AT least 44,321 people will be evicted from their villages for invasion of forest reserves in the Coast, Tabora and Rukwa regions, in two weeks time. The Director of Forestry and Beekeeping Division in the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources Dr Felician Kilahama (pictured) confirmed yesterday in an exclusive phone interview with the ‘Daily News’ that the eviction exercise will officially take place in two weeks time and that about 200m-/ has already been allocated to facilitate it.
However, Dr Kilahama said that the evictees were not entitled to any compensation since they were illegally occupying the areas but pointed out that for the sake of the eviction exercise, they have to pack all their possessions and leave the areas peacefully.
Dr Kilahama said the evictees have been occupying various areas covering a total of 357,472 hectares of land out of the total 1,294,290 hectares covering eight forest reserves in the three regions.
According to him, the Ministry has also discovered that some of the people to be evicted were living in eleven illegally registered villages within the forest reserves in Uyui and Urambo Districts in Tabora region.
Im not sure how the local authorities registered the villages despite the fact that they were established contrary to the governing laws, he said.
He maintained that the directives have already been issued for the Commissioner of Lands and respective district councils to de-register the villages according to the Forest Act Cap 323 as revised in 2002.
Giving statistics, he said about 236 intruders will be evicted from Kazimzumbwi and Pugu forest reserves in Coast Region, 862 in Tongwe and Msanginya forest reserves in Rukwa Region, 44085 in Igombe River catchment Forest reserve, Mpanda Line forest reserve and Igoweke Local government forest reserve all located in Uyui, Urambo and Sikonge Districts respectively.
According to Dr Kilahama, the eviction exercise will later spread to the rest of the forest reserves countrywide. The Deputy Minister for Tourism and Natural Resources, Mr Ezekiel Maige also confirmed recently that an exercise will be carried out throughout the country and all settlers in the forest reserves would be moved as stipulated by the law.
Daily News
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