View/Open - Sokoine University of Agriculture

have made for the forest 48 . Finally, the whole document with village boundaries andland plan together with the bylaws are sent to the district lawyer and formed into legaldocuments. The head of natural resource office, Mr. Haule told us that “conflicts oftenactually arise after the laws have been established, since it first then becomes clearwho has the rights to what” (Local resource person 2010).In much of our study area (apart from Lunenzi) the tenure in place is to a large extentde facto open access which can be seen as a contributing factor to the presence ofvarious forest user groups. As seen it is not just people from within the villagerswhich use the village forests but also external people, such as timber and charcoalproducers (and traders) and pastoralists. When property rights are strengthened, as aresult of the land use planning exercise and the demarcation of village forest reserves,the interaction between these user groups will then most likely change and it mightresult in increasing conflicts. This can already be seen between farmers andpastoralists, and as it is the conflict level stands a high possibility of increasing as aresult of REDD.TFCG were planning to complete both stage one and two in all villages before the endof March 2011. However, creating the bylaws for the forest management plan cantake a lot of time. According to Mr. Chikira, “this is because the counselors are verybusy with a lot of meetings which slows down the process. If they are done in Marchdepends on the counselors, which do not meet more than every third months”. Inaddition, complaints were made that the topography and nature of the district coupledwith unpredictable rains, made the land use planning take more time than anticipated.The project thus faces a huge challenge and may take much more time than plannedfor. This can also affect local people´s attitudes to the project all together. Time doesnot appear to be on their side, and as two years have already passed only few villageshave undergone and set up PFM. From what we have heard the implementers are alsofeeling the pressure and want more time within the project. It has no doubt also been acostly affair of informing all the villages of their intentions and to set up land useplans for each of them, which might become an issue later on in terms of the fundingavailable to provide for more direct benefits to the villagers as a result of their efforts.48 An example of a by-law could be that people are not allowed to farm closer than 30 meters from theriver.241