Notes For Mbomipa Project Visitors

MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND TOURISM WILDLIFE DIVISION & TANZANIA NATIONAL PARKS in collaboration with IRINGA DISTRICT

MBOMIPA PROJECT Matumizi Bora ya Malihai Idodi na Pawaga Sustainable Use of Wild Resources in Idodi and Pawaga

NOTES FOR MBOMIPA PROJECT VISITORS Report No.MMN1 August 1998

by Martin Walsh

MBOMIPA Project Iringa District Natural Resources Office P.O.Box 398 IRINGA Tel. 064-2686 Fax. 064-2807

NOTES FOR MBOMIPA PROJECT VISITORS INTRODUCTION MBOMIPA is a joint project of the Wildlife Division and Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) in the Government of Tanzania’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. Financial and technical support is provided by the U.K. government through its Department for International Development (DFID, formerly ODA). MBOMIPA is a Swahili acronym, short for Matumizi Bora ya Malihai Idodi na Pawaga, loosely translated into English as ‘Sustainable Use of Wild Resources in Idodi and Pawaga’. Idodi and Pawaga are two administrative Divisions in Iringa District, Iringa Region, and the project is being implemented in 16 villages in this area in collaboration with the Iringa District authorities. These villages all lie within the Lunda-Mkwambi Game Controlled Area (LM GCA) on the south-eastern edge of Ruaha National Park. The specific purpose of the project is to establish ‘an effective and sustainable wildlife management system, under community authority and responsibility’ in the inhabited southern section of LM GCA. MBOMIPA is pioneering implementation of the government’s new Wildlife Policy, by facilitating the conversion of LM GCA into a Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in which local communities derive direct social and economic benefits from their role as natural resource managers. MBOMIPA began officially at the end of October 1997. The project was developed out of the successful experience of the ODA-assisted Ruaha Ecosystems Wildlife Management Project (REWMP), which ended in mid-1996. Whereas the community development component of REWMP was concerned primarily with the sustainable utilisation of game, MBOMIPA is promoting the sustainable management of all natural resources, both flora and fauna, as a means of enhancing social and economic development and alleviating rural poverty. It is hoped that by the end of the four-year project period villagers, working in collaboration with the District and other stakeholders, will possess the capacity to manage the natural resources on their lands sustainably and for the benefit of all. The principal beneficiaries of this process will be the villagers themselves, channelling incomes from sustainable resource utilisation into community development initiatives. The District will also benefit in a number of ways from this more efficient use of resources, while the future of natural resources (including game) in the project area will be assured. Building upon the experience of REWMP and activities undertaken in the interim period between projects, MBOMIPA has already made significant progress towards the achievement of its objectives. It has also begun to generate considerable interest at national level, and is poised to make an important contribution to the development of policy and its implementation elsewhere in Tanzania.

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Many challenges, however, remain ahead. The following brief notes are intended to provide project visitors with an introduction to some of the problems and issues which MBOMIPA is currently addressing. More detailed information and technical discussion is available in the Project Memorandum and project reports. Most of all, visitors are encouraged to elicit the views of men and women villagers living in the project area, in addition to those of other project stakeholders in Iringa District and further afield.

THE PROJECT AREA AND ITS POPULATION LM GCA lies in the Rift Valley to the north and west of Iringa town. This is the easternmost branch of the Rift Valley, which follows the upper course of the Great Ruaha River. The south-eastern boundary of Ruaha National Park follows the line of the Great Ruaha, which for part of its course comprises the actual boundary between the park and LM GCA. LM GCA is semi-arid and the natural vegetation is dominated by a mixture of Acacia, Commiphora, Combretum and transitional miombo (Brachystegia) woodland. LM GCA covers a total area of some 6,000 km2. The northern section of LM GCA (c.2,000 km2) is maintained as a tourist hunting block and is uninhabited (though used opportunistically by migrant pastoralists and others close to the Great Ruaha and the reservoir of the Mtera Dam). The southern portion of LM GCA (c.4,000 km2) contains the 16 project villages. The larger part of this area is village land, with the exception of the southernmost section (Mkupule) which extends to the boundary between Iringa and Mbeya Regions and the soon-to-be gazetted Usangu Game Reserve. At the last national census (in 1988) the 16 villages had a total population of just under 30,000 people. The large majority of these are settled cultivators growing maize and rice along the valleys of the rivers and seasonal streams which flow down towards the Great Ruaha from the Rift Escarpment. Most of these farmers are Hehe and closely related Bantu speaking peoples from neighbouring parts of Iringa, Mbeya and Dodoma Regions, including people who were moved out of Ruaha National Park following its creation in 1964. There are also significant numbers of pastoralists and agropastoralists in the project area, including Il-Parakuyu Maasai (long resident in the area) and Barabaig and Sukuma from further north in Tanzania. The scarcity of grazing and water resources in the dry season often results in competition and conflict over these resources, both between cultivators and livestock-keepers and between different groups of livestock-keepers. These conflicts are exacerbated in some villages by the fact that recent migrants are under-represented in village government.

INSTITUTIONAL MANAGEMENT

DEVELOPMENT

AND

NATURAL

RESOURCE

REWMP established Village Wildlife Committees (VWCs) in pilot villages. The VWCs, in turn, appointed local Village Game Scouts (VGSs) to patrol hunting blocks and assist District and TANAPA staff in controlling poaching and other illegal utilisation activities.

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One of the first tasks of MBOMIPA has been to develop and modify the institutional framework for natural resource management at village level. The original VWCs were not as effective as they might have been for a number of reasons. Committee members were often hastily appointed without due consideration of their skills and ability to represent the interests of villagers as a whole. Little effort was put into training VWCs, but rather more into training (at least some) VGSs. Most seriously, perhaps, the VWCs, who had direct access to new and significant sources of village income, tended to operate independently of the existing organs of village government, generating conflicts over the use of funds. In order to tackle these problems, MBOMIPA began by reforming the VWCs (often referred to as ‘MBOMIPA committees’) as Village Natural Resource Committees (VNRCs) – emphasising their enlarged role in natural resource (and not just game) management. New guidelines were provided on the election of committee members and officials: on their number, level of literacy, and committee composition as a whole (to balance gender and the interests of different ethnic and resource-use groups). The existing VWCs were reformed and new VNRCs formed in villages which had not had them before. The project then embarked on a participatory training programme which is still in its initial stages. Back-to-back workshops were held for VNRC officials to discuss and define the roles and responsibilities of the VNRCs, and at the same time provide the project with an opportunity to assess further training needs. These workshops were facilitated in collaboration with District and Park staff, and followed by further consultation at District level in order to formalise the position VNRCs as recognised sub-committees of village government and define procedures to make them more transparent and fully accountable. Further workshops are planned with the participation of VNRC members and other village government officials. The project has also provided preliminary guidelines for the preparation of committee reports and accounts, and a lot more work is anticipated in this direction in collaboration with the District offices and drawing upon the experience of other projects in the Region which have tackled similar issues. The project recognises that the development of an effective institutional structure and processes at village level is critical to the success of natural resource management. We also recognise that this is not an easy task, and Tanzania’s historical experience of collective village enterprises indicates many of the pitfalls involved. Project and District/Divisional staff (especially from the Community Development Office) are often called upon to advise and/or intervene in specific cases (e.g. cases of alleged misuse of funds). Ideally this kind of intervention should be at a minimum. While giving first priority to VNRC training, project staff have also begun to review the training and other needs of the Village Game Scouts. The external training offered to VGSs in the past has proved to be inadequate for local needs, and the project is therefore in the process of planning its own training programme with the assistance of expertise available at District level. Plans are afoot to reform the VGSs (like the VNRCs), before addressing the more difficult question of how the VNRCs can best resource their VGSs. At District level the project has reformed the District Steering Committee (DSC) which was first established under REWMP. The DSC meets quarterly, with

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additional extraordinary meetings being held to take decisions on pressing issues (e.g. the sale of the game quota and organisation of the hunting season). The DSC is chaired by the District Commissioner and its members include other key District Officers, Ward Councillors, and other stakeholder representatives. To date it has proved to be extremely effective. Some concern, however, has been expressed over the future duplication of committees of this kind. In addition to the existing activities of the DANIDA HIMA (Hifadhi ya Mazingira) Project, two new DANIDA-funded natural resource management projects are planned for Iringa District, one of them dealing with miombo woodlands bordering the MBOMIPA Project area. While this is good news in most respects (given the potential for fruitful project interactions), it is also recognised that some rationalisation of natural resource project management / facilitation at District level will be necessary.

NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT INITIATIVES Whereas the community development component of REWMP focused primarily on game hunting, MBOMIPA is charged with fostering natural resource management initiatives across all of its sub-sectors. This is in keeping with the new Wildlife Policy’s broad (biodiversity-based) definition of ‘wildlife’ and the proposed functions of Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs). As might be expected, and given the amount of initial groundwork which has to be undertaken, this work is still at a preliminary stage. The four project team members have each been assigned multiple responsibilities: among these are responsibilities for particular natural resource sub-sectors with counterparts in the District Natural Resources Office. The Project Manager and Game Officer (representing the Wildlife Division) has particular responsibility for fauna, in particular game hunting and fisheries. The Community Conservation Officer (representing TANAPA) has particular responsibility for forestry and bee-keeping, in addition to environmental education. The Field Manager and Social Development Adviser (representing DFID) has special responsibility for socio-economic issues, including monitoring and evaluation and the ‘pastoralist question’. The Technical Adviser / Community Development (employed directly by the project) is mainly concerned with institutional development and training at village level. The latter two members of the team share responsibility for gender issues. The two government officers on the project team have therefore divided the four natural resource sub-sectors between them. These sub-sectors correspond to divisions in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, and these two team members undertake this work in collaboration with the corresponding District Officers (Game, Fisheries, Forestry, and Beekeeping). Game aside, their first task has been to review existing baseline information and activities in the project area, including the legal aspects of utilisation, and to review relevant experiences in these sub-sectors elsewhere in Tanzania. Given the importance of vegetation communities in the project area, in terms of both supporting biodiversity and their economic value, most progress to date has been made in the forestry sub-sector. At present a team of consultants from the University of Dar es Salaam and TANAPA is in the field undertaking a major survey of vegetation communities and the impacts of different forms of utilisation on them throughout the project area. The report and its

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recommendations are eagerly awaited, because it is expected to provide the project with a set of starting points for further work. In the meantime, work in this sub-sector has been somewhat ad hoc. Some VNRCs have already taken the initiative in controlling forest utilisation, while the project and District authorities have provided preliminary advice on licensing procedures and intervened to stop some major abuses of these. Although some villages have already begun their own land use planning, it is anticipated that the significant development of village natural resource management initiatives in each of these sub-sectors (excluding game) will follow detailed work at individual village level. A series of participatory research and planning exercises is planned for the next year in each of the project villages: exercises which will be led by a consultant and will involve project team members, District staff, and villagers themselves. The project’s Community Conservation Officer is also in the process of planning environmental education activities, starting with primary schools in the project area, while the Social Development Adviser is still gathering baseline information on socio-economic and resource conflict issues. Given the work already undertaken under REWMP and during the interim period between projects, initiatives relating to game hunting are by far the most advanced. LM GCA South receives an annual game quota set by the Director of Wildlife, based on reports and advice provided by the project and District Game Officers. Resident hunters can apply for licenses to hunt the animals on this and other quotas. License fees for resident hunters are low (e.g. Tshs.6,000 per buffalo), whereas most of the hunters themselves are wealthy farmers or businessmen (in the MBOMIPA case living in and around Iringa town). Even so, the licensing system and is regulations is abused by some hunters, and continues to be abused outside of the MBOMIPA Project area. Under REWMP the Director of Wildlife authorised villages to collect an additional levy on the game animals sold on village lands: the District was also authorised to collect its own levy on the quota for non-village lands (the Mkupule area). As a result the cost to hunters rose by an order of magnitude (e.g. to more than Tshs.100,000 per buffalo), while village incomes doubled, trebled and more. Not surprisingly the village and District levies met with considerable resistance from the resident hunters, represented in Iringa by the local branch of the Hunters’ Association of Tanzania (HAT). Since the end of REWMP and the 1996 hunting season, the conflict generated over sale of the game quota has lessened considerably. In 1997, following more than a month of difficult negotiations, a successful compromise was reached whereby the previous system of auctioning individual animals on the quota was abandoned. Instead the quota was sold by hunting block. The four hunting blocks on village lands were purchased by HAT Iringa on behalf of its members, while the District hunting block (Mkupule) was sold to the Ruaha Conservation Group – a new grouping which was primarily concerned with protecting game on land adjacent to Ruaha National Park. In 1998, after another series of negotiations, a similar conclusion was reached. This time HAT Iringa was outbid by the Chairman of HAT (acting as a private individual) and members of his family together with other named resident hunters. The Ruaha Conservation Group retained the District block without challenge. Both

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successful bidders pledged to contribute additional sums to the development of patrolling activities in the hunting blocks they had bid for. Despite the apparent division in HAT Iringa, very few hunters remain who are vocal in their opposition to the sale process. This has been helped enormously by the fact that the project District Steering Committee has firmly established its authority as the mediator between villages and hunters in the annual negotiations. A number of hunters have also begun to recognise that the quality of hunting has improved in some of the hunting blocks (because of improved patrolling) and that they are getting their money’s worth. The real impact of these activities on game populations remains to be assessed: MBOMIPA is planning to contract bi-annual surveys of game which will answer this question, provide a firmer basis for setting the annual quota, and also advice on monitoring procedures which can be sustained in the absence of project funding.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS The measurable benefits of natural resource management initiatives in the project area currently derive from three main sources. One of these is by and large independent of the project. Ruaha National Park, like other parks, operates a benefit-sharing scheme with neighbouring communities. This is TANAPA’s Support for Community Initiated Projects (SCIP) programme, run by its Community Conservation Service (CCS). TANAPA allocates funds to the SCIP programme in each of its parks on an annual basis, and Ruaha is no exception. These funds are used to support village development projects – most typically in the education and health sectors (the construction of schools and clinics), though increasing consideration is being given to income generating projects. Villages are invited to submit costed proposals, indicating their own contributions to the proposed projects, and these are then evaluated by the park management and SCIP committee. Many of the villages in the MBOMIPA Project area have benefited from SCIP funds. The MBOMIPA Project budget provides for a matching contribution to the Ruaha SCIP fund of c.Tshs.20 million per annum. This year the park has indicated that it would like to spend MBOMIPA’s contribution on the provision of a reliable water supply for the new Idodi Secondary School, due to opened later in 1998. In principle the project has no objection to this request, and it is hoped that it can be processed shortly. The second and third major sources of benefit are village incomes from hunting. For some years Iringa District has received a portion of the revenues generated by tourist hunting in the northern part of LM GCA. In 1997 the District received more than Tshs.2.8 million. REWMP had earlier lobbied for this revenue to be distributed to the seven villages in Pawaga division which border the tourist hunting concession and do not have a game quota on their own village lands. In 1997 this request was partially granted for the first time and Tshs.1.75 million shared among the seven villages, which received Tshs.250,000 each for specific development projects. This year (1998) the District has recently received over Tshs.2.1 million from the same source, and a second allocation to the Pawaga villages is expected.

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The principal source of village income, however, is from the levies raised on the sale of the LM GCA South game quota. As the following table shows, most village incomes from this source have increased progressively since 1996, when animals were first auctioned individually.

VILLAGE AND DISTRICT INCOME FROM SALE OF GAME QUOTA 1996-98 (Tanzania shillings)

BLOCK VILLAGE LEVY Pawaga

VILLAGE

1996

1998

194,200 374,500 854,860 774,860 388,500 273,000 281,233 281,233 281,233 3,703,620

600,000 600,000 1,250,000 1,250,000 600,000 600,000 400,000 400,000 400,000 6,100,000

1,025,500 1,025,500 1,025,000 1,025,000 1,025,500 1,025,500 683,666 683,666 683,666 8,204,000

DISTRICT LEVY Mkupule District

1,402,100

2,100,000

2,100,000

TOTAL INCOME

5,105,720

8,200,000

10,304,000

Lunda Kitisi Mkupule Villages

Isele Kisanga Malinzanga Mafuluto Idodi Mapogoro Tungamalenga Makifu Mahuninga Sub-total

1997

The District levy is used to fund activities relating to the District’s role in the natural resource management of the area. At present it is planned to use some of the funds to cut an access road through the Mkupule District hunting block. The village levies provide VNRCs with their main source of income and are used to pay both running costs (including provisioning of Village Game Scouts) and to contribute towards village development projects. The record of villages to date in managing these funds is mixed, though it is hoped that with further training and advice increasingly transparent and effective use of the funds will be made. The following table summarises one village’s record of expenditure in 1997, mostly prior to the official start of MBOMIPA.

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IDODI VILLAGE: USE OF VILLAGE NATURAL RESOURCE COMMITTEE FUNDS 1997 (Tanzania shillings) RUNNING COSTS Committee expenses Village game scouts Sub-total

92,310 186,550 278,860

11% 22% 33%

VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT Road maintenance Smallholder irrigation School development Sub-total

212,600 100,000 250,000 562,600

25% 12% 30% 67%

TOTAL EXPENDITURE

841,460

POLICY AND IMPLEMENTATION Before ending these notes, a final word might be said about MBOMIPA’s contribution to the development of the new Wildlife Policy (March 1998) and its implementation. Partly because of its long pedigree (stretching back to the community development component of REWMP), MBOMIPA has already attracted considerable interest within Tanzania from both government and non-government institutions active in the natural resources sector. Project staff are hard pressed to meet all the requests for information, collaboration and proposed visits, though we hope that this level of interest will be maintained and that we can make a positive contribution. Most recently, in August 1998, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism held a week-long workshop on Wildlife Policy Implementation in Iringa. This was attended by two members of the project team, and workshop participants concluded their week with a field trip to villages and VNRCs in the project area. We hope that these brief notes will encourage you to ask more about the project and challenge us with your comments.

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