CHINA will provide Tanzania’s maiden Geopark with 10 million US dollars (over 22bn/-) financial support.
The Ngorongoro-Lengai Geopark is
earmarked to cover 12,000 square kilometres of rocky hills, lengthy
underground caves, lake basins, hominid discovery sites and the active
Oldonyo L’engai, Volcano.
The Geopark will be the second in
Africa, after the one in Morocco and the first South of the Sahara.
Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) Conservator Dr Freddy
Manongi says of the Geopark, “While tourists from America and Europe
prefer game driving into National Parks to view wildlife; the Chinese
and other Asians are different.”
According to Dr Manongi, tourists from
China, Korea, Japan and other Asian countries prefer seeing landscapes,
mountains, caves, gorges and other geological features.
He believes that the country will use
the Geopark to attract visitors from Asia, with China alone offering a
huge market of 1.4 billion people for Tanzania’s geology based tourism.
“We are striving to expand the country’s
tourism potentials by introducing attractions based on land formations,
geology, history and geographical features, all packaged in singly as
Ngorongoro-Lengai Geopark,” Olduvai Gorge Deputy Conservator Orgoo
Mauyai explains. Olduvai is part of the proposed Geopark.
The main economic activities in the
envisaged Ngorongoro- Lengai Geopark is pastoralism especially along
Maasai and Datoga, agriculture, tourism and small scale trading.
“The Geopark theme is how local
residents earn a living from these geological features without
interfering with their natural settings,” stated Mr Nickson Nyange, one
of the Public Relations Officers at NCAA.
Ngorongoro Lengai is tipped to become a
popular tourist destination for tourists visiting the Ngorongoro Crater,
Lake Natron and Eyasi as well as tourists to other national parks like
Lake Manyara and Serengeti.
The first ever sub-Saharan Geopark
project was initiated by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation (UNESCO) under the European Union (EU) funding.
NCAA Cultural Heritage Department acting
Manager Engineer Joshua Mwankunda says the EU has already floated 1.8
million Euros (over 4bn/-) as initial funding to the project.
Identification and establishment of
geo-sites are a result of territorial analysis by the Promotion of Earth
and Human Heritage of Ngorongoro by valorisation of the Oldupai and
from reserve Geologique of Haute de France with support and
collaboration from local residents.
The analysis produced a database of
geo-sites mapped within the Ngorongoro-Lengai and Laetoli ‘Geopark.’ It
also involved members from the district councils, Tanzania Wildlife
Research Institute (TAWIRI) and the National Museum.
Antonym to National Parks, Geoparks are
unified geographical areas that address the protection and use of
geological heritage in a sustainable way while promoting social and
economic well-being of the people within the earmarked locations.
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