Wildlife Club

In IST (International School of Tanganyika) we have started a wildlife club. We have started fund raising and writing articles for our website. The fund raising activities that we did where: animal t-shirt day and we are planning to show a movie called “Ice Age”. The money we raise will go to South Coast Turtle Watch. It is a project that pays fisherman to watch turtle nests so people don’t take them. We are also planning to make a wildlife inventory of the school.

Wildlife clubs are set up to protect animals. They also teach people about animals and that the worlds needs animals, if animals disappeared of the face of the earth there would be less food. The population in some parts of the world would suffer if animals were to disappear. The Wildlife Conservation Society Tanzania (WCST) mainly focuses on birds. They promote wildlife conservation and train people. They encourage schools such as ours to open their own wildlife clubs. They organize bird watching trips around Dar and Tanzania. WCST is a partner of the Birdlife; Birdlife is an organization which protects birds.

By Tom and Wayne

IST Wildlife Clubs Help Turtle Conservation

On Tuesday 23rd of May 2006, Wildlife Club organized a talk by Freya St. John about Sea Sense, a turtle conservation project in Tanzania. Roots and Shoots also attended the presentation. Sea Sense was started in 2001 in Mafia with the help of Catherine Muir. The project aims at conserving turtles with the help of local coastal communities. After its success in Mafia, the project spread to 4 different areas along the coast of mainland Tanzania. One of these areas is South Beach, which lies south of Dar es Salaam. As a result of its efforts, turtle nest poaching has decreased to less than 1% on Mafia Island and the number of successful turtle nests has greatly increased. Sea Sense also helps in the conservation of other marine life, such as dugongs.
Wildlife Club decided to raise money for Sea Sense by organizing a movie night. We raised 73,000 Tsh for the project and this was handed to Ms St. John after her presentation. The money will be used to pay specified villagers who look after the turtle nests. We received a certificate to thank us for our contribution towards the project.

Josephine Smit, Wildlife Club