Over 1600 square kilometres of land cut from Nyerere National Park and pasted onto Selous Game Reserve

Tanzania is slicing off some 1,617 square kilometers from the country’s largest National Park, restoring the land back to the Selous Game Reserve.

Presenting the matter before the National Assembly in Dodoma, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Ambassador Pindi Hazara Chana revealed that the decision now reduces the size of the vast Nyerere National Park from 30,893 square kilometers down to 29,276 kilometers square.

“We decided to cut down the size of Nyerere National Park in effort to address the long-existing conflicts with the villages surrounding the conservancy,” Pindi Chana maintained.

According to the Minister, a series of territorial conflicts used to flare up between the country’s biggest National Park, the adjacent Selous Game Reserve from which it was annexed in 2019 and the villages surrounding Nyerere.

The Parliament was told that the redrawing of the National Park borders will also solve some misunderstandings pitting the local community conservation entities like the Mbarang’andu, Juhimwangumwa, Iluma, Jukumu, Magingo and Nalika Wildlife Management Areas.

“The adjustments also target to protect the important ecological system which links Nyerere National Park and Selous Game Reserve,” said Chana.

But it seems Tanzania also wants to boost the hunting sector in Southern Highlands an industry which is being pivoted within the Selous by adding more trekking fields onto the oldest Game Reserve in the country.

Nyerere is managed under the Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA), while Selous is administered by the Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority (TAWA).

Apparently the two protected entities of Nyerere and Selous, make up the largest conservation precinct in East and Central Africa.

In between them, there is the crucial water source and catchment area for the great Rufiji River whose outflow is an important component for the Julius Nyerere Hydroelectric Power Plant (JNHPP) located downstream.

Nyerere, was annexed from the Selous Game Reserve in 2019 to form the country’s largest and among the newest National Parks.

Despite the slicing of over one-thousand square kilometers from the protected area, Nyerere remains the biggest National Park in the country, followed by Ruaha (19,000 square kilometers) in second position and Serengeti (14,000 square kilometers) which ranks third.