Empowering communities to manage natural resources: where does the new power lie?: a case study of Duru-Haitemba, Babati, Tanzania

Recent approaches to community-based natural resource management appear as diverse as their varied implementing agencies and natural resource settings; yet they rest on a set of common assumptions about community, natural resources and the relationship between them. This paper focuses on power relations between local actors and how these set the framework for resource management in Duru-Haitemba. As one of the few remaining tracts of Miombo woodlands, the Duru-Haitemba had been targeted for gazzettment. However the exercise faced ‘local discontent’, originating in the ‘generalized narrative’. Before colonial powers the community lived in balanced harmony with nature, which when disrupted led to disequilibrium and hence degradation. A range of factors may account for this, including: technological change; breakdown of traditional authority; social change; urban aspirations and intrusion of inappropriate state policies. The community and environment should be brought back into harmony. This requires either the discovery and rebuilding of traditional collective resource management institutions or their replacement by new ones. At the local level the elites and the traditionalists compete for power: The primary concern of traditionalists is ‘ritual’. Elites tend to hijack community-based processes and forcefully occupy the political space opened by decentralisation. Besides power struggles at the micro level, another challenge is the government leadership at the macro level. Government officials usually have very mixed feelings about community actions but increasingly are realising that community action can be substituted for the expensive exercise of putting government officials in the field. The paper points out that community-based natural resource management is a plausible way to reduce public costs of managing resources. However, the power struggle between local communities, field agents and supervisors remains. This ‘triangle’ of relationships constitutes the social arena marking out the actual ‘locale’ of community based natural resource management in Duru-Haitemba

Household livelihood strategies in the miombo woodlands of Tanzania: emerging trends

The study was undertaken in Tanzania to assess the effect of some macro-economic policies on livelihood strategies for households within or in close proximity in miombo woodlands. The focus was on how their responses are impacting on the management and use of the woodlands. Data were collected at macro level from three sites categories as remote, intermediate and peri-urban. Also data on important macroeconomic trends were collected. The results indicate that reductions government spending have decreased agricultural support in terms of extension services and subsidies on farm inputs. The increase in prices of input factors relative to output has raised costs of farm inputs, cost of living in general and decreased disposable incomes for most rural dwellers, forcing some of them into extensive forest product exploitation and trade for each incomes. in the study sites, some forest products contribute between 50-70% of annual household incomes. However not many households have the capacity to take the advantage of promising forest-based income generating activities. Economic hardships also led to changes in gender roles particularly in per-urban and intermediate sites. Women are increasingly expanding their roles, away from traditional domestic activities to income generating activities such as forest product exploitation and sale, casual labour and petty business. Men are gradually talking up activities which have traditionally been in the domain of women. The role of local institutions and traditional values in management of woodlands has declined. Village governments have replaced village and clan elders in land allocation. Local beliefs of value for forest protection and traditional property rights which influence utilization of communal resources have gradually been eroded. Some macro-economic policies have created conditions for broadening the cash income base of rural communities and have put value on some otherwise non-tradable forest products. Local communicates advocate for the full involvement in the management and use of these resources.

Charcoal, potential of Miombo woodlands at Kitulangalo, Tanzania

A study was carried out to determine the charcoal potential of the Miombo woodlands of Kitungalo area, near Morogoro, Tanzania. Systematic sampling design used in an inventory in 1996 was repeated in 1999 in order to determine the general current stand parameters and forest change. A total of 46 sample plots were land out in the forest reserve. In adjacent public lands stratified random sampling was applied where a total of 30 plots were laid out. The layout was meant to study how species richness and wood stocking vary in public lands and forest reserve. Preferred tree species for charcoal making had standing wood volume of 24.5m’ ha -1 and 56.5 m' ha -1 in public lands and reserved forest respectively with corresponding basal area of 3.7 m2 ha -1 and 7.2 m2 ha -1. Stem numbers were 909 stems ha -1 in public lands and 354 stems ha -1 in the reserved forest. These values indicated more regeneration in public lands following disturbance than in the forest reserve. The weight of charcoal that can be extracted from the woodland at the road side was 56 kg, equivalent to only one bag of charcoal per hectare. Similarly 54 bags may be extracted at 5 km distance while 125 bags may be extracted from beyond 10 km from the highway. With the established stand growth rate of 2.3 rrr' ha -1 year -1 for the re-growth of Miombo woodland at Kitulangalo, it will take about 8 to 15 years for the degraded woodlands to recover for charcoal production. Therefore, for sustainable charcoal production in this area, felling cycles of 8 to 15 years recommended, provided the minimum tree size of > 10 cm dbh (diameter at breast height) for charcoal making is observed

The importance of local forest benefits: Economic valuation of Non-Timber Forest Products in the Eastern Arc Mountains in Tanzania

Understanding the spatial distribution of the quantity and economic value of Non-Timber Forest Product (NTFP) collection gives insight into the benefits that local communities obtain from forests, and can inform decisions about the selection of forested areas that are eligible for conservation and enforcement of regulations. In this paper we estimate transferable household production functions of NTFP extraction in the Eastern Arc Mountains (EAM) in Tanzania, based on information from seven multi-site datasets related to the behaviour of over 2000 households. The study shows that the total benefit flow of charcoal, firewood, poles and thatch from the EAM to the local population has an estimated value of USD 42 million per year, and provides an important source of additional income for local communities, especially the poorest, who mainly depend on subsistence agriculture. The resulting map of economic values shows that benefits vary highly across space with population density, infrastructure and resource availability. We argue that if further restrictions on forest access to promote conservation are considered, this will require additional policies to prevent a consequent increase in poverty, and an enforced trade-off between conservation and energy supply to rural and urban households