Press Release
Partnership to Implement Participatory Forest Management (PFM)
in Ruvuma Landscape
Tunduru District Council, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Tanzania,
Mpingo Conservation Development Initiative (MCDI), Mtandao wa Jamii wa Usimamzi Misitu Tanzania (MJUMITA) have
embarked on a 3 year programme (2014 – 2017) to scale-up Participatory Forest
Management (PFM) in Ruvuma Landscape of southern Tanzania. This partnership will
seek to support 15 communities in Tunduru District to legally own, manage, and
benefit from their local forest resources.
The aim of the partnership is to improve village forest governance and
local livelihoods by:
·
Supporting communities (technically and
financially) to establish Village Land Forest Reserves (VLFRs) from which they
can sustainably harvest and sell certified hardwood timber, among other forest
products;
·
Helping local communities to develop and
implement innovative and sustainable business models for responsible forest
management; and,
·
Increasing local capacity to understand and
advocate for improved rights to natural resources.
This
partnership is building on long-standing experience of:
1. Tunduru
District Council, who have worked to
advance Community Based Natural Resources Management through initiatives
such as PFM and Wildlife Management Areas in the project area since the late
1990s;
2. MCDI
in implementing PFM and innovative business models in Kilwa District, where
they supported 7 rural communities to get user rights and management control
over more than 100,000 hectares of forest in just 10 years;
3. MJUMITA
in supporting institutional set-ups of local communities implementing PFM
initiatives in Tanzania, where the organisation has been operating in Lindi
Region and Rufiji District of Coastal Region since 2002; and,
4. WWF-Tanzania
in Ruvuma Landscape, particularly through its network on business models for
forestry governance and wildlife management. Their work to improve village
forestry governance in Tanzania has been supported financially by WWF-Sweden,
who have invested substantially in wildlife and forestry in the Ruvuma
Landscape. The country sincerely appreciates this support.
The
four entities intend to achieve the following set of results by the end of the
three year partnership:
·
Communities will legally own
their forests and have better capacity to implement effective Community Based
Natural Resource Management initiatives (CBNRM);
·
The livelihoods of
forest-dependent rural communities in Tunduru District will be improved as they
begin to benefit from managing their forests;
·
Communities will have better access to
markets for forest products and be using the money
generated to reduce poverty and enhance rural development;
·
Communities will have better
governance systems for natural resources, including increased capacity to
understand, analyze and advocate for improved rights;
·
Collectively, these benefits will
provide incentives for local people to manage forests responsibly, thus
protecting the environment for future generations.
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