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forest management activities by planning and implementing forest programmes, andproviding technical assistance and capacity building on the ground. The council isalso responsible for measures to control soil erosion and desertification, regulate andcontrol the number of livestock in the district, maintain forests and manage wildlifeand to provide for waste management (Mniwasa and Shauri 2001).Within their jurisdiction Kilosa district is represented by all six forest categories andhave national forest reserves, catchment forests, private forest plantations, forestsunder JFM and CBFM, as well as general land forests. Although the NaturalResources Office is only directly involved in the management of the LAFRs theyhave the overall responsibility of communicating with and making sure the lowerlevels of LGAs (the WEOs and VEOs) are aware of, and implementing the activitiesand programmes set by the Forest Policy and Forest Act. They also make sure that thenational rules and regulations and district by-laws regulating forest use is upheld.They are in charge of revenue collection and patrolling for illegal use, and serve astechnical expertise and guidance to the villages when VLFRs or PFM is to beestablished and land use planning exercise carried out. This then warrants that acertain amount of forest staff is present in the district, especially as all divisionsand/or wards should be represented by a forest officer. This, however, is not the casein Kilosa which has a severe shortage of staff including within the Natural ResourcesOffice:107