Mount Meru
More actions
| Mount Meru | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Geography | |
| Country | Tanzania |
| Province/State | Arusha Region |
| District | Arumeru District |
| Coordinates | -3.25, 36.75 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 2,500 km² |
| Terrain | Forested slopes of a volcano and the farming villages below them; approximately the former Arumeru District |
| Growing history | |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Mount Meru is a cannabis growing area in Arusha Region, in northern Tanzania, on the slopes of Mount Meru, a dormant volcano 70 kilometres west of Kilimanjaro.[1] Cannabis, called bangi in Swahili, is grown in the forest on the mountain's slopes and in the villages of Arumeru District.[2][3] In 2018 The Citizen called the forested slopes at Kisimiri notorious for the crop.[2] In 2023 Tanzania's Drug Control and Enforcement Authority (DCEA) destroyed 101 acres of cannabis at Kisimiri Juu.[4] Xinhua reported that the operation, carried on for eight days around the foot of the mountain, destroyed 953 hectares.[1]
Geography
Of the mountains of Tanzania only Kilimanjaro is higher than Meru.[5] The village of Kisimiri Juu lies on the edge of the mountain and borders Arusha National Park. In 2017 Mwananchi reported that cannabis growing went on strongly on the land between the park and the village.[5] Maria Kirombo, head of the park's protection unit, told the paper that the park had no buffer zone, so villagers could enter it to farm, cannabis among other crops. The park had run several operations against the farms since 2012 and kept a guard post near the mountain, close to Kisimiri Juu, where the rangers served in shifts because of the cold. Kirombo said that cannabis had been grown on Mount Meru for a long time and that villagers had formerly gone into the park to plant it.[5]
Other places named in reports of growing are the villages of Olkokola and Lenglong,[5][3] the hamlet of Engalaoni[2] and the Meru forest reserve.[6]
The crop and its growers
At Lenglong, an officer of the DCEA said in 2017, cannabis was grown openly in the farms, "the same way as you cultivate maize outside your house". Almost every household searched in a night raid on the village had bags of cannabis. The Citizen wrote that many villages of Arumeru District were known for growing cannabis and khat, and that residents had made it their main economic activity.[3] Kirombo said in 2017 that many growers planted cannabis in the middle of their food crops, so that the villagers of Ngarenanyuki and Kisimiri Juu complained that their crops were being cut down in the operations against it.[5]
Users call the cannabis grown in Arusha Region kitu cha Arusha ("the Arusha thing"). Mwananchi reported a claim that it differs from cannabis grown in other regions and suggested that the difference might come from the good soil of the land inside Arusha National Park where it is grown.[5]
In 2018 the regional police commander, Charles Mkumbo, said that growers had moved into thick forest to avoid the police.[2] In 2023 an agricultural officer of Uwalu ward, where Kisimiri Juu lies, said that research by the agricultural research station at Tengeru had found that pyrethrum, carrots and potatoes grow well there and could replace cannabis. He asked the government to subsidise those crops.[4][7]
Operations against the farms
The historian Iddy Ramadhani Magoti names Arusha among the regions of Tanzania where cannabis growing, and police operations against it, were reported from the 1960s to the 2020s.[8]: 120 The DCEA links the felling of native trees for cannabis and khat farms to environmental damage in the Arumeru area, among other places.[9] It named Arusha among the regions that led in cannabis farming in 2017.[9]: 22
In 2016 the police seized 26 tonnes of cannabis at Kisimiri.[5] In July 2017 the DCEA seized 500 bags of cannabis and six bags of seed in a night operation at Lenglong, a fortnight after impounding 168 bags at Engedeko village in the same district. The district commissioner of Arumeru said that most of the cannabis supplied across the country came from Arumeru.[3] In the same year at least 17 hectares were destroyed around Kisimiri village.[2]
In February 2018 an operation led by the home affairs minister, Mwigulu Nchemba, destroyed six acres at Engalaoni.[2] Agence France-Presse reported that 14 hectares were destroyed in Arusha Region within a few days, eight of them in the Meru forest reserve in a single day. The Arumeru administrative secretary told the agency that some local officials were themselves involved in the trade.[6] In 2019 a government minister named Arusha among six regions where growing was proving hardest to contain.[10] When the DCEA began a countrywide campaign against cultivation in May 2022, it started in Arusha Region because the region was notorious for growing, its commissioner general said; the first 21 hectares were destroyed in Arumeru and Monduli districts.[11]
On the night of 31 May 2023 the DCEA destroyed 101 acres of farms and 482 sacks of cannabis at Kisimiri Juu, in Uwalu ward.[4][7] The day before, a minister presenting the government's report on the drug situation in 2022 had named Arusha among the leading regions for cannabis growing.[7] Xinhua, citing a DCEA statement, reported that the operation lasted eight days from 31 May and destroyed 953 hectares around the foot of Mount Meru; 16 people were held.[1] In the whole of 2023 the DCEA destroyed 2,389 acres of cannabis farms in Arusha, Morogoro and Mara regions,[12]: 21 and in 2024 it destroyed 131 acres in Arusha Region.[13]: 23
Trade
The Citizen wrote in 2018 that the police had seized bags of dried cannabis being taken for sale, mostly in Arusha and Dar es Salaam, and that some consignments went to Kenya.[2] In 2017 a young man at Kisimiri told a Mwananchi reporter that much of the cannabis grown in the village was sold in Kenya, taken across at the border post of Namanga or by unofficial crossings, mostly by donkey.[5]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No recent news items.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Xinhua (11 June 2023). "16 suspects detained in Tanzania over cultivation of 953 hectares of cannabis". Xinhua. Dar es Salaam. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 "Marijuana growers change trick: police". The Citizen. Dar es Salaam. 25 February 2018. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Huge marijuana haul seized in Arumeru". The Citizen. Dar es Salaam. 13 July 2017. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Kimaro, Vicky (1 June 2023). "Ekari 101 za bangi zateketezwa". HabariLeo (in Kiswahili). Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 "Kilimo cha bangi kama kawa Arusha". Mwananchi (in Kiswahili). Dar es Salaam. 18 March 2017. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Agence France-Presse (11 February 2018). "Tanzania clamps down on cannabis". News24. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "DCEA yateketeza hekari 101, magunia 482 ya bangi". Mwananchi (in Kiswahili). Dar es Salaam. 1 June 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Magoti, Iddy Ramadhani (2023). "Exploring the value of cannabis and changing mindset for advancing socio-economic development in Tanzania, 1891–2023". Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. 12 (2).
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Mamlaka ya Kudhibiti na Kupambana na Dawa za Kulevya. Taarifa ya Hali ya Dawa za Kulevya ya Mwaka 2017 (PDF) (Report) (in Kiswahili). Dar es Salaam: DCEA.
- ↑ "Revealed: Tanzania's six top regions in marijuana growing". The Citizen. Dar es Salaam. 6 November 2019. Retrieved 18 October 2026.
- ↑ Xinhua (26 May 2022). "Tanzania launches crackdown on cannabis cultivation". Xinhua. Dar es Salaam. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Mamlaka ya Kudhibiti na Kupambana na Dawa za Kulevya (May 2024). Taarifa ya Hali ya Dawa za Kulevya ya Mwaka 2023 (PDF) (Report) (in Kiswahili). Dar es Salaam: DCEA. ISBN 978-9912-9896-4-1.
- ↑ Mamlaka ya Kudhibiti na Kupambana na Dawa za Kulevya (June 2025). Taarifa ya Hali ya Dawa za Kulevya ya Mwaka 2024 (PDF) (Report) (in Kiswahili). Dar es Salaam: DCEA. ISBN 978-9912-9896-5-8.