Neil D. Burgess, Paul Harrison, Peter Sumbi, James Laizer, Adam ...

MANAGEMENT ISSUES: TANZANIA’S COASTAL FORESTS 2011
Baseline Organisation Gaps
Logging
Biodiversity Conservation
Various
Various
In the period 2000-2003 logging was out of control in this region,
for export to the Far East. Although better regulated and
controlled, it is believed the significant illegal logging activity still
takes place. In addition, there is also a significant amount of legal
logging.
The NGO projects operating in the area provide some funds for
biodiversity (forest) conservation in the Matumbi Hills, Kilwa and
Zanzibar landscapes. However, aside from these funds there is no
funding available from government for biodiversity conservation.
4.8.3 Baseline for Mainland Tanzania and Forestry and Beekeeping Division (FBD) Institutional
Capacity
Management and governance
Over the past year Forestry and Beekeeping Division has instigated a section that is dedicated to the
conservation of the Coastal Forests and mangroves, splitting this from the section that was
responsible for the management of mountain catchment forests. However, despite this change it
remains true that the Coastal Forests are not a priority for investment by mainland Districts, and are
rather seen as a source of income.
Management of existing PAs and establishment of new PAs
At the landscape level, all three areas have been the subject of a variety of project inputs over the
past decade. This has assisted in some cased with improving the protected area coverage and
management effectiveness. In other landscapes the advances made during project support, may not
have been sustained as projects have ended. Most of the project inputs on mainland Tanzania have
involved elements of Participatory Forest Management and the establishment of Village Land Forest
Reserves. These approaches have been encouraged by the Forest Policy of 1998 and the Forest Act
of 2002. Fully embedding these approaches within the work of the District Forest Officers has
proven more challenging and most efforts have been externally funded by projects. Solving the
capacity and funding issues at District level remains a fundamental problem to scale up PFM as a
forest management approach in these landscapes, or more broadly within Tanzania.
4.9 Matumbi Landscape
The Matumbi–Kichi Hills contain one of the largest blocks of contiguous forest in coastal Tanzania,
with only some of the area under official protection. Degradation and loss of Coastal Forests and
associated habitats and the species that they support is a result of a wide range of natural and manmade
causes interacting at different levels and intensities on the east African Coastal Forest
ecosystems (Burgess and Clarke 2008). High among the threats to forests in the area are illegal
logging, pit sawing, and shifting cultivation, and forest fires especially those which happen after
prolonged dry spells. Although these threats are mainly the result of local people struggling for
survival, wild fires are sometimes made purposely by poachers to burn grasses so that when grasses
sprout animals are attracted to these opened areas and hence made easy prey to the poachers.
Illegal loggers also use fire to clear grass and understorey so that they can easily pass in the forest
towards logging sites.
Shifting cultivation is practiced by the local communities because coastal soils are relatively infertile.
This condition forces local communities to switch to new farm lands after every 2-3 years. Shifting
cultivation is also practiced from an experience point of view where weeds seem to increase as one
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