Village Forest Management as a way to protect biodiversity in Tanzania

Heini Vihemäki (World Agroforestry Centre) and Charles Leonard

(Tanzania Forest Conservation Group)

Background• the forest area under the control of communities

(villages, groups) has increased during the past 15-20 years in TZ

• the knowledge on for forest quality in community managed areas inadequate

• some indication on improved forest maintenance and quality (e.g. Blomley et al. 2008)

• Most Village Forest Reserves (VFRs) established in areas not principally targeted for BD conservation

• debate on whether community management ‘works’ for BD conservation goal

• Few studies on their contribution to biodiversity conservation in Tz, e.g. Isango and Mhoro (2009)

Questions• What is the BD value of VFRs in the East

Usambaras, and how they compare with other land uses outside strictly protected forests?

• BD addressed here as species level & the distribution of species (evenness)

• Is the approach likely to be viable in terms of continuity of management ?

Context: The East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

• Part of the Eastern Arcs• contain 6/19 Eastern Arc endemic

and 13/26 near endemic bird species

• 40 EA endemic or near endemic tree species

• Threats: fires, clearance of forest for agriculture, pit-sawing, harvesting of trees for building materials, mining

• VFRs established since 1990s with external support, TFCG and others

• Income generating activities

Methods• botanical and bird survey covering a gradient

from VFRs to agroforests and more open land uses in 3 village landscapes

• Shannon index of all the plant species recorded in each plot/land use & no of tree sp/ha

• Aggregated species diversity per different land uses (no of plant species)

• Socio-economics: literature, observation

S

H’ = - ∑ pi ln pi – [(S-1)/2N] I=1

Methods & materials• Bird surveys: Time Species Count (non-VFR)

and mist netting (VFRs)• Vegetation survey plots:

Land Cover Type Number of plots Forest (within village forest reserves) 3 Agroforestry 3 Fallow land 2 Mosaic of fallow, agroforestry and mixed farming 1 Mosaic of mixed farming and monoculture 1 Mixed farming 1 Teak plantation 1

Results on plant sp diversityVegetation/land cover type

Number of plant species recorded

Number of plant species recorded also in the VFRs

Number of tree species recorded

Village Forest Reserves (n=3)

59 - 49

Agroforests (n=3) 45 13 24

Fallow lands (n=2) 31 4 17

Mixed farming plot (n=1)

13 1 11

Mosaic of monoculture, fallow & agroforestry (n=1)

11 1 9

Mosaic of monoculture and mixed farming (n=1)

14 0 6

Teak plantation (n=1) 16 13

Land use type N of tree species/ha Shannon index

VFR (K) 110 1.108

VFR(M 85 0.692

VFR (S) 165 1.027

Agroforestry (K) 450.748

Agroforestry (M) 650.904

Agroforestry (S) 100.745

Fallow (K) 800.938

Fallow (M) 250.898

Mixed farming (K) 600.982

Mosaic (mixed farming & monocult.) 30

1.073

Mosaic (monocult., fallow, AF) 150.668

Teak 650.828

Results on Bird diversity

• High diversity: in total, 89 bird species recorded in the three village landscapes, including threatened and EA endemics

• The banded green sunbird was the only Eastern Arc endemic recorded

• six Eastern-Arc near endemic species• all EA endemics/near endemics found in

agforest, mosaic of agricultural lands, fallow or plantation. only two were also found in the VFRs

Species Common name Land uses IUCN 2008 Threat Status

Artisornis moreau Long-billed Tailorbird

Agroforest Critically Endangered

Anthreptes pallidigaster

Amani sunbird Mosaic Endangered

Anthreptes rubritorques

Banded green sunbird

Agroforest, fallow and mosaics

Vulnerable

Circaetus fasciolatus

Southern banded snake eagle

Mosaic Near Threatened

Tauraco fischeri Fischer’s turaco Fallow, mixed farming, agroforest, mosaic

Near Threatened

Prospects of Continuity

• Motivation and Attitudes of local people: Generally attitude positive, but high variation within and between villages in awareness and willingness to participate

• Costs of establishment and support to management: high reliance on external funding and facilitation

• Most benefits are ‘intangible’ so far, and direct benefits small (e.g. through Income generating activities)

• Governance: depends on the village politics & groupings, challenges related to transparency

Conclusions• VFRs can be conducive to BD conservation

objectives, as they support more species compared to other non-reserved land uses– Higher diversity index and no of tree species– agroforests and fallows also support several species, and

especially rare birds• relatively small sizes of VFRs a constraint to

conservation of certain species (e.g. Birds)• Less species comp. to strictly reserved forests• Continuity of management is at risk, e.g. due to

dependency on external support in creation and incentives, small benefits so far

Recommendations• As establishment of new gov. forest reserves is

expensive and prone to conflicts, need to enhance BD conservation in VFR & village landscapes

• creating value to the VFRs e.g. through PES one potential way to enhance their economic value and viability

• Training on forest committee members and others on account keeping, to improve transparency of benefits

• need to build capacity (e.g. facilitation of management planning) at different levels of the governance system, not only village

Main sources

Leonard, C., Mwangoka, M., Mkongewa, V. and Doggart, N. 2010. Assessment of the biological values of different land cover types in the East Usambara Mountains of Tanzania. TFCG Technical Paper No. x. Dar es Salaam. Unpublished Draft.

Map. Produced for the LMP (?) by Jaclyn Hall, University of Florida.

Rantala, H., Lyimo, E., Powell, B., Kitalyi, A. & Vihemäki, H. 2009. Natural resource governance and stakeholders in the East Usambara Mountains. Working paper of the Landscape Mosaics Projects.Unpublished draft.

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