Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests of Tanzania and Kenya ...

• Decision-makers inadequately informed• Lack of monitoringInadequate and poorly targeted fiscal resources • Inadequate budgets for authorities managingforests• Most money spent on salaries with little foroperational costs• Poor morale among staff managing forestsLimited effectiveness of protection regimes • High levels of illegal activities in forests• Forest degradation and biodiversity loss• Corrupt practices facilitated• Low morale among forest guardsIn the likely absence of positive macro-economic changes and of large-scale industrialization inthe continent, the next generation of rural farmers in Africa will continue to depend heavily onthe free resources that that they can extract from their surroundings. The first three root causes inTable 5 (population growth, poverty and inefficient land use) will, therefore, continue to generatethreats to forests and forest lands for some time to come. What is less clear is how muchconservation organizations can do about these problems and what proportion of their limitedresources should be invested in the attempt. Development agencies have been active in Africawith far more resources for many decades, yet rural poverty persists. Another difficulty is thatthe path to development often involves the massive ecological transformation of landscapes andit is precisely this process that is destroying tropical forests. This is what makes conservationistsand development practitioners such awkward partners (Struhsaker 1997; Oates 1999; Terborgh1999).The fourth root cause in Table 5 is negative value systems re conservation and lack ofenvironmental awareness. A variety of innovative approaches to raising conservation awarenesshave been developed during the last 50 years and international conservation organizations havesucceeded in putting biodiversity issues firmly on global agendas. The hotspot focus of CEPFand the resources it commands, is a good example of this, but the need to reach the rural poor iswhat is implied in Table 5. This is as urgent as ever, but all too often it generates contradictorymessages. Unless awareness can be linked to incentive, only the contradictions are seen. In theabsence of material incentives for conservation, it is difficult to change value systems,particularly when poverty gives little opportunity to think beyond short-term needs. The mostpromising approach in parts of this hotspot may be through innovative awareness raising ofwater catchment values of the Eastern Arc Mountains.Many conservation projects have tackled the issues of alternative livelihoods and of communalexchange and networking. The creation of alternative livelihoods is a useful local approach forcivil society, especially when combined with good law enforcement by those institutionsresponsible for forest management. This combination is more rare than it ought to be. Theproblems of communal exchange and networking are now much less serious than they were,thanks to the growth of communications technology and to the increasing effectiveness ofworkshop and community outreach techniques. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the CEPFworkshop organized as part of producing this profile was the first time that people working in theEastern Arc Mountains and the Coastal Forests of Kenya and Tanzania had met to discusscommon problems. It is also still true that exchange and networking is much more commonamong people working in NGOs and government institutions than at the community level.46