The books have been printed with support from several Norwegian institutions, among others the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the Norwegian Research Council.
The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Dar es Salaam hosted the event, where several of the PhD students that contributed to the chapters in the book were present, as well as the two editors of the book and the Director of Forestry and Beekeeping Division in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Dr. Felician Kilahama.
- This book itself is something concrete that has come out of the many years of cooperation between Tanzanian and Norwegian research and management institutions in the field of natural resources management, the Embassy’s Minister Counsellor, Anne Kristin Hermansen, stated. It is based on the work done by Tanzanian PhD students who have attended courses and graduated at NTNU in Norway. Their field research was done in Tanzania.
The three big universities in Tanzania (University of Dar es Salaam, University of Dodoma and Sokoine University of Agriculture) do all have good classes in natural resources management, but there is an urgent need for academic literature – for relevant books - and this is the first academic one on Conservation Biology that is mainly written by Tanzanians themselves. – This book they can have and read and own for themselves, said one of the two editors, Prof. Eivin Røskaft from NTNU.
After receiving the books, Deputy Vice Chancellor Prof. Ludovick Kinabo from the Dodoma University underlined that the ceremony was a celebration of the cordial relationship and profound friendship that have existed between the People of Tanzania and People of Norway for many decades. In his speech he gave his deepest thanks to the book donation from the Government of Norway and said that for the University of Dodoma and their students, who are hungry for books, this donation means a lot in their striving to improve the quality of staff, teaching and learning facilities, research and outreach outputs amongst other things that they strive towards as an only four year old University. He focused on the book’s contribution to understand human-wildlife conflicts, and conflicts between people who have different interests as e.g. farmers, pastoralists or service providers within the tourist industry. He closed his speech with a few words of E.P. Whipple: - Books are the lighthouses erected in the great sea of time!
On the request made by Chairman of the Board of Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (Tawiri), Prof. Gabriel Mbassa, for a kiswahili summary of the book, Prof. Røskaft said that this would be an important way of giving something back to the communities that have been participating in the studies presented in the book, and then he challenged his Tanzanian colleague and co-editor, Dr. Emmanuel Joshua Gereta, to contribute to that end.