UWA EQUIPED WITH RESCUE MATERIALS.

Posted on February 22, 2012 by admin

Good news for Kampala’s Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) which received a parcel containing a number of rescue equipments just in case a tourist gets stack in the mountains and this has made the Mt. Rwenzori trail less frightening to tourists and mountain climbers

This gear was brought in from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and comprises of a cascade litter that is used after some has been injured and can hardly move from one place to another, contains mountain climbing and descending ropes, the rescue pulleys and many more that are to be used by the Rwenzori Mountaineering Service. However, the Agency also provides training services to the UWA Staff members.

According to Mr. Mathew Edwardson who is the United States Development Agency Forest Service Africa Programme Coordinator, he said that this training will not only enable the UWA staff members gain skills but also improve on UWA’s ability to trail in the mountainous areas. Meanwhile, Mr. Elly Musinguzi the acting Executive Director of UWA said that these equipments have been acquired just at the right time and will therefore will be used to help rescue in a professional way. Mt. Rwenzori is one of the world Heritage sites that are well known for hiking, for forest walks as well as bird watching in Uganda.

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UWA EQUIPED WITH RESCUE MATERIALS.

Posted on February 22, 2012 by admin

Good news for the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) which received a parcel containing a number of rescue equipments just in case a tourist gets stack in the mountains and this has made the Mt. Rwenzori trail less frightening to tourists and mountain climbers

GORILLA TRACKING NEWS

ALBERTINE RIFT CONSERVATION SOCIETY HEADQUARTERS SHIFTED.

Posted on February 21, 2012 by admin

Reports got this morning reveal that the ARCS which is based in UK has actually decided to transfer its regional office which is at the moment in Kampala – Uganda to Kigali – Rwanda where they have their offices built worth US $ 350.000. They will be shifting to Rwanda as soon as their discussions between the NGO and the Rwandan government are through.

The UK offices are also said to have been shifted to the anew place which is much closer to the source in Kigali, the major aim of the NGO is to preserve biodiversity in the Albertine Rift which extends from Uganda’s Lake Albert to Lake Tanganyika. This centre is then meant to provide information, training and a research centre where other NGOs and the conservation fraternity as a whole can benefit from.

The organization had to move from Uganda to Rwanda since they could not establish it in quick and local government policies and conservation NGOs were apart of the decision making process, although it is of course known that Rwanda is unambiguous and helpful for any support it can get to conserve natural resources and biodiversity.

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SADDLE- BILLED STORK RESTOCKED.

Posted on February 20, 2012 by admin

The Saddle-billed Stork is one of the biggest wading birds among the stork family very much common in the regions of the sub-Saharan Africa from Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya south as well as in South Africa, plus Gambia, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Chad in West Africa.

This bird is kind of related to the Asian Black-necked Stork which is also a common bird and it is the only other associate of the genus Ephippiorhynchus. It is also a pretty and nice bird, both the male and female ones are pretty similar. They are very peaceful and quiet except one some occasions. And just many others storks, they have their necks held outstretched as they fly while those the are large fly ate at low heights which is why they are easily seen and they give a very nice view especially at fist sight.

The Saddle – Billed Storks stay in forested water areas or in any area that has got some sort of flooded areas in tropics. They normally set up nests made out of stick nest in between branches of tree from where they lay their egg(s) one or two white eggs of about 146g each. Unlike some other birds that love staying in groups of the same type, these do not form colonies or stay in groups but rather alone away from its fellows of the same type. It those 30–35 days to hatch their eggs and more 70 – 100 days to have the young ones fledge. There are number of these in the Kabwoya game reserve towards the edge of Lake Albert.

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AMBASSADORS PROPOSE AGGRESSIVE TOURISM MARKETING STRATEGIES

Posted on February 17, 2012 by admin

Five tourism ambassadors have urged for a hard line encouragement of tourism through the increased park fees as well as development of infrastructure in order to improve on the national income from the sector. According to them, poor services are the very reasons why the parks revenue are still low to an extent of having 2/15 national parks make profit.

They included Ambassador Dr Deodorus Kamala from Belgium, Dr James Msekela from Italy, Dr Ladislaus Komba of Uganda, Mohamed H. Hamza from Egypt and Philip Marmo from China and they all agreed that most of these parks operate in losses and the only ones that get profits are the likes of Serengeti and Kilimanjaro while Tarangire, Manyara and Arusha operate at break-even point. All this was said during a press conference held in Dar es Salaam following the conclusion of a seven-day familiarization tour prearranged by the Tanzania National Parks Authority (Tanapa) to Serengeti, Katavi and Ruaha national parks in an effort to market them.

Dr Msekela while in the press conference at Julius Nyerere International Airport said that they all have a huge role to play towards attraction of more tourists as to improve on the revenues more so in the southern and western circuits. In this matter, they asked the government to work on the roads and airports to make accessibility to the parks a lot easier to the tourists. More to that, they suggested for raise in tourist fees to equal with the pleasure that the tourists get from watching the different wildlife in the parks because current they are paying less dollars compared to the pleasure they get while in the park so said Dr Kamala.

According to the ambassadors, the other problem is lack of accommodation facilities in some of the parks and those that are there are pretty expensive for tourists from within the country. This is a problem that must be addressed firs before they can attract more tourists to Tanzania says Ambassador Hamza. Ambassador Komba said that it is very important to fight against the poaching vice which is so high especially now that they use classy weapons.There are currently so many parks that are operating at a loss like Rubondo, Mikumi, Gombe, Mahale, Saadani, Ruaha, Katavi, Udizungwa and Kitulo.

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ALOT IS EXPECTED FROM THE MAULID FESTIVAL.

Posted on February 16, 2012 by admin

According to the calendar, Friday 17^thwill the day for the Maulid Festival that is held every year in Lamu and currently they are expecting about 80.000 visitors and more to go down on the archipelago with in the next weeks to be together as they rejoice the birth month of the Prophet Mohamed. This celebration is organized by the National Museums of Kenya together with the Riyadha Mosque based in Lamu in an effort to encourage the spread of the Islamic history as well as its culture just like it was before and still is in those olden towns. Fortunately for so many hotel managements around Lamu, they believe that this year’s festival will open a new and better chapter for the tourism business in Lamu as well as in all areas lose by like at the Kenya coast which was greatly affected by the attacks from Somalia.

Fortunately, the Kenya military immediately reacted to the attacks and currently in Kismayu a place that has been identified as the base for the Al Shabab rebels. The Security measures have been tighten in all the places around, immigration processes have been stopped so that the police is able to prevent dangerous people from accessing Lamu pretending to be visiting the area or any other place close by which is why the places is surrounded by the police, army and other special security personnel to make sure that the place is kept safe from any harm and that the festival ends successfully. Means of transport is no problem because the buses that work along route to Mombasa, Malindi and Lamu have improved on their facility while the airlines flying to Lamus aerodrome from Nairobi, Mombasa and Malindi have also increased in numbers, using charters to work during the during this month.

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KENYA AIRWAYS ASKS FOR A REDUCTION IN THE SAFETY FEES.

Posted on February 15, 2012 by admin

The Kenya Airways, KQ as commonly known has asked the International Air Transport Association, IATA in brief to reduce on the amount of money that was set as the safety evaluation fees so that also the growing airlines also go through precise safety reviews.

Mr. Titus Naikuni who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Kenya Airways mentioned last Thursday that these heavy duties that era imposed on the Airlines will hinder lots of low budget airlines from being accurately licensed by IATA some thing that might destroy their business in the long run. There are so may up coming airlines in so many African countries which can not easily get the full certification process which is why it is necessary for IATA to get a means of assisting such Airlines and in the long run help improve the aviation business he added.

Naikuni also encouraged the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) to severely guarantee the sustainability of high air safety standards among all the Kenyan air crafts agencies. He said so during the occasion when KQ was being given their second approval from the global aviation association after the accurate safety audit done in all airline companies. He revealed that there will be launch for new cargo airline towards the end of February month and it is intended to improve on the cargo revenues collected in a year.

While the ground safety auditing process was done between the months of June to July 2011, the Kenya Airways now intends to increase on the number of fleets to about 107 crafts at least in a period of 10 years from 34 aircrafts. In order to get more of these aircrafts, the company needs more the airline is seeking to raise additional capital through a Rights Issue towards the end of this year. There is also constant improvement in the operational systems to make sure they provide secure and the best service to their customers. There are just IOSA licensed dealers offering services at six airports that are situated in the South- Saharan part of Africa. This makes Kenya Airways both the very first airline and the first ground handling service contributor to get the ISEGO Approval in the area.

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TANZANIA TO PARTNER WITH OMAN IN TOURISM

Posted on February 13, 2012 by admin

Oman Adventures together with the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) intend to market Tanzania’s tourist attractions in the Arab country. There were about six-man representatives of the tour company who came into the Tanzania last Sunday and they promised to increase on the number of Oman nationals who visit Tanzania. The leader of the delegation by the names of Mr. Majid Abdullah Al Anboori mentioned while addressing the press that in Dar es Salaam that they were already happy about the Tanzania’s tourist attractions and they promised to get do a lot of marketing for Tanzania back home.

It was their very first time in the country and they visited Ngorongoro crater, Serengeti National Park, Lake Victoria, Lake Nyasa, Tanganyika and Mount Kilimanjaro which all look great according to them and because of that they promised to be very good ambassadors in Oman, will use the information, the pictures, videos and all the other materials they got to market Tanzania so that more tourists can visit Tanzania and have an opportunity to watch the beautiful God made resources.

Devota Mdachi who is the TTB Marketing Director mentioned that the committee appreciate the Oman nationals’ visit and hope that their partnership will help to improve on the number of tourists from Oman but most of all they are glad that the Oman national promised to help them market Tanzania’s tourism attractions. With the help of the Tanzanian ambassador in Oman, there will be a lot achieved between the two countries.

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CONGO LOSS CREDIBILITY OVER INCREASED ELEPHANT POACHING

Posted on February 11, 2012 by admin

According to the report got from the Congo within this very week indicate that there are more than 500 elephants that were killed in the Virunga National Park situated in the Eastern Congo by poachers to get ivory in just two years. This park is a nominated UNESCO World Heritage Site and the representative from the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature abbreviated as ICCN grieved over the fact that there is a high increase in poaching and they said so while in a conference held in Kinshasa and there after pleaded to the government to sustain through soliciting more funding to fight the danger or will have the number of elephants decrease or even completely wiped out.

The basically uncontrollable East of the Congo has been going through lots of civil conflicts with so many private armies which struggle for economic control over the richest part of Congo mineral. They have had UN peace keeping forces to help reduce on the problem although there is no significant improvement done so far. Although the national army carries on with its selective and frequently half hear ted interference which has brought about proposals of secretly belonging to the club with some of the private army alongside sharing the spoils which means splitting the proceeds of gold and coltan mining which is done usually using forced labor.

Illegal hunting of animals has turned out to be one of the most Poaching has also been reported for other endangered species and game and the local meat trade in the North and South section of Kivu where the majority is bush meat but the local administration seem to be reluctant to put an end to it.

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RESEARCHERS STUDY ABOUT THE ZEBRA STRIPES

Posted on February 10, 2012 by admin

Scientists have for along time needed to just get to understand why the zebras advanced their characteristic black-and-white stripes but currently there seems to be an answer to this according to the researchers from Hungary and Sweden who allege to have completed the puzzle. According to the researcher done, the stripes are meant to keep away blood-sucking flies in away that the stripes make the zebra look ugly and therefore less attractive to the flies. This report was produced in the Journal of Experimental Biology but the stripes are very important in the reflection of light.

“Susanne Akesson from Lund University and one of the members of the international research team that carried out this research said that they begun their study using black, brown and later white horses and they found out that with the black and brown horses, they got horizontally polarize light and this kind of light effect made them look so beautiful and therefore attract flies.

It attracts the flies because when the lights bounces off the dark coat, it goes directly to the eyes of the flies and it gives it direction to where to head, they follow the light and go the animal It means that the light that bounces off the horse’s dark coat and yet the white coat gives unpolarized light and so the lights waves just go in any direction making it look less attractive to the flies

After this discovery, they decided to stud about the Zebras so that they can know the kind of light that would the stripes would give and how it would affect the flies that disturb the horses so much. They used the black boards, the white ones and the striped with glue so that they could see the number of flies that visit the board and according to the findings the striped board that was quite like the zebra had the least number of flies although there are some dark patterns too that reflecting horizontally polarized light.

The conclusion was that the narrower zebra-like the stripes were, the less attractive they appeared to the flies. The procedure was repeated for 3 days and the results were the same. Prof Matthew Cobb who is an evolutionary biologist from the University of Manchester said that the experiment was accurate and intriguing but did not exclude the other assumption about the origin of zebras’ stripes.

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