Challenges in the Mnazi Bay-Ruvuma Estuary Marine Park, Tanzania: Past and present
In March 2018 I visited Mnazi Bay-Ruvuma Estuary Marine Park (MBREMP) in Mtwara as part of a field research trip with the coastal working group of the NEPSUS project to carry out data collection. The trip was a memorable event in my career as it provided an opportunity to gauge changes that might have occurred since the time I worked with MBREMP in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Between 2007 and 2014 I was at MBREMP occasionally, with a substantial amount of my time spent in
How to survive on 'leftovers of nighttime spinach': Local narratives of human-wildlife inter
‘We grow crops for elephants and eat what they leave after their feasts’, Juma, resident of Tapika village in Rufiji district Recently, I was part of the NEPSUS survey team visiting households in villages adjacent to the Selous Game Reserve in Kilwa and Rufiji Districts, Tanzania. One of the sampled heads of households at Tapika village was Juma (not his real name). A hamlet leader took me to where Juma was, guarding his farm. Near his log seat, he had gathered a bunch of sma
On fishing and dynamite in Mtwara, Tanzania
When I joined the NEPSUS team of researchers in 2016, all with different academic and rich research backgrounds, I couldn’t hide my excitement and shared the news with a close workmate. The excitement further grew when I learnt that I would be part of a research work package on coastal resources, whose members would be conducting field research in Mtwara region, Tanzania. My joy at the prospect of conducting fieldwork in Mtwara was triggered by two basic factors. First, I had
Conservation Partnerships in a Warzone
Battling in the Rufiji Delta goes back to colonial times, when German cruiser SMS Königsberg and a group of British warships fought in the area during the First World War. The British ships were more powerful, but were unable to navigate the delta to open fire on the Königsberg and her supply ship Somali. Königsberg had also been covered by many green flags that looked exactly like the forest around the delta. The battle went on from October 1914 until March 1915 – by then, f
