Tanzania: Dar, Berlin in Talks Over Dinosaur Revenue Sharing

THE government is holding talks with Germany on possible sharing of revenue from a dinosaur ferried from Lindi Region to the European nation more than hundred years ago.

The Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Japhet Hasunga, said yesterday that from the talks, the government is targeting to establish how much is being collected from the skeleton and how can the government of Tanzania benefit from it.

The skeleton is preserved at the Humboldt Museum in Germany and it is considered as the main tourism attraction at the museum. According to him, progress of the talks would determine whether the government will have to bring back the dinosaur fossils into the country or not.

"But it has to earn us (the country) money", he said in Dar es Salaam when addressing a press conference about government's plans to promote tourism attractions situated in the southern regions. The Deputy Minister went on to explain that the skeleton was 22 meters in length and 13.7 meters height. It is one of the largest mounted dinosaur fossils on permanent exhibit in the world.

"Therefore, it would be difficult to have it back into the country," noted Mr Hasunga, adding that until now German hasn't been able to reveal how much it has collected from the dinosaur fossils. The European nation has been funding various conservation projects in Tanzania.

"We believe that part of the money that they have been spending on supporting various projects here is earned from the remains of the dinosaur that was ferried to Germany a century back," added the Deputy Minister.

On board, Mr Hasunga was optimistic that presence of the fossil in German is one of the ways of marketing Tanzania abroad, adding that the dinosaur is considered as the country's ambassador on tourism and scientific research to many countries in the world.

However, he said that it would be difficult to bring back the skeleton because it was assembled using modern technology that isn't available in the country.

"It would be a bit difficult to bring back the dinosaur fossils from Germany because as a country, we lack the capacity and technology required to preserve and display the remains for tourism purposes," he said.