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

MANAGEMENT ISSUES: TANZANIA’S COASTAL FORESTS 2011
5 Financial Sustainability
5.1 Overview
The funding available for the management of the Coastal Forests in Tanzania is woefully inadequate.
There is a zero allocation from the central government for the management of the national Forest
Reserves in southern Tanzania, and the Forest Reserves are seen as an income generating resource by
the District Councils. As an example, natural resources contribute the majority of the revenue available
to the Rufiji District Council. It has been estimated from available data compiled from around the
world, that adequate management of reserves similar to those of the eastern African coastal forests can
be achieved if managers have around US$1,500-US$1,750 for each sq km of forest under their
management (Love and Morrison 2007). Hence, there is an urgent need for a source of sustainable
funding that can be used to assist protect and manage the reserves in the coastal regions of Tanzania.
There are several stakeholder/actors that are investing money for forest activities in coastal areas and
most of these actors have been conducting their activities in the Tanzania mainland than in the Island.
Funding contributions from Central and Local Governments for forest conservation and management
activities are limited and mostly in-kind. The collected revenue from forest products and services are not
directly retained for forest conservation and management activities in the case study coastal districts.
Non-existent or inadequate follow up of implementation of legal regulatory frameworks (bylaws,
financial regulations) is common; the use of business planning tool for cost effective management and
the use of tools for revenue collection in the selected coastal districts is low. This results in more
encroachment to forest resources, inadequate information about forest conservation activities
expenditures and revenue losses.
There are possible potential projects that can be used as source of revenue for the forest activities in the
coastal areas. These sources can be in different broad categories such as commercial / market driven
funding approaches; community level approaches; project based approaches and emerging
opportunities such as REDD. As efforts to explore different sources of income are still being worked out,
it has to be noted that these coastal areas are characterized by community with low level of education,
and limited sources of income generation activities. Moreover, the communities much depend on
forests and forest related products and services. These necessitate the need for sustainable forest
management in these coastal areas.
5.2 Financing Forest in Coastal Districts and the Financial Status
Financing forest conservation in the coastal districts (Rufiji, Kilwa, Lindi, Unguja and Pemba) comes from
various different sources (Table 24).
Table 24: Different Actors Working in the Selected Case Study Areas
Actor Rufiji Kilwa Lindi Unguja Pemba
Central government – Through respective ministries v v v v v
Local government-District Council v v v v v
WWF Tanzania Country Office v v v v v
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