The Contribution Of Wildlife Management Areas On Womens’ Well-Being In Enduimet Division, Longido District, Tanzania

ABSTRACT

Wildlife management and conservation in Tanzania has passed several stages from colonial management programmes, to the establishment of the Wildlife Act of 1974. In addition, Wildlife Management Areas were established in 2003 as a way of ensuring communities bordering wildlife areas benefit from them. The Wildlife Management Areas are expected to contribute to the well-being of the surrounding communities. This study was undertaken to assess the contribution of Enduimet Wildlife Management Area on women’s well-being. Specifically, the study aimed at identifying the economic activities supported by it in the study area, assessing its contribution to women’s well-being and to examine the challenges faced by the women who are engaged in it. The study employed multistage sampling whereby Enduimet was purposefully selected and simple random sampling was used to select the study wards, villages and the respondents. The study used a cross-sectional research design to collect data from 120 respondents from Olmolog and Tinga Tinga villages. The findings show that the main economic activities supported by Enduimet Wildlife Management Area (EWMA) include provision of financial grants, road construction support, and provision of torches for scaring crops destructive animals. The study finding further show that EWMA contributes significantly (p ≤ 0.001) to women’s income at p=0.001. In addition, it also contributes to the women’s social well-being through provision of water services, gender training, building of classrooms and provision of scholarships to some families. The main challenges found in this study include destruction of crops by wild animals, injuries, and death of people and livestock. The study concludes that EWMA contributes to women’s well-being economically and socially. Based on the finding of the main challenges it is recommended that Wildlife Village Game Scout, District Game Officers, and Livestock and Extension officers should design, develop and advise communities on better methods of preventing destructive wild animals from destroying people’s crops and livestock.