Tanzania

C

Natural Resources

Diamonds and gold are currently the most important of the minerals being exploited in Tanzania. Large deposits of coal and iron ore exist in the southern region, but mining operates on a small scale only. There are plans to exploit natural gas deposits found in the Songo Songo island area, south-east of Dar es Salaam.

Forestland constitutes one of the most substantial natural resources of the country. Forests cover 37.3 per cent (2005) of Tanzania, mainly in the south and west-central areas. Among the many hardwoods found are mahogany and camphorwood.

D

Plants and Animals

Tanzania’s wildlife includes almost all the large African mammals, notably: antelope, zebra, elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, giraffe, lion, leopard, cheetah, and monkey. The country has a number of game reserves and national parks, including the famous Serengeti National Park, the Ruaha National Park, the Selous Game Reserve, and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, located in the broad crater of an extinct volcano and providing a unique wildlife habitat.

E

Environmental Concerns

Tanzania has built a successful tourist industry around its plentiful wildlife. There are many environmental threats, however, spurred by the country’s rapidly growing population. The need for fuel and farmland has caused extensive deforestation, and the expansion of agricultural land into arid and semi-arid regions threatens many areas with soil loss and desertification. The use of dynamite in the fishing industry has destroyed a large proportion of the country’s extensive offshore reefs. In addition, vast regions are infested with the tsetse fly, which transmits sleeping sickness. Tsetse control programmes are controversial because they use pesticides that harm wildlife. Finally, poaching remains a serious problem, especially for elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn.

Open, relatively dry forests and woodlands cover about a third of Tanzania. Wetlands, including coastal mangrove swamps as well as inland systems such as lake shores, floodplains, and swamps, make up about 6 per cent of the land. Tanzania’s relatively well organized protected land system has received substantial foreign logistical support and aid. The main elements are forest reserves, game reserves, and national parks, including Serengeti National Park. Two biosphere reserves have been declared under the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Man and the Biosphere Program.

Tanzania has ratified international environmental agreements on endangered species, hazardous wastes, law of the sea, nuclear test ban, ozone layer, and whaling. Regionally, the country participates in the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and has cooperative wildlife protection agreements with Kenya.

III

Population

More than 90 per cent of the population of Tanzania consists of indigenous African groups, the majority of whom speak Bantu languages; there are also Nilotic groups, such as the Maasai. The largest of the 120 ethnic groups are the Sukuma and the Nyamwezi. Other major ethnic groups include the Haya, the Ngonde, the Chagga, the Gogo, the Ha, the Hehe, the Nyakyusa, the Nyika, the Ngoni, and the Yao. The population also includes people of Indian, Pakistani, and Goan origin, who make up a significant minority in the urban areas, and small Arab and European communities. Most of the people live in rural areas.

A

Population Characteristics

Tanzania has a population (2008 estimate) of 40,213,162, of whom 663,000 lived on Zanzibar, giving an average population density of about 45 people per sq km (118 per sq mi). However, about two thirds of the population lives in the one third of the country that lies north of the central railway, where soils are most fertile. Under the form of Africa socialism introduced by Julius Nyerere, the government began to establish rural cooperative villages (ujamaa villages) in the 1970s as a means of countering development problems associated with the traditional scattered nature of settlement. By 1980 about 90 per cent of the rural population was living in registered villages, although only a small proportion of these were true ujamaa. Life expectancy in 2008 was around 50.1 years for men, and 52.9 years for women.