FOREST LANDSCAPE RESTORATION - UNEP World Conservation ...

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Main characteristics of the five categories with reference to introduction and support of FLR are highlighted.
Conservation of State owned forest reserves for productive purposes
Main objectives of the category are:
• To maintain sufficient forest area under effective management that will enhance sustainable supply of forest
products and services.
• To ensure ecosystem stability through conservation of forest biodiversity, water catchment and soil fertility.
• To support forest wood-based industries which will provide employment opportunities to the community.
Prior to approval of the forest Policy of 1998, main strategy adopted for the category was gazetting large areas of
natural forests as Central or Local Government Forest reserves and managing the Forest reserves by using paid forest
workers. The forest Policy of 1998 has introduced community and other stakeholders’ participation in management of
forest reserves through Joint Forest Management. By end of year 2000, the area of forest reserves under active JFM
was 70,135 ha with an additional 339,874 ha. under JFM proposal.
Lessons that have already been learned from the category shows that successful conservation and management of forest
reserves require co-operation of the local community and other stakeholders. Also multi-sectoral efforts in management
of forest reserves are required to minimise conflicts from different stakeholders.
Improvements that could be obtained by adopting FLR approach in managing protected forest reserves include:
intensifying community involvement in management of forest reserves and giving a realistic economic value of forest
reserves by considering wood, now-wood products and services provided by the forests to the community.
Conservation of State owned Forest Reserves for protective purposes
Main objectives of protective forest reserves are to enhance sustainable supply of water to the community and to
conserve areas liable to soil erosion. Strategies that have been used for managing protective forests include:
• Declaring potential watershed forest areas as Central Government Forest Reserves.
• Protecting the watershed forest reserves using paid workers through the policing system.
• Management priorities are on water catchment and biodiversity conservation.
After approval of the forest policy of 1998, strategies for managing protective forest reserves were modified to include
community participation in management of catchment forest reserves through Joint Forest Management (By end of
2000, a total of 116,985 ha of watershed catchment forests were under JFM proposal). Management objectives have
been widened to cover supply of multiple products and services from the forests.
By end of year 2000, Tanzania had about 1.6 million ha of water shed forests, with concentration in four regions
namely Kilimanjaro, Arusha, Tanga and Morogoro. Lessons learned from management of the protective forests
include:
• Increasing pressure from surrounding communities to clear the forests for agriculture expansion and other land
uses due to rapid population growth.
• Policing of watershed forests is not successful.
• Management of watershed forests should include provision of other forest functions and not confined to water.
• Community involvement in management of watershed forests is important.
• Effective management of watershed forests requires coverage of large areas on a landscape level.
Improvements that could be obtained by introducing FLR approaches in managing protected forest reserves include:
mmanaging the forests with multi-purpose objectives and intensify involvement of the local community in managing
the forests and supporting the idea of restoring forest functionality at landscape level.