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densely populated one with its 2622 inhabitants, followed by Masugu with its 760 10 ,and Lunenzi‟s 630 11 .The District has three major ethnic groups; (Wa)kaguru in the north, Sagala in thecentral zone and Vidunda in the South. However, many people from other ethnicgroups have migrated to the area over the last decades adding to these three (KilosaDistrict Council 2010). This variety of different ethnicities became evident quite earlyduring our fieldwork where we found many of the inhabitants in our villagesoriginating from a number of different places.4.2 Vegetation, wildlife and ClimateThe vegetation in Kilosa District is characterised by both Mediterranean and tropicaltypes, depending largely on altitude along the south-north exterior. Typically itconsists of Miombo woodland with grass and shrub covering the soil (Kilosa DistrictCouncil 2010). Most of the forests are found on the western part of the District alongthe Eastern Arc mountain range where all the three pilot villages are located, morespecifically around Rubeho Mountains. The Eastern Arc Mountain range containsseveral unique ecosystems with a variety of species. Many of them are endemic to thearea, and is internationally recognised as an area with an exceptional concentration ofdifferent species that occur nowhere else on earth (EAMCEF 2011). Even though theRubeho Mountains are generally poorer in endemic species than other areas of theEastern Arc, less species rich mountains will still contain significant levels ofendemic species (Burgess, Butynski et al. 2007). In addition, wildlife plays asignificant role in Kilosa District through Mikumi National Park, being a main sourceof revenue to the government through tourism.As for the climatic conditions, the western forests serve as an important catchment forthe Wami River going eastwards, and three branches of the Ruaha River draining thesouthern end of the district (Shishira, Yanda et al. 1997) 12 . The rainfall varies from10 Including both Masugu Juu and Masugu Kati.11 Our control villages were represented by a population of 3401 in the Zombo village and about 3000in Lumango.12 Due to lack of more current information on Kilosa District, we refer to a land use and naturalresource assessment from 1997 by Shishira and Yanda.73