In 1989 the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) secured an agreement in 1989 among its member states, including Tanzania, to ban the international trade in ivory.

Surprisingly, elephant poaching is continuing at the Pohama area in Singida Rural District and this means the ivory trade is going on covertly, but equally alarmingly.

Poachers fly to Pohamat to kill elephants in broad daylight, airlift tusks as many as they can and leave dead jumbos for villagers to feast.

The elephants wander in the Mgori forest, which is shared by Unyampanda, Mughunga, Nduamughanga, Pohama and Ngimu villages, 45m from Singida town. The wildlife sometimes stray from the forest of 40,000 hectares.

Whether they stray on not poachers target them for their valuable tusks. They fire randomly at elephants and injure some of them. Only those which fall under the hail of bullets, have their trophies taken.

A young man, who is a good marksman and boasts of having connections in powerful circles, leads a gang of poachers. He is not a resident of Pohama.

I believe what he tells us about his influence because he couldn’t be able to carry out the business for so long without being detected by authorities and brought to justice.

Since the government trophies are likely smuggled out of the country, they damage our credibility. No doubt when Tanzania sought a Cites permit to sell its stock of 99 tonnes of tusks in 2010, the request was rejected. Although Kenya was accused of thwarting Tanzania’s request, what we forgot was that failure to fight poaching was our nemesis.

I urge Natural Resources and Tourism minister Ezekiel Maige to investigate the matter. I believe poaching has been going on there and elswehere without his knowledge otherwise he would have acted.

I also call on Industry, Trade and Marketing deputy minister Lazaro Nyalandu, who is also the Singida North MP where Pohama is situated to cooperate with Maige to stop poaching at the area. Nyalandu might be having an emotional attachment to Pohama where he did his primary education between 1978-84 before he went to Murumba, also in Singida.

I. Nkindwa Maghiya,
Singida.

> environment
Municipalities should learn from Moshi on cleanliness
For many years municipalities in the country have been struggling to improve sanitation and upgrading their environments. So far, many have not done well in this regard.
Factors behind their failures are, in some areas, beyond their capacities.  

That’s why the government enacted a new law to give impetus in environmental management in municipalities.
On the other hand, the central government allowed local governments to enact by-laws, which best suit their environs for better management.

In my recent visit to Moshi, I have established that municipal officials capitalised on that to improve their environs.
Moshi is touted as one of the cleanest towns in the country. That is true. It is rare to see littered streets in the municipality.

While there I was told that municipal officials ensure that by-laws aimed at keeping the town clean are strictly enforced. People have been fined for littering the streets to the extent that everyone throws waste in garbage bins and not haphazardly on streets.

Other municipalities and cities can take a leaf from Moshi’s book. Just enact by-laws to safeguard environment and ensure their enforcement. I believe that if Moshi has managed, there is no way other areas can fail.
 Hussein Kiyungi,
Dar es Salaam.

> politics
Norway no longer pacifist after violent incidents
Last month’s massacre shattered Norway’s image as a country of peace. Actually, even before that incident in which gunman Anders Behring Breivik mowed down 69 people after he set a government building on fire, the country was no longer seen as pacifist.

Norway has become entangled in wars. Norwegian pilots are bombing Libya and other soldiers have died in Afghanistan.

Such events have unpicked the fabric of Norway’s supposedly blissful distance from the harsher side of the world politics.

Norwegians need to recognise that their national state of innocence was in part willed into existence by pretending that Norway’s political culture was homogeneous.

Externally that manifested itself in the branding of Norway as a nation of peace and conflict resolutions, even though the country is a founding member of Nato and a  US ally.

Domestically, Norway is conformist with largely unchallenged support for Nordic values and generous social welfare state as it was remarked by Einar Førde, the late Labour Party vice-chairman, “we are all social democratic”.

This has had huge benefits, in particular a system of social liberalism and an economic model that manages to produce growth with only minimal inequality. But it has also left a minority frustrated with few outlets to voice their concerns.

There is a widespread perception that Nordic countries are more tolerant to immigrants than other Northern European countries, yet their governments may simply have been better at camouflaging hostility. A certain vision of social harmony has come at the price of partially stifling legitimate dissent.

Brown Mtimba,
Dar es Salaam.

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