taxation and an aggressive posture towards the business interests of those he perceived as working against him. Foreign investors complained that the business environment had become more difficult. The economic effects of these positions are hard to assess with confidence, particularly given how politicised official economic data became under his Presidency – to the point where the IMF and World Bank pointedly stopped trusting official figures. Nevertheless, the effects are widely perceived to have included both a tightening of economic conditions and an increase in tax revenues.

President Hassan, in contrast, has made overtures to investors and business leaders. She has said that henceforth, tax collection would focus on compliance instead of coercion and intimidation. She has also promised that her government will actively listen to business leaders, so it can understand and address their complaints.

At the same time, the new President has attracted criticism for the way her government has turned its tax-raising attention to ordinary citizens – through the mobile money tax [see Economics and Business section in this issue], and through other measures that hit the poor hardest, such as refocussing building taxes on renters rather than landlords.

On domestic political matters, the extent to which President Hassan has diverged from President Magufuli’s heavy-handed style remains highly uncertain. Despite initial signs of a relaxation of restrictions on political activity and freedom of expression, more recently there have been growing concerns among pro-democracy groups that the new President’s approach may have more in common with her predecessor’s than previously thought.

Most obviously, the arrest and detention of opposition leader Freeman Mbowe on terrorism charges [see separate article] provoked such concerns. The extent to which the President was involved in the decision to charge Mbowe is unclear, but it is unlikely that it would have gone ahead without her approval. She has also spoken about the case, telling the BBC that the charges were not politically motivated and arguing that the country remains very democratic. She added that while the case is in court she is not at liberty to discuss it in detail, and advised that the judiciary should be left to do their job.

Similar concerns have been prompted by the suspension of two newspapers. In early September, Raia Mwema, a leading Swahili-language weekly, was suspended for 30 days, for “repeatedly publishing false information and deliberate incitement,” according to Gerson Msigwa, the government’s chief spokesperson. He cited three recent stories, including one about a gunman who killed four people in a rampage through a diplomatic quarter of Dar es Salaam. The article linked the gunman to ruling party Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), according to Msigwa, adding that the article violated the 2016 Media Services Act.

The other suspension, introduced several weeks earlier, arguably hints at perhaps the greatest challenge President Hassan faces. In this case, the CCM-owned Uhuru newspaper was suspended for 14 days, after publishing a front page story under the headline: “I Don’t Have Intentions to Contest for Presidency in 2025 – Samia.”

A power struggle underway?
To suspend her own party’s newspaper, particularly given the subject of the offending article, suggests an internal struggle for control within CCM. President Magufuli had built up a party machinery filled with his supporters. Many of these are uncomfortable with some of the changes President Hassan has brought in. Others are more pragmatic, adjusting their stances to align with the new circumstances. Yet more are looking anxiously (or ambitiously) towards 2025, when the next Presidential elections are due.

The constitution is clear: President Hassan is entitled to run again for President in 2025. President Magufuli would not have been eligible to do so. (Unless he had brought in constitutional change to term limits, which had looked possible but which is now a moot point.) Thus any party figure with presidential aspirations faces the probable reality that those ambitions will have to be delayed by five more years. There are no doubt some prominent and influential figures and their supporters who are frustrated by this, some of whom may have wished to foster an expectation President Hassan should merely serve out President Magufuli’s second term and then step down in 2025.

Internal power struggles within CCM are nothing new. President Magufuli himself became leader of the party without a strong base of support – essentially a compromise candidate – and it took some time (and a strong will) before he was able to stifle the grumblings of internal dissent and shape the party in his own image. The popularity he gained with the public for his no-nonsense approach and vocal patriotism made it hard for opponents within the party to stand up to him, and he came down hard on anyone who expressed critical views.

Nevertheless, President Hassan faces an even more difficult challenge. Having become President on the basis of being Vice President at the time of her predecessor’s untimely death, and having essentially been hand-picked for Vice President by a tiny group of party insiders rather than by the membership at large, she starts with an even weaker power base than President Magufuli had. She is yet to prove herself with the public. And she has to contend with two large sets of party members who are pre-disposed to remain lukewarm towards her: die-hard Magufuli supporters and those with presidential ambitions of their own.

These challenges may also be showing up in President Hassan’s handling of other matters – such as Covid-19, or even the arrest of Mbowe. Would she be inclined to do things differently if she didn’t have internal party management matters to consider? Is she picking her battles carefully, choosing where to apply her limited political capital and where to let things go?

Even beyond politics, Covid, diplomacy and economics, there are other matters of significance where the President is yet to make her direction clear. Will she maintain President Magufuli’s hard-line approach to corruption and waste in government, or might we see the return of these problems that plagued the country in earlier periods? How will she handle the legacy of the mega-projects – the Stiegler’s Gorge dam, the purchase of aircraft for Air Tanzania – that may prove more complicated to manage than to introduce?

No-one is yet in a position to conclude with confidence what President Hassan’s style or focus will be. To date, this could perhaps be summarised as a gentler and more open version of Magufuli-ism. But isn’t a compassionate bulldozer a contradiction in terms?

MBOWE ARRESTED, CHARGED WITH TERRORISM OFFENCES

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by Ben Taylor

Freeman Mbowe before his court appearance

On July 21st, Freeman Mbowe, the leader of Tanzania’s largest opposition party Chadema, was arrested. The arrest took place at 2.30am at his hotel in Mwanza, hours before Mbowe was due to speak at a conference calling for constitutional reforms. Ten other party members, including some holding leadership positions, were also arrested.

Mbowe was charged five days later. He appeared before Kisutu Magistrate’s Court where he was charged with conspiracy and the provision of funds to commit terrorist acts under Tanzania’s Economic and Organized Crime Control Act and its Prevention of Terrorism Act, respectively. As these are terrorism-related charges, Mbowe does not have the right to apply for bail under Tanzania’s Criminal Procedure Act.

Prosecutors explained that the charges do not relate to the constitutional reform forum Chadema had planned to hold in Mwanza, but to alleged offences dating from 2020 in another part of the country.

“Moments like this take Tanzania a step backwards,” said James Mbatia, leader of the NCCR-Mageuzi opposition party. “The president’s wisdom is needed so that we move forward,” he added.

The international community were also alarmed at developments. “We have expressed our concern about the treatment and imprisonment of the opposition leader Mbowe,” said Victoria Nuland, US Under-Secretary for Political Affairs. Nuland was speaking at the end of a visit to Tanzania during which she met President Samia Suluhu Hassan and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Liberata Mulamula, as well as opposition leaders, part of a tour of several African countries.

Human rights group Amnesty International called on the Tanzania government to “substantiate the charges” against Mbowe or to release him. “His arrest and continued detention appears to be a tactic to silence critical voices as part of a growing crackdown against the political opposition,” they added.

On the occasion of his first court appearance, in early August, riot police broke up a demonstration by Mbowe supporters. They held banners “Mbowe is not a terrorist” and “Free Freeman Mbowe”.

“Freeman Mbowe, parliamentarian for 15 years, leader of the official opposition in parliament for 10 years and head of the largest legal opposition party for 17 years is not a terrorist,” said Tundu Lissu, Chadema’s deputy chairman.

Amid tight security, the trial at the high court in Dar-es-Salaam opened on August 31st. Most journalists were banned from the courtroom by police.

The government had warned foreign diplomats against turning up to the court to follow the case without notifying the foreign ministry, citing Covid-19 regulations and security concerns. Nevertheless, representatives from the British High Commission and US Embassy were present at the hearing, which was also attended by Chadema’s senior leaders.

Chadema have described the case as a throwback to the repressive era of President Magufuli, and said it represented the loss of hope that the new President would sweep away many of her predecessor’s restrictions on democratic political activity.

In a pre-trial hearing, Mbowe’s lawyers had argued that his initial arrest and detention had been unlawful, as he and his co-accused had been held for five days without being charged or being able to see his lawyers. “They told the court that they were tortured and humiliated and forced to record such statements,” said Mbowe’s lawyer, Peter Kibatala, after the hearing. He added that “These were not voluntary statements.” The court dismissed these objections and allowed that the trial should proceed.

Chadema has said prosecutors accuse Mbowe of conspiring to attack a public official, and of giving 600,000 Tanzanian shillings ($260/220 euros) towards blowing up petrol stations and public gatherings and cutting down trees to block roads.

STOP PRESS: As the trial began in early September, Regional Police Commander for Kinondoni (Dar es Salaam), Ramadhani Kingai, told the court that Freeman Mbowe had sought to recruit retired or expelled army commandos to carry out acts of terrorism in various part of Tanzania. He claimed that Mbowe and a group of others were planning to blow up fuel stations and markets and block vehicles on highways so that they could conduct robberies. He also claimed that the alleged criminal group planned to carry out these acts in the run up to the 2020 general election, with the intention of showing that Tanzania was ungovernable.

At the time of writing, the case has been adjourned to allow for a hearing on whether statements taken from the accused outside the 8-hour time limit for cautioned statements should be admissible.

CONSTITUTION DEBATE REVIVED

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by Ben Taylor

Among the many changes to Tanzania’s political landscape brought about by the change in top-level leadership, second only to Covid in prominence is perhaps the revival of debates about the country’s constitution. President Magufuli had made it clear that he had no intention of revisiting the topic, but perhaps President Samia Suluhu Hassan would see things differently. As a Zanzibari, she would certainly be expected to have a different perspective on the matter.

This was certainly the hope of both the two main opposition parties, ACT Wazalendo (with its weighty former-CUF contingent – see previous issues) and Chadema. Almost as soon as President Hassan was sworn into office, they began calling for a new constitution review process. The Chadema leader, Freeman Mbowe, publicly stated in May that his party would boycott the next general elections in 2025 unless a new constitution is in place.

“I have told Madam Samia that the constitution is not a personal issue but for the country and we will demand and fight for it with blood and sweat so that we get it before the General Election in 2025,” he said. It remains unclear what response she gave, but it certainly seemed to encourage the opposition parties that the change of President had opened a door to the possibility.

The most recent efforts to rewrite the country’s mother law had stalled in 2015, when time ran out on preparations for a referendum on a constitution drafted over the previous few years. President Kikwete’s second term of office came to an end in November of 2015, and President Magufuli saw no reason to move forward with what had become a very controversial matter, so the “proposed constitution” has never been put to a public vote. Nor was the “Warioba draft”, prepared by the Constitutional Review Commission under the leadership of former Prime Minister Joseph Warioba.

The two competing versions represent the controversy in the case. The Warioba draft proposed a substantive change to the relationship between Zanzibar and the rest of the country, with a “three government structure” comprising governments of Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania, and the United Republic. This was popular with the public on Zanzibar, including many CCM members and supporters, and with all the main opposition parties. Under President Kikwete’s guidance, however, this version was substantially edited late in the process by members of the CCM-dominated Constituent Assembly. The redrafting replaced the three government structure with something much more similar to the current two-government arrangements, motivated by concerns that the three-government approach was a ruse to split the union. It was this edited version that was set to be put to a public referendum in 2015, with results that looked set to be too close to predict.

The relationship between Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania is not the only issue prompting opposition parties to call for change. Chadema and ACT Wazalendo would each like to see changes that trim the powers of the Presidency, provide a strong and independent foundation for key bodies such as the National Electoral Commission and the judiciary, and strengthen protections for freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of association.

Nevertheless, the two competing visions for the country’s future governance, as represented by the two draft constitutions, present a serious sticking point for restarting discussions: which version should be brought back to the table? Positions on the two drafts have been deeply entrenched, and finding a way forward that allows all parties to sit together and consolidate them will not be easy.

“The President should own the process and pick a team of experts who will harmonize issues from the Second Draft Constitution and those in the Proposed Constitution,” according to Deus Kibamba of the Tanzania Constitution Forum, a civil society group.

Nor will it be easy to reach agreement that such a process should even be attempted. CCM secretary of Ideology and Publicity Shaka Hamdu Shaka, said in June that constitutional matters were not the party’s priority, that instead the ruling party was focused on national development.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan made her views on the matter known on June 28, arguing that the issue should wait so that she could have more time to guide the country to a full economic recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic. She used the term “chokochoko” (provocations) to describe the calls.

Warioba had thoughts on this: “The President has asked to be given more time, it is true, I agree, but until when? I think it is upon leaders themselves to agree on when the process of a new constitution should continue.” He suggested a referendum could be held concurrently with local government elections scheduled for late 2024.

“My advice is that these leaders should meet not to confront one another, but to have discussions on the problems facing the country: on how we deal with the Coronavirus, on a new constitution, on how we can boost our economy,” he suggested.

UK MINISTER VISITS TANZANIA

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by Ben Taylor

UK Minister for Africa, James Duddridge is welcomed to State House by President Samia Suluhu Hassan

The UK Minister for Africa, James Duddridge, met and held talks with President Samia Suluhu Hassan and Foreign Minister Liberata Mulamula on a visit to Tanzania at the start of June. The Minister also travelled to Zanzibar to meet with President Hussein Mwinyi and First Vice-President Othman Masoud Sharif, to discuss the Government of National Unity and the progress being made on political reconciliation.

In a meeting with the Minister for Industry and Trade, Kitila Mkumbo, and Minister for Investment, Geoffrey Mwambe, Mr Duddridge discussed the potential for increased UK investment in Tanzania and sought reassurances that improvements to Tanzania’s business environment would be implemented.

Mr Duddridge also visited sites where UK aid has delivered improvements to schools and hospitals.

Speaking at the end of the visit, Duddridge said he was “pleased that my first visit to Tanzania since the inauguration of President Samia Suluhu Hassan has been productive and mutually beneficial. I welcomed the President’s commitments on international cooperation, working with the business sector and seeking advice from Tanzanian experts on COVID-19 and I encouraged decisive action to tackle the effects of the pandemic in Tanzania. I look forward to engaging further as these areas progress.”

British High Commissioner to Tanzania, David Concar said “the visit of a UK Minister to Zanzibar after many years to assess progress in the unity government is an important reminder of the rich historic relationship between the UK and the islands, and demonstrates the UK’s desire to see sustained progress towards an inclusive, representative Zanzibar governed for all.”

CORONAVIRUS

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by Ben Taylor

President Samia Auluhu Hassan receives the Johnson & Johnson Coronavirus vaccine in Dodoma on July 28th, while urging others to do the same.

Turning a tanker around?
President Samia Suluhu Hassan has continued her efforts to reshape Tanzania’s national response to the Coronavirus, including a number of changes President Magufuli had warned against.

In mid-May, three months after taking office, the scientific advisory committee she formed reported back. The body recommended that the virus’s presence in Tanzania should be publicly acknowledged, that Covid data should be made public, and that Tanzania should join the international effort to supply Covid-19 vaccines to developing countries, Covax.

Most prominently, in June, the President acted on the third of these recommendations and reversed her predecessor’s stance on vaccines. She first allowed international organisations and diplomatic missions to import vaccines for their employees, and shortly after this the country applied to join Covax.

On July 24, the country received a batch of one million Johnson and Johnson single-dose vaccines, donated by the US government. Zanzibar has received doses of the Sinovac vaccine from China. Both vaccines have been approved for use by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Tanzania is also believed to be participating in the African Union’s joint vaccine purchasing programme.

A few days after the US-donated vaccines arrived, the President herself was publicly given one of the first doses. She used the occasion to encourage the public to get vaccinated, pointing out that the country was “not an island” in dealing with the pandemic.

President Hassan wore a mask when receiving her vaccine, as she has done on most public appearances in the past few months. She did not do so right at the start of her Presidency, following the lead of President Magufuli who had shunned both masks and vaccines. And while, under her predecessor, mask wearing was uncommon, it has become much more normal to see leaders and public officials wearing them of late.

The President has also begun allowing some data on case numbers, hospitalisations and fatalities to be released. Specifically, in late June, the Ministry of Health published the first such data in over a year, stating that the “third wave” had thus far led to 100 cases in the country, of which 70 had required oxygen. Four weeks later, the Ministry released more figures, confirming 29 deaths with 176 new coronavirus cases recorded the previous day, and mentioning that the new cases brought the total number of cases in the third wave to 858.

The release of data has been piecemeal, however, with inconsistent figures and formats used. The low official numbers also stand in stark contrast to the hundreds or thousands of new daily cases being identified in neighbouring Kenya and Uganda. Few analysts take the figures seriously, arguing either that the government is still not being honest with the public, or that 12 months of denying the situation has eroded the capacity of public health institutions to deliver a reliable testing regime and to collate accurate statistics.

These data releases provided part fulfilment of a commitment to do so, made to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to access emergency financial support to enable Tanzania to cope with the pandemic. At the start of September, the IMF board approved USD $567m in emergency support to Tanzania to help finance a vaccination campaign and meet the health and social costs of the pandemic.

More broadly, and of particular significance when it comes to the vaccination campaign, the situation is complicated by the continued denialism of some of President Magufuli’s supporters. Most notably, the prominent evangelical preacher and Member of Parliament, Bishop Josephat Gwajima, has claimed without evidence that vaccines can interfere with human DNA.

“Are we that brainless? Doctors, professors: have you decided to put your brains in your pockets?” he asked his congregation. “People taking the vaccines risk becoming mentally challenged or monitored by computers from the West,” he added.

In a sign both that the previous President’s views no longer hold sway and that his methods may be harder to shake off, the government in response ordered the police and anti-corruption authorities to arrest and interrogate Bishop Gwajima to substantiate his statements against Covid-19 vaccines.

Doctors, however, have cautiously welcomed President Hassan’s changes. It has allowed them to work more freely, diagnose patients and treat them without fear of repercussions from the authorities, said Shadrack Mwaibambe, Head of the Tanzanian Medical Association. He did note, however, that the government continued to support – though no longer to encourage – the use of “remedies” with no scientific support, including steam inhalation. He argued that the authorities should not be talking of such things now they have decided to follow the science.

While critics of President Magufuli’s approach to the pandemic remain frustrated that the new President has not gone as far as they would like, other commentators are more understanding of her position.

“Misinformation [about COVID-19 vaccines] is widespread,” said one doctor, who asked to remain anonymous, “and unfortunately it came from official sources.”

“Things changed so suddenly. I know many people who are still trying to reconcile themselves to the government’s new COVID approach,” says Herrieth Makwetta, a health reporter for Mwananchi newspaper.

Another medic, Dr. Shindo Kilawa, of Muhimbili National Hospital, says the government faces a tough task ahead in promoting the vaccines. “To break away from the past, psychologically, I see the need for a massive awareness campaign, mainly targeting the general public. Otherwise we could end up with many unused stocks of vaccines,” he said.

Government figures are personally trying to navigate a tricky change of direction. In February, Health Minister Dr Dorothy Gwajima had been publicly and vocally sceptical of masks and vaccines, preferring instead to promote various herbal concoctions. She now wears a mask in public, and is urging the public to come forward for vaccinations. Similarly, Hamisi Kigwangala, a medical doctor and prominent MP, publicly spoke against Covid-19 vaccines in February but has lately made a U-turn. He was filmed in July receiving a Covid-19 vaccine and has started a social media awareness campaign to encourage greater take-up. “The vaccine is the only sure way we have for now to remain safe, so if one gets a chance, they should take it without wasting time,’’ he told a reporter for the US broadcaster, NPR.

While such course corrections may be awkward and embarrassing for individual politicians, they are emblematic of the challenge the President faces. A widely-beloved President told the country one thing, in emphatic terms. The new President now has the task of telling them this was wrong, ideally without appearing to criticise the source of the falsehoods. This is made even harder by the fact that confidence in science has always been low in Tanzania.

Convincing a sceptical nation to wear masks, maintain good hygiene and distancing practices, and to seek medical help when needed will be difficult. Convincing people to get vaccinated will be even more so.

TOURISM & ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION

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by Paul Harrison

Rising hope for the tourism sector as Tanzania receives COVID-19 vaccines
In July 2021, mainland Tanzania received its first consignment of over one million doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines from the United States as part of the COVAX arrangement. Unlike her predeces­sor, Tanzania’s President, Samia Suluhu Hassan, has received a COVID­19 vaccine in public, kicking off a nationwide inoculation campaign in the fight against the disease, with Zanzibari citizens receiving the Russian Sputnik vaccination amongst others. A significant step toward protecting Tanzanian citizens, the vaccination programme also repre­sents a major confidence builder to tourists who are currently visiting the country and indeed those who are planning to visit in the future. The greater the rollout, the more likely that Tanzania will be removed from amber and red lists of EU countries, the UK and the USA.

Tanzania’s tourism sector is gradually recovering from the effects of the pandemic. Signs of growth are emerging in many parts of the country as hotel visits, game viewing and other tourist activities are starting to pick up. Traditionally, Tanzania has received the bulk of tourist arrivals from the USA, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Canada, Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands, but recently Russia is emerging as a new market, amongst others. Notably, Tanzania was expected to receive over 650 tourists from Israel during August 2021, according to the Citizen.

Selous ecosystem seems set to maintain UNESCO World Heritage status
Over the last five years, the Selous Game Reserve (now split between Nyerere national park and the reserve) was under increasing threat of being delisted as a UNESCO world heritage site. The threat of removal came from the decision made under the previous administration to construct a hydropower dam on the Rufiji river, which also led to sub­stantial logging to clear the site.

However, due to an on-going dialogue with UNESCO and conservation efforts within the Selous ecosystem, Tanzania has been allowed, in principle, to maintain the status of the Selous as a UNESCO world heritage site, subject to proof of conservation efforts.

According to The Citizen, during the extended 44th session of the World Heritage Committee meeting, held online from Fuzhou, China from 16-31 July 2021, Tanzania has been directed to address the concerns raised and report by December 1st 2021. This is a promising indication that the Selous ecosystem may maintain its current label as a prestigious World Heritage site and continue to benefit from tourism opportuni­ties there. This assumes Tanzania can continue to protect cultural and environmental treasures of the Selous as well as mitigating issues of degradation around the dam and to tackle human wildlife conflict in the wider landscape.

In Zanzibar, new investment is sought into high-end tourism
According to The East African, in late August the Zanzibar government, through the Zanzibar Investment Promotion Authority (ZIPA), issued an invitation to investors to bid for high-end tourism investments in key small islands. This is intended to boost revenues, part of the wider blue economy drive. Would be-investors were given until 16th September 2021 to submit proposals. Several small islands were offered for pre­mium environmentally and culturally sensitive development projects, including Changuu, Bawe, Pamunda and Kwale islands off Unguja and Njao, Misali and Matumbini islands off Pemba.

In the same period, the BBC reported plans by the government of Zanzibar to build sub-Saharan Africa’s highest skyscraper, with a linked marina development, at a cost of likely upwards of £950 million, assuming investment can be found.

Generally, mainstream tourism numbers have been rising steadily in Zanzibar over the northern hemisphere summer months, though yet to reach pre-pandemic levels. A flood of Russian tourists earlier in the year now appears to have subsided though the trends suggest a shift towards countries like Russia away from traditional beach tourism mar­kets, though that trend may settle back in time. Italian tourists, typically the mainstay of the Zanzibari beach tourism industry, have yet to return in any significant numbers.