JET, USAID collaborate for environment protection

By Nneka Nwogwugwu

Journalists’ Environmental Association of Tanzania (JET), a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) has collaborated with USAID to work on the fields of environment and sustainable development.

JET runs several projects, including training for journalists as well as sending them to the field – conserved areas as well as wildlife corridors. Environmental conservation is a practice that paves the way for protecting the environment and natural resources on the individual, organisational as well as governmental levels.

JET Executive Director, Mr John Chikomo sees the importance of partnership in managing the environment, conserving it, getting rid of degradation and making sure mitigation of climate change effects is successful. He says there are various core environmental issues that are taking a heavy toll on human lives.

Ranging from overpopulation, hydrological issues, ozone depletion, global warming to deforestation, desertification and pollution that pose a severe threat to the existence of humankind.

Unless environmental conservation is becoming an effective mass movement, it is futile to expect positive growth, especially in the age of digital media that holds the potential to bring a revolution to save the planet from destruction.

He says it has become inherently important to work towards environmental conservation in contemporary times. Some pointers elucidate this crucial need to save the environment from further degradation.

Those are to reduce air, water and land pollution; facilitate the conservation of natural resources for future generations, ensure the protection of biodiversity; implement sustainable development; restore the ecological balance and save the planet from harmful repercussions of global warming.

In building capacity to journalists about human – wildlife conflicts, Mr John Noronha – the Monitoring and Evaluation Manager, RTI, a USAID Contractor, implementing the USAID Tuhifadhi Maliasili says coexistence between people and wildlife is a national priority for sustainable development and wildlife conservation in Tanzania.

He says that human-wildlife conflict has been defined in several ways. For the purpose of the training, human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is recognized as a subset of human-wildlife interactions that can be positive or negative. Why is HWC an important topic now? It is important because of distribution and scale of HWC impacts in Tanzania, looking at the data from 2012 to 2019.