MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND TOURISM

WILDLIFE DIVISION & TANZANIA NATIONAL PARKS

in collaboration with IRINGA DISTRICT COUNCIL

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

KEY ISSUES FOR THE MBOMIPA

PROJECT
Report No.MMN3
February 2000

by

Martin Walsh, MBOMIPA Project

MBOMIPA Project
Iringa District Natural Resources Office
P.O.Box 398
IRINGA

Tel: 061-702686; Fax: 061-702807

E-mail: mbomipa@twiga.com
 CONTENTS

ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS ii

MAP OF THE PROJECT AREA iii

1 INTRODUCTION 1

2 KEY ISSUES RELATING TO THE ACHIEVEMENT

OF PROJECT OUTPUTS 1

REFERENCE 7

i
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

AA Authorised Association
CBC Community-based Conservation
CBO Community-based Organisation
DFID Department for International Development (U.K.)
DNRO District Natural Resources Officer
DSC District Steering Committee (of MBOMIPA)
GCA Game Controlled Area
HIMWA Huduma ya Injiri na Maendeleo ya Wafugaji (‘Gospel Service
and Pastoral Development’)
HQs Headquarters
LM GCA Lunda-Mkwambi Game Controlled Area
MBOMIPA Matumizi Bora ya Malihai Idodi na Pawaga (‘Sustainable Use
of Wild Resources in Idodi and Pawaga’, 1997-)
MEMA Matumizi Endelevu ya Misitu ya Asili (‘Sustainable
Development of Indigenous Forests’, 1999-)
NGO Non-government Organisation
NR Natural resources
PRA Participatory Rural Appraisal
REWMP Ruaha Ecosystem Wildlife Management Project (1992-96)
SMUWC Sustainable Management of the Usangu Wetland and its
Catchment (1998-)
TANAPA Tanzania National Parks
VGS Village Game Scouts
VNRC Village Natural Resource Committee
WD Wildlife Division
WMA Wildlife Management Area

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KEY ISSUES FOR THE MBOMIPA PROJECT

1 INTRODUCTION

The notes reproduced below have been prepared in advance of the project’s Output to
Purpose Review, scheduled to take place in February and March 2000. I am grateful
to project colleagues for their inputs and to Ande Mallango, the Iringa District Natural
Resources Officer (DNRO), for his comments on the first draft of these notes.

2 KEY ISSUES RELATING TO THE ACHIEVEMENT OF PROJECT

OUTPUTS

The following summary of key issues is related to outputs in the revision of the
project’s logical framework, as recently proposed (Walsh et al. 2000).

OUTPUT 1: Appropriate institutional framework for community-based

conservation (CBC) established in Idodi and Pawaga

The project’s approach to date has been to reform (in some respects radically) and
develop further three formal institutions, all of which were first introduced under the
former project, REWMP. These institutions are (1) a District Steering Committee
(DSC) representing the interests of different stakeholders; (2) Village Natural
Resource Committees (VNRCs) as recognised Sub-committees of village
government; and (3) teams of Village Game Scouts (VGS) employed by each VNRC.

It is widely agreed that the latter (2 and 3) are appropriate and necessary for CBC at
village level: the problems they face are primarily operational and linked to capacity
(see under OUTPUT 2). It could be argued, however, that such problems are
inevitable in village-level institutions given prevailing demographic and other
conditions (e.g. the relatively small pool of educated / experienced personnel
available for election to office). The project has made little attempt to explore the NR
management potential of community institutions which are not part of village
government, e.g. of CBOs and/or representative institutions at ward or higher levels.

The appropriateness of the DSC is rather more readily questioned. As currently

constituted it does not effectively represent the interests of all 16 villages and VNRCs,
despite the best efforts of the 5 ward councillors who are committee members. Nor
does it appear to be sustainable: the DSC is very much project-driven, and also relies
heavily on the part played by a committed and enthusiastic chairman (the District
Commissioner). During the REWMP-MBOMIPA transition the former DSC (chaired
by the District Executive Director) largely stopped functioning in the absence of
project participation and supervision, and it is not difficult to imagine the same
happening again.

It has to be admitted that there remains a large gap in the institutional framework
which – with less than two years to go – we are not sure how to fill. This problem is
not specific to MBOMIPA, but is a critical issue for the establishment of Wildlife

1
Management Areas (WMAs) nationwide. What institutional and legal form should
the ‘Authorised Associations’ (AAs) envisaged by the Wildlife Policy (1998) take?
How should the separate and joint interests of villages in a single WMA be
represented? What institutional role should different government and private and
voluntary sector stakeholders play, if any?

These and related questions were raised and discussed during the Wildlife Division’s
recent (December 1999) workshop on WMA Guidelines, in Arusha. However, no
definite conclusions were reached in the workshop, but are expected to emerge in
follow-up work. MBOMIPA will be bound by whatever decisions are eventually
made and codified in the projected guidelines. These guidelines are not expected to
appear before the second half of 2000. At the very least it is likely that the project
will have to modify or replace its DSC in keeping with these guidelines. It is possible
that extensive changes will be required at other institutional levels as well (e.g. at the
level of the AA). Whatever the case, little time will be left to the project to develop
and test new structures (perhaps little more than a year) – and the project cannot
experiment itself before the relevant guidelines have been issued.

OUTPUT 2: Village and district stakeholders’ capacity to sustainably manage

NR in Idodi and Pawaga enhanced

Capacity-building activities have so far focused primarily on the provision of training

and advice to village government officers, VNRCs and their VGS. Considerable
progress has been made, recalling that the latter two institutions have largely been
developed from scratch and that village governments have had minimal exposure to
these kinds of training before (including training in financial management). Ongoing
assessment of the impacts of this village-level training show a mixed picture. There
have been many positive developments, e.g. the removal of corrupt office holders in
many villages, the improved capacity of VNRCs to keep financial and other records,
and in the organisation and efficiency of the VGS. It is also evident, however, that a
lot more training is required, especially in the specifics of NR management. A start
has already been made in this direction with the completion of participatory land use
planning exercises in most of the villages; while training in participatory NR
monitoring is scheduled to begin later this year.

One particularly difficult set of problems relates to the politics of NR management at

local level. Since REWMP, villages in the project area have been empowered to
benefit from wildlife utilisation in ways which they were not able to in the past. In
this respect there has been a real transfer of power to the villages. However, the
distribution of this power at village level has itself become an issue, involving
struggles over control of the resources deriving from village empowerment. This
phenomenon manifests itself in a number of ways, e.g. in conflicts between VNRC
and other village government officials, in conflicts between over-zealous VGS and
resource users, and in the reluctance of village and other local government officials to
elicit the full participation of some user groups (including local pastoralists) in the
decision-making process. Ironically, the growth of ‘good governance’ noted above
(removal of corrupt office holders), may be as much a side effect of these struggles
over power as of any newly-learned commitment to accountability in NR
management.

2
Such political struggles, although a ‘natural’ feature of community life, may place
serious obstacles in the way of capacity building, not to mention of effective and
equitable NR management itself. The PRA teams involved in the village land use
planning exercises encountered and reported on numerous cases of conflict and/or
lack of participation. The empowerment of villages (meaning village governments
and the individuals controlling them) must be followed up by the empowerment of the
villagers within them. This is, of course, already the theory of village government in
Tanzania (where the village government is accountable to the village assembly), but
not necessarily the practice.

One solution to this problem is to focus on minimising the conflicts themselves. The
project has already started on this tack, by helping the different village institutions
involved to define their roles and responsibilities, as well as their relationships to one
another and other stakeholders. The projected next step is to raise awareness and
develop capacity among these other stakeholders, including difference resource user
groups in the villages themselves. A conservation education programme for primary
schools in the project area has been initiated, but work with other community groups
has yet to begin. A second possible approach to the problem might be to emphasise
instead the development of capacity at higher institutional levels, e.g. in whatever
mechanisms might be developed for representing the interests of villages / community
stakeholders acting as an ‘Authorised Association’. This depends very much,
however, on the recommendations that come from the WMA Guidelines; it seems
almost certain that many aspects of NR management in a WMA will remain
‘villagised’ and therefore directly subject to the uncertainties of village politics.

To the extent that the forthcoming guidelines modify the institutional framework then
the project will have to adapt its training programme. Capacity building for district
staff has so far been largely limited to on-the-job training, active participation in
workshops, consultancies and study tours, and PRA training for the land use planning
exercises. The project’s partnership with District Community Development staff has
undoubtedly been the most fruitful in this respect. A more systematic programme of
training for district and other government staff is to be developed shortly (activity 2.4
in the revised logframe).

The project must also take care to develop exit strategies in the context of its capacity
building activities. Reference has already been made to questions about the
sustainability of the District Steering Committee in its present form. The project is
also intervening actively to help other institutions – especially in organising and
planning the finances of the VGS – and has to consider carefully how these activities
will continue in the absence of project support.

OUTPUT 3: Sustainable utilisation of NR in Idodi and Pawaga ensured

When MBOMIPA was being planned, it was widely assumed that the critical factor in
sustainable utilisation would be the controlled offtake of game animals, leading to
population increases and therefore larger hunting quotas. Though still important, this
has turned out to be something of a simplification.

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Last year the project completed its first wet and dry season aerial surveys of game in
and around the project area. The results – which have also been compared with the
results of REWMP surveys – have proved much more difficult to interpret than
anticipated. While most surveyed animal populations appear to have either remained
stable or increased, some of the seasonal comparisons do not make ready sense
(showing more animals in the survey area in the wet season than the end of the dry).
One possibility is that the increasingly severe seasonal drying of the Great Ruaha is
driving animals well away from the river at the end of the dry season (the dry season
survey was undertaken in October) – many of them out of the Ruaha valley (including
LM GCA) and above its escarpments. If true this would be a disturbing consequence
of the problem which initiated the DFID-funded SMUWC project (Sustainable
Management of the Usangu Wetland and its Catchment). The impact of game
distribution patterns on hunting success remains, however, to be analysed; and further
aerial surveys are required to check the validity of and other possible explanations of
the patterns observed in 1999.

That said, hunting appears to be better controlled in LM GCA than it ever has been.
Work will begin on the development of a participatory monitoring programme at
village level in the coming dry season.

There are, nonetheless, some problems. Elephant poaching for ivory appears to be on
the increase in the Ruaha ecosystem as a whole: it is suggested that this is a function
of the relaxation of controls on ivory sales in southern Africa. Within LM GCA
poaching (as well as illegal forest use) is reported to be a particular problem in the
Mkupule area (the District hunting block which has been managed with the help of
the Ruaha Conservation Group for the past three years). The illegal hunting pressure
here comes from different directions: from resident hunters (and poachers) from
Iringa, Mufindi and elsewhere, and from the Rujewa-based tourist hunting company
which holds the concession for the Utengule GCA in Usangu, Mbarali district. Some
of the resident hunters appear to be gaining access to Mkupule with the continuing
support of corrupt government staff in different neighbouring districts; while the
Usangu hunters have claimed, wrongly, that gazettement of the new Usangu Game
Reserve allows them to hunt in the Mkupule area.

Apart from completing baseline surveys and supporting minor interventions

(especially in beekeeping), the project has made relatively little progress in other NR
sectors. In these sectors (forestry, beekeeping, fisheries) the project has perhaps
expected too much of its district partners, who themselves have been waiting for the
project to take the lead. The illegal and/or unsustainable use of vegetation resources
in the project area is a particular cause for concern, as are allegations that some local
government officers are benefiting personally from this situation. Efforts to engage
the participation of an NGO in forestry training and management have not progressed,
and it is still too early for synergies with the new Danish-funded MEMA project
(which is promoting community forest management in areas adjoining the
MBOMIPA project area) to have developed. There are plans, however, for joint
planning to take place between the two projects and the DNRO’s office.

Rather more progress, however, is being made at village level as a result of the nearly
completed participatory land use (and natural resource management) planning
exercises. These have involved district and extension staff working across a range of

4
sectors, including agriculture and livestock staff. Following the development of
agreed village plans, it is important that the momentum of this exercise is maintained
through regular follow-up and monitoring. This work is very much preliminary: a
considerable amount needs to be done before villages (and district staff) can plan and
legislate land use to the extent envisaged in recent national legislation and guidelines.
Implementation – and assessment of the impacts - of the new Land and Village Land
Acts remains a task for the future; as does the development of strategies to settle or at
least reduce major land use conflicts in the project area. It might be added here that
the initial hope that MBOMIPA could work closely with a local pastoralist NGO,
HIMWA, has virtually collapsed following the virtual collapse of the NGO itself.

A particular challenge to the project is the need to plan the management and
utilisation of shared NR in the GCA. When the project began, hunting was the main
form of utilisation taking place. Sale of the resident hunting quota and the sharing of
licence receipts from tourist hunting remain the principal sources of village income.
Tourist investment, however, now offers a possibly lucrative alternative, and pressure
to develop tourist facilities in the GCA has come much earlier than was originally
anticipated when the project was being planned. Following one notably clumsy
attempt by a tourist operator to secure a campsite in one of the hunting blocks, it was
decided (by the DSC) that any tourist investment in the GCA should await proper
planning and the production of guidelines for investors. Particular emphasis was
placed on the need to zone activities so that conflict between different forms of
utilisation would not occur (including conflict with the stipulations of Ruaha National
Park’s General Management Plan); as well as the need to determine how the benefits
of investment might be shared between villages.

The project’s original intention was to undertake this planning itself with the district
(DNRO’s office) and assistance of staff from TANAPA and Wildlife Division HQs,
so that guidelines would be ready and could be acted on by investors in early 2000.
This plan has since been overtaken by the process initiated at national level by the
WD, which will culminate in the publication of guidelines for the establishment of
WMAs. The WD has advised that tourist investments should not be initiated prior to
the guidelines and their recommendations being made public, perhaps sometime
during the second half of 2000. This means that although the project can continue to
work informally on this issue, it is unlikely that investors will be given any kind of
go-ahead to initiate activities in the GCA before 2001 (once the 2000 hunting season
has come to an end – hunting being the only form of utilisation which can be planned
before next June).

This timing creates a serious problem for the project. In addition to its potential for
raising more revenue, tourist investment raises a number of difficult and contentious
concerns. It is unlikely that these will be resolved in a single season, which may be
all that the project is left with once tourist investment starts properly in LM GCA (i.e.
before project end in October 2001). Far too little time will be available to develop
the capacity of villagers and other stakeholders to negotiate effectively with potential
investors or to develop (adapt) investment plans in the light of growing experience.
This increases the risk that villagers will be exploited by unscrupulous investors and
that unsustainable development of tourist investments will take place, as has happened
elsewhere in Tanzania in the past. The risk will be even greater if important elements
of the institutional framework are still new or evolving (see above). It may help to

5
recall that the current agreements over utilisation (the annual sale of the hunting
quota) were reached only after a long and difficult period of negotiation in 1997,
reinforced in subsequent years. In some respects these agreements remain fragile, and
may well require extensive renegotiation and revision in the near future. It is likely
that negotiations over tourist investment will require at least the same degree and
intensity of external involvement in the early stages.

OUTPUT 4: Community benefits from NR utilisation increased

Revenues from the sale of the hunting quota have continued to rise (total sums raised
for 9 villages and the district: 1996 – Tsh.5,105,720; 1997 – Tsh.8,200,000; 1998 –
Tsh.13,304,000; 1999 – Tsh.15,000,000)1. The rate of increase is, however, slowing,
and there seems to be no immediate prospect that the resident hunting quota will
realise the value it would if it were a tourist hunting quota. Caution must be taken,
however, with this kind of comparison: it is doubtful whether the project area could
sustain tourist hunting at present.

Revenues from tourist hunting in Lunda North have not increased over the past year
(total sums distributed to 7 villages: 1997 – Tsh.1,750,000; 1998 – Tsh.4,128,060;
1999 – 4,106,500). A substantial proportion of the funds received by the district are
retained by it (approximately a third of the total received in 1999), and some concerns
have been expressed over the use of this money and how it is accounted for. Similar
concerns have also been raised with respect to the funds received by the district from
the sale of the hunting quota for the Mkupule district block. This issues remains to be
followed up and resolved. Another set of concerns relates to the way in which
Pawaga village funds have been allocated to particular development projects: how
participatory has decision-making been?

These two remain the main sources of income for project villages. The development
of tourist investment could, as noted above, bring further revenue to the villages and
district.

Increasing revenue is only one side of the equation. It is especially important to

ensure that village funds from NR are properly used, and that a substantial proportion
of income is allocated to community development projects approved by and of benefit
to the villagers. The project is therefore investing considerable energy in helping
villages to plan and manage their NR enterprises.

An important challenge to the project is to develop ways in which benefits at

household level can be assessed and if possible quantified. The revised logframe
assumes that they can. Although work on this problem is only just beginning, the
project has the potential to contribute to ongoing efforts to understand and devise
effective measures of the impacts of different aspects of NR management and
utilisation on rural livelihoods.

1
The figures in this and the following paragraph have been rounded to the nearest Tsh.10.

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OUTPUT 5: Agreed strategy to convert LMGCA into WMA

This output, like others, will be affected by the WD guidelines for the establishment
of WMAs, currently being prepared (see above). Otherwise preparatory work is
scheduled to begin in the next quarter (under logframe activity 5.1). The possible
consequences of the gazettement of the Usangu Game Reserve are still being assessed
by the districts concerned (the boundaries have yet to be surveyed on the ground). So
far this has not affected project activities, though it is an issue which must be resolved
if this logframe output is to be achieved.

REFERENCE

Walsh, M.T., Bikurakule, D., Mutabiilwa, J., and Ngomello, K.A.S. (2000) Proposed
Revision of the MBOMIPA Project Logical Framework, Report No.MMN2,
MBOMIPA Project, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Iringa.