TANZANIA (eTN) – Thailand Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra who is currently visiting Tanzania, had signed a memorandum of understanding on National Parks and Wildlife Management between Thailand and Tanzania, aimed at protection, management and promotion of wildlife and enhancing nature based tourism.
Thai Prime Minister signed a memorandum while touring Serengeti National Park in northern Tanzania on Wednesday and where she spent the whole day touring the park.
Shinawatra arrived in Tanzania on Tuesday afternoon for a three-day official tour, accompanied by a strong delegation of 100 delegates from different sectors including tourism, hotels, and hospitality and wildlife sectors.
She flew to Serengeti National Park, about 1,200 from Tanzania’s capital city of Dar es Salaam for a day-long tour to watch wildlife in the plains and getting the first hand information about the park which is managed by the Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA).
Serengeti plains, covering an area of 14,763 kilometers, is home of the about two million ungulates.
The low-profile official tour of the Thai Prime Minister to Tanzania could not reveal more details, other than four memoranda she signed targeting technical cooperation between Thailand and Tanzania.
But, observers within wildlife and tourism sectors took Shinawatra’s official visit to Tanzania and the signing of a memorandum of understanding on National Parks and Wildlife Management as a step ahead to help Tanzania on combating crime on elephant and rhino poaching.
Thailand stands as the biggest black market for the bloody ivory from East Africa, while the rhino horn from the African rhinoceros is sold expensively in Bangkok.
Rhino horn is the most expensive product from African wildlife, sold as aphrodisiac in Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. Tanzania, South Africa and Kenya are leading African countries where the black rhino is found, but, highly threatened by poachers.
