As the prolonged drought adversely affects many parts of Manyara and Arusha regions, communities living close to the state of nature are complaining that poachers are fueling their plight by depleting animals that are their main source of food.

Their speakers, Mahiya Makala, Reuben Matayo and Sati Salibogo who were speaking at a public meeting at Domanga and Ashkesh at Mongo wa Mono village said the poachers have been invading the valley with modern firearms especially at night.

They said their only hope was in the government to fight poachers in the area as their activities are dangerous to the eco-system that supports communities which depend on the wild for their survival.

Allan Shani, the Mbulu District Natural Resources Officer told the traditional hunters and gatherers that the government alone cannot stop poaching adding that what is needed to stop the rampart practice is the local people’s support and cooperation.

He said the government has also decided to let investors get to the area so as to subsidize the government and the people's efforts in sustainable conservation.

The officer went to Mongo wa Mono to introduce to the villagers the representative of FAMS investors whose activities would include hunting tourism.

The FAMS Investment Ltd of Dar es Salaam, General Manager Mr. Ally Seif asked the villagers to welcome his company in their locality for the benefit of both sides.

FAMS investors are coming to Yaeda Chini hardly two years after one of Africa's last hunter-gatherer tribes had scored victory over a foreign tourist hunting company. After a wrangle, an Arab royal family dropped plans to use the people's ancestral land for commercial hunting.

A company from the United Arab Emirates in 2007 pulled out of a deal with the Tanzania government to hunt wildlife in 2,267 square kms of remote bush in the Yaeda Chini region.

Campaigners feared if a hunting concession was granted to the company then the Hadzabe hunter-gatherers of Yaeda Chini would have been criminalised as poachers had driven off land their ancestors have lived on for 10,000 years.

The Hadzabe, who live in small groups and are believed to number less than 3,000 in total in Tanzania, are the closest cultural relatives to the San bushmen of the Kalahari in Botswana.

The hunting company complained that it had been "misrepresented" by unspecified Hadzabe interest groups, writes Journalist Adam James.

"The end of the deal is a great victory because it sends a clear message that hunter-gatherer people will not take threats to their ancestral land lying down," said Fiona Watson of Survival International, a charity working for the rights of tribal people around the world.

Social scientists recently expressed fears that the Hadzabe ethnic group could become extinct in a few years as a result of pressure on their natural habitat.

The Hadzabe have inhabited the acacia forests and scrubland around Lake Eyasi in Arusha and Meatu in Shinyanga for over 10,000 years.

According to research findings by Oxfam, an international non-governmental organisation, the Hadzabe, who survive on fruit-gathering and hunting down wild animals for food, are under serious threat of extinction as their habitats have been converted into conservation areas and agricultural farms.

’"The situation is very critical for the tribe, whose population does not exceed 3,000, in Meatu district, Shinyanga region,’" reads part of the Oxfam report circulated to stakeholders in Arusha.