LegiStorm

Summary:

Tanzania is rich in biodiversity and is home to several iconic species, including elephants, lions, black rhinoceros, and giraffes. Tanzania hosts 6 of 25 globally designated biodiversity hotspots and has protected or conserved in some fashion approximately 44% of its total land area. Efforts to foster conservation and biodiversity in Tanzania, which an array of U.S. assistance programs have supported over the past two decades, have drawn the interest of some Members of Congress. Tanzania has regularly hosted congressional delegations, often with a focus on U.S.- funded conservation program implementation and oversight. Tanzanian efforts to sustainably manage and conserve the country’s natural resources and maintain biodiversity face a range of challenges. Factors that affect biodiversity in Tanzania include agricultural expansion and overgrazing, resource overexploitation (e.g., fisheries, forests), invasive species, bushfires, and fuelwood/charcoal consumption. Illegal poaching and related wildlife product trafficking—notably of African elephant ivory, rhino horns, and pangolin scales—also pose challenges. Such trafficking— which is often linked to transnational smuggling operations, at times abetted by corruption and weak law-enforcement capacity—reportedly generates millions of dollars in illicit revenue for criminal groups. Tanzania is both a source country of and a transshipment point for transnational wildlife trafficking by such groups and, in some cases, by rebel or other armed groups in neighboring countries. The U.S. Department of State lists Tanzania as one of 28 Focus Countries globally for wildlife trafficking under the Eliminate, Neutralize, and Disrupt Wildlife Trafficking Act of 2016 (END Act; P.L. 114-231). Tanzania has made numerous efforts to preserve biodiversity and sustainably manage natural resources. Such efforts include increasing the area of protected land, which between 1995 and 2014 was expanded by more than 20%; crafting and implementing a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan and other policies; and pursuing community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). Under the CBNRM model, local land is set aside for wildlife and the government grants certain use rights to local communities. Such communities manage local tourism, sustainable land or natural-resource utilization activities, and local conservation activities; in turn, the communities garner revenue, employment, and other benefits derived from such activities (and in some cases from trophy hunting), while preserving the underlying ecosystem. Some of these efforts have met resistance. Increasing the amount of land under protection, for example, can in some cases decrease access to land for cultivation or subsistence hunting or result in limited local benefits, which can generate local opposition to such efforts. The United States and other international donors provide natural resource management and biodiversity conservation assistance to Tanzania. U.S. programs have supported counter-wildlife trafficking, threatened species habitat conservation, and sustainable coastal resource management efforts, among other ends. Options for Congress in considering such activity might include • assessing the relative adequacy of, need for, and scope of U.S. programming in this area and related bilateral assistance funding; • potentially providing support for Tanzania through a debt-for-nature swap, as permitted under the Tropical Forest and Coral Reef Conservation Act (22 U.S.C. §§2431 et seq.); • advocating for the inclusion of conservation and biodiversity goals under a potential future Millennium Challenge Corporation compact; • mandating the creation of a foundation to promote long-term management and protection of conservation areas abroad (as proposed by bills such as H.R. 1298 and S. 618); and • coordinating and engaging with foreign governments, private entities, Indigenous peoples, and other stakeholders to foster biodiversity conservation and sustainable natural resource use and management.