The project proposal on increasing community awareness of biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation & adaptation and water sources preservation aim is to support programs to the rural areas and to develop community-based management of natural forests and woodlands, and address gender issues at formulation, implementation and benefit sharing stages, and through this effort conserve valuable biological diversity and improved welfare of rural communities.
Major activities of the project are training of villagers on natural resources management and relevant new policies; demarcation of forest areas and development of management plans; development of markets for products from the woodlands; gender training and training on management of funds at the village level.
Project Summary
The project proposal on increasing community awareness of biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation & adaptation, and water sources preservation around Makete District of Njombe Region in Tanzania aim is to support programs to the rural areas of Makete and to develop community-based management of natural forests and woodlands, and address gender issues at formulation, implementation and benefit sharing stages in Iringa District, and through this effort conserve valuable biological diversity and improved welfare of rural communities in line with the new Forest Policy (1998); the Wildlife Policy (1998) and the proposed Land Bill 1999 and the Village Land Act (1998).
If successful during the first phase, the Project will be extended into a second phase during which the results will be applied to other woodlands in Njombe and Iringa Regions. During phase one, models for management of natural woodlands and local structures will be developed and strengthened in one village owned forest area and one national forest reserve. The management plans will be developed and implemented jointly by the villagers, and forestry staff at district and sub-district level with support from Makete District Council and technical assistance from GEF Small Grants Programme.
Villagers of both genders and of different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds are expected to be the main beneficiaries from the joint forest products and wildlife through improved (legalised) access to the natural resources in the woodlands. The CCDO and Makete District Council will play a facilitating and monitoring role and will, in turn, have it is revenue base improved through increased District Cess from forest related products in the two pilot areas.
Major activities include training of villagers on natural resources management and relevant new policies; demarcation of forest areas and development of management plans; development of markets for products from the woodlands; gender training and training on management of funds at the village level.
Training will be directed at different groups of villagers and in particular to natural resource management committees operating under the auspices of the village councils. Training will also be directed at the natural resource’s management supervisory staff at the District level. Since, the project activities and outputs are directly related to the project goal and objectives.
The project will be implemented in the Makete district of Njombe region. The district has a long history of lumbering and destruction of water sources, and consequently is prone to drought, forest depletion, flood, famine and HIV. The direct beneficiaries will be three community Divisions population, which are about 50,000. Direct beneficiaries will also include the district, commune and village governments. Indirect beneficiaries are the adjoining districts, provincial government and the national government.
Where the range of interventions will include: Improved land-use practice in particular tree lines, water catchment sources, vetiver grass and other natural protections for disaster mitigation and environmental protection, improved livelihood techniques for adaptation to climate change and environmental sustainability, including sustainable acqua-culture techniques, improved water and sanitation for disease prevention during floods, and improved disaster safe housing practice for adaptation to climate change.
Field implementation and action research through analytical study and pilot interventions in Southern Regions of Tanzania to cope with environmental protection and tree planting through reducing climate change. The project aims to establish linkages among poverty, environment and disasters.
The key project question is vulnerability and risk reduction through appropriate actions, and increasing community resilience. In the current project, climate change issue is the environmental dimensions, which is linked to disasters in terms of flood and forest depletion, affecting the lives and livelihoods of the rural population, and thereby increasing poverty. The proposed project will analyse the climate change patterns and its adaptation at community level, through:
-
- Data analysis on climate change and its impacts in the form of disasters
- Undertaking awareness programs on biodiversity
- Initiating participatory planning process
- Implementing demonstration sub-projects in the pilot study area.
The project will be analysed to develop a climate change adaptation model, which can be used in other areas of the Tanzanian Regions.
General Description of the Project
The core problem addressed by the Community Based Natural Woodlands Management Project (NWMP) was related to the potential and actual conflicts between the overall concern for the environment on the one hand and efforts to support people’s livelihood and alleviate poverty of individual households, rural communities and local authorities on the other.
Tanzania today faces a number of environmental challenges including increased pressure on natural resources, deforestation, land degradation and other related climate change problems. The failure to effectively address these problems can be related to a number of factors, including the overall policies pursued by Tanzania in the past; lack of means (capital, knowledge, technical inputs, etc) and institutional and organisational bottlenecks.
A weak management and information system and until recently insufficient political will to acknowledge and support needed fundamental reforms have also played their role. Moreover, individual households and local communities lack economic and other incentives to play an active role in the conservation or sustainable utilisation of natural resources due to lack of or insecure ownership and user rights to these. As a consequence, the efficiency and effectiveness of existing means and organizational structures aimed at management of natural resources are still considered to be low.
With the ongoing decentralization process, the newly developed and approved Forestry Policy, the new Wildlife Policy and the new Land Act and Village Act, the Government of Tanzania has taken some major political steps towards resolving the conflict between the environmental and poverty alleviation objectives.
Districts and local communities, who will become the main custodians of the natural resources on behalf of the society as a whole, however, have difficulties in taking upon their new role, firstly because the recent policy changes are not yet known to most people (including government officials at regional and district level) and secondly due to lack of technical and managerial skills required for the effective and sustainable management of the natural resources.
To enhance the impact of the new policy changes, the Regional and Local Authorities and communities need to be equipped with the necessary information and knowledge. Furthermore, the capacity of existing organisational structures and systems to manage the natural resources in a sustainable and beneficial way in accordance with the new policies and laws needs to be investigated and possibly strengthened.
The CCDO project is designed to assist the local communities, district authorities and Tanzania as a whole to achieve the formulated policy goals and to minimise the current conflict between the environmental objectives and the poverty alleviation objective.
Objectives
Development Objective:
The project aim is to develop a Community Based Climate Change Adaptation Model, which can be applied to different socio-economic condition. The goal of the proposed project is to enhance human security in Tanzania to cope with the climate change impacts in the form of natural disasters like flood, deforestation, forest fires, destruction of water catchment areas, and cyclone.
To achieve the above-mentioned aim and goal, specific objectives are as follow:
-
- To reduce the negative impacts of climate change on communities and its livelihoods in the areas of Magoma, Bulongwa and Matamba Divisions at Makete Districts.
- To conduct training and awareness raising programs in the village, commune and district
- To initiate a participatory planning process in the village, commune and district level,
- To implement demonstration sub-projects under the safer village/ commune/ district plans, and
- To monitor and analyze the implementation process and development of the Community Based Climate Change Adaptation Model,
- To sensitize and promote the knowledge of carbon credit and reducing climate change through tree planting campaigns, bee keeping and fish farming as a means of poverty reduction initiatives and protection for their sustainability.
To develop community-based management of natural forests and woodlands in Makete District and through this effort conserve valuable biological diversity and improved welfare of rural communities.
Immediate Objectives:
First, to develop, test and implement widely replicable Joint Forest Management models for environmentally sustainable production, use, management and protection of natural forests and woodlands in the pilot areas.
Second, to support capacity development in natural forests, woodlands and biodiversity resource management in Iringa District.
The underlying strength of the Immediate Objectives is that they define the two crucial levels of CCDO activity: first, to assist villages and communities and, second, to support District-level capacity to sustain this activity.
Scope of Work/ Description of Proposed Approaches
The project activities and outputs are directly related to the project goal and objectives. The project will be implemented in the Makete district of Iringa region. The district has a long history of lumbering and destruction of water sources and consequently is prone to drought, forest depletion, flood and famine. The direct beneficiaries will be three community Divisions population, which are about 50,000. Direct beneficiaries will also include the district, commune and village governments. Indirect beneficiaries are the adjoining districts, the provincial government and the national government.
The range of interventions will include:
-
- Improved land-use practices in particular tree lines, water catchment sources, vetiver grass and other natural protections for disaster mitigation and environmental protection,
- Improved livelihood techniques for adaptation to climate change and environmental sustainability, including sustainable acqua-culture techniques
- Improved water and sanitation for disease prevention during floods.
- Improved disaster-safe housing practices for adaptation to climate change.
The above interventions are related to the Tanzanian Poverty Reduction Strategy Program and Water Resource Management Use policy through the geographic focus on poverty reduction in the central region and environmental dimensions in poverty reduction projects. Also, these interventions are aligned with health, nutrition and social protection strategies of the MKUKUTA by Swahili acronym which means Tanzania’s National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (PRSP). The last two interventions have strong elements in PRSP’s gender strategy. These interventions also provide the opportunity to promote the objectives of the Environmental Conservation Policy, which emphasizes the proactive approach in disaster prevention and mitigation.
The participatory process for determining priority actions focus on villagers assessing their vulnerability, including identifying the poorest and most vulnerable groups, and proposing solutions that address the community’s overall socio-economic development needs and contribute to environmental sustainability. Consequently, the interventions will contribute to poverty reduction and improved protection of the environment.
Project Activities
Proposed activities are directly related to the objectives:
Stakeholder and Resource Mapping: Through this mapping process, key Stakeholders will be identified with its roles and responsibilities. Available resources will be identified in terms of human and social capital analysis.
Vulnerability, Capacity and Need Assessment: A detailed analysis will be conducted to:
-
- understand the vulnerability and risk of the communities,
- analyse community’s coping capacities
- assess the needs and priorities in the village, district and commune level.
Training Program for the Change Agents: In case of Tanzania, the grass-roots mass organizations (like women’s association, youth association, and farmer’s association) have a strong role to play in the community. The mass organizations leaders are identified as the Change Agents and a consolidated training program will be conducted for these change agents.
Simplified Climate Change Scenario Creation: Based on the available climate prediction data from the national research institute (Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology), a simplified climate change scenario will be produced, with participation of the Change Agents. This scenario will be transformed into simplified, and easy to understand form with the help of the local journalists and mass media. The purpose is to disseminate the information to the people in simplified form.
Awareness Raising Campaign: An awareness raising campaign will be undertaken in different communes in the case study district. The trained Change Agents will act as the facilitators in the awareness raising campaign. The purpose of this awareness raising campaign is to disseminate the concept of climate change, carbon credit and its impact in the form of natural disaster in an easy to understand form.
Identify specific needs in the village and communes: With the background information on the overall vulnerability, need and capacity assessment (Activity 1), village and commune specific needs will be identified. This need assessment process will be done by the trained Change Agents (the leaders of the mass organizations), with assistance from the project team.
Safer Village and Commune-level planning process: Based on the identified needs, and simplified climate change scenario, the planning process will prioritize the actions to cope with the impacts of climate change. The trained change agents will facilitate planning process. Task-stakeholder and resource matrix will be produced, based on the local priorities. This will be a process-oriented approach, rather than the product-focus approach, where the process will enhance the awareness of the people and communities. The village and commune level plans will be combined to form a district level plan and framework of action.
Implementation of selected demonstration sub-projects: Selected demonstration sub-projects will be implemented in some of the communes and villages. The sub-projects will be selected based on the local needs, commitments of the villages and communes, availability of local contributions, and in accordance with the district level planning and strategy.
Training and awareness raising process: These sub-projects will also be considered as training and awareness raising instruments. The demonstration sub-projects will be considered as the seeds for future larger projects in the communes and villages.
Development of Community Based Climate Change Adaptation Model: Based on the experiences of the implementation process, a model will be developed for its wider application to different socio-economic context.
Information dissemination: Four workshops will be conducted to disseminate the project benefits and sustainability strategy within the district, province and national level.
The above activities will be in accordance to the Tanzanian’s Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy, which identifies sustainable agricultural development, natural resource management, and natural disaster mitigation as important sectors to reduce poverty in rural areas, including vulnerable zones and thereby enhancing human security.
Expected Output/Outcomes
-
- The expected outputs are as follows:
- Stakeholder and Resource Map
- Vulnerability, Capacity and Need Assessment Report
- Trained personnel and work force
- Simplified Climate Change Scenario
- Raised awareness of the people and communities regarding the climate change impacts.
- Specific village and commune level need assessment
- Safer village and commune plans and district level plan and framework of action and aware villagers and commune members.
- Demonstration sub-projects
- Raised awareness of people and communities
- Community Based Climate Change Adaptation Model
- Reports, publications and information dissemination
The project outcome is water sources, biodiversity conservation, forest disaster and poverty resilient communities, which can cope with the changing climatic condition as the major environmental problem. The strong linkage between the community and the local government is also regarded as an importance project outcome.
Performance Indicator
The performance indicators will be:
-
- Community’s participation in the safer village plan formulation (number of community members and its leaders),
- Community’s contribution towards sub-project implementation (amount), and
- Local government’s contribution to the sub-project implementation (amount, local government’s participation).
The outcome indicator will be initiation of actions and incorporation of project outputs in the plans and policies at district and division level, and dissemination of the experience to other parts of the district.
Implementation Strategy
The project took as its point of departure the following guiding principles:
-
- Improved management of natural woodlands and water sources conservation, comprising average annual exploitation that is identical to or less than average annual increment, will secure sustained benefits accruing to villagers in perpetuity;
- Improved access to and control over economic assets in woodlands (i.e. rights to use the woodlands and benefits sharing occurring from these) will provide villagers with a strong incentive to manage the woodlands on a sustainable basis;
- Sustainable utilisation will imply that part of the income derived from natural woodlands must be re-invested in natural woodlands;
- Improved systems for payment of Royalties and for a more balanced sharing of income derived from natural resource management between different stakeholders (village, district, national level) are important for sustainable use of the woodlands; and
- Women and poorer sections of the rural communities are particularly dependent on forest products and other natural resources for their livelihood and sustainable management of the natural woodlands must include safeguarding of the interests of these groups.
In general terms, the project facilitates and assists the Makete District Council and the local communities in three pilot areas: the Magoma Forest Range classified as general land, Madihani Forest Reserve Range and the Kitulo National Park within Matamba Division to achieve a more sustainable management of forest-related products and other natural resources in the natural woodlands.
Specific Elements of the Implementation Strategy include:
-
- Preparation of necessary baseline studies of gender-specific socio-economic issues and natural resources in the two pilot areas as a basis for formulating locally adapted strategies on how to ensure full consideration of gender issues and of poverty orientation in Project supported activities;
- Preparation of profitable, workable and affordable agreements (Joint Forest Management Plans) between the local communities in the three pilot areas and the District Authorities through participatory planning methods;
- Training and facilitating the work of Natural Resources Management Committees at various levels (village, ward, division and district level) to undertake their roles in the implementation of the agreed Joint Forest Management Plans;
- Making available once only the initial investments necessary to clear the 20 years backlog in investments in natural woodlands in the pilot areas providing funds and technical expertise;
- Facilitating the development and implementation of a district forestry framework intervention plan, which will enable the profitable and sustainable exploitation of the natural woodlands by local communities in the pilot areas; and
- Facilitating and assessing the effective execution of formulated policies and related legislation by the District Authorities and Village Governments in the pilot areas through the development of a community-based monitoring and evaluation system.
Outputs
Outputs to satisfy the first Immediate Objective
-
- Contribution to the development of simple, low cost, replicable Joint Forest Management (JFM) systems, which would be applicable over a large area under a second phase project
- Socio-economic, marketing, vegetation and biodiversity surveys undertaken in the pilot areas to underpin management plans and establish indicators for impact monitoring
- Joint Forest Management Plans for each pilot area submitted for approval, and village institutions capable of implementing the plans. This would include fulfilling legal requirements and managing benefits in a socially sustainable way
- Village and forest boundaries of the pilot areas surveyed (where necessary), mapped and demarcated in collaboration with local communities and relevant authorities (e.g. District Lands Development Office and Forestry & Beekeeping Division)
- Support activities aimed at better forest management inside the targeted forest areas and improved forest resources outside the targeted forest areas
- Support to marketing of forest products and climate change for education promotion
- Establish a Monitoring & Evaluation system
Outputs to satisfy the second Immediate Objective:
-
- Contribution to selected district-level activities aimed at capacity development for improved natural resource utilisation and management;
- Identify and develop local systems of revenue generation, collection and retention, which provide durable incentives for improved forest resource management;
- District-level training and capacity building for technical and administrative staff of MDC (Makete District Council and CCDO;
- Research projects and bibliographies supported; and
- Establish management structures, staff, equipment, vehicles and buildings necessary for project implementation.
Major Recommendations on Project Implementation
Y Members of the CCDO require further training and there need to be more discussions with the village populations about the role of the committees;
Y The project should undertake more public meetings at sub-village level and be careful not to concentrate awareness raising activities on CCDOs and village council only;
Y To the extent possible village-level activities must reflect village priorities. The project should explain the purpose of activities, which are not in the village plans or which have been given a low priority by the villages;
Y The project should constantly consider that most primary users of natural resources are poor. Although interested in improving management strategies, they are obliged to give priority to short term economic considerations;
Y Strategy to support not only capacity building of the CCDOs but also of village council is commendable. There is a need to support the capacity of village councils to undertake participatory decision-making, planning implementation and bookkeeping; and if the project wants to ensure that those most dependent on natural resources management issues are fully involved in project activities, it has to target the poorest rather than the general population in the village.
