Media Council of Tanzania (MCT) Executive Secretary Kajubi Mukajanga made the call yesterday in Dar es Salaam at an official launch of an association, Tanzania Journalists for Conservation.
Mukajanga said journalists needed to stop reporting on daily events which had no impact on the society and instead focus on stories with impact and which give reasons for the occurrences.
In his remarks read on his behalf by MCT Officer Paul Malimbo, he said a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report had pegged the number of elephants’ deaths in the country resulting from poaching at 25,000.
He said the media needed to use their pens and cameras to expose poaching dealers, saying the malpractice was rampant in the country.
“Poaching can effectively be ended if various measures will effectively be taken, including the media focusing their reporting on exposing the criminals.” Mukajanga commented
In his welcoming remarks, the association chairman Charles Ole Ngereza explained that most conservation stories were reported by international journalists who negatively reported the events, thus tarnishing the country’s image to tourists.
The chairman said they had launched the association purposely to ensure conservation information was well reported and also to raise awareness on poaching to the local community and visitors.
He said many people living in conservation areas did not have enough understanding of conservation issues, a factor which contributed to the existence of many conflicts in the areas.
Measi Molel, a director of Serengeti Preservation Foundation, which provided support to the establishment of the association, commented that for the sustainability of tourism there must be sustainable conservation and the community must be well informed, while the local media should actively report and promote it instead of leaving the gap to the international media, who sometimes misled the public about national conservation.
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