TRI Project set to address land degradation, improve lives

TANZANIA has lost at least one third of its important ecosystems and biodiversity in the past few decades.

The country’s forest cover has declined by almost 38 per cent whereas 18 per cent of the country’s mangrove forest was lost between 1980 and 2005.

Deforestation is occurring in both reserved and unreserved forests but is highest in direct forests. The annual rate of deforestation is estimated at an alarming 0.4 million hectares (0.9 per cent).

At this rate, the country would lose most of its forests in the next 50–80 years. It is for this background that Tanzania is running a five-year Project designed to address land degradation, and biodiversity loss and improve rural livelihoods.

The project is called supporting the Implementation of Integrated Ecosystem Management Approach for Landscape Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation in Tanzania.

The project is under a global programme, The Restoration Initiative (TRI) which is implemented by 10 countries including Tanzania. Other countries are Cameroon, the Central African Republic, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Sao Tome and Principe.

The global programme is geared at improving people’s livelihoods through the restoration of degraded and deforested landscapes around the world.

The Project is implemented by the Vice President’s Office with technical support from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The National Project Coordinator from the Vice President’s Office, Dr Damas Mapunda said that the national child project contributes to efforts to help achieve the country’s target to restore 5.2 million hectares of degraded and deforested land under the Bonn Challenge and the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) initiative by 2030.

“The project was funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) as grants through the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) funds amounted to US dollar 11.2 million equivalent to 25.8bn/- while the Government contributed 75.4m/-,” said Dr Mapunda.

Dr Mapunda said the project aims to enhance the national enabling environment and capacity of stakeholders for Sustainable Landscape Restoration (SLR) efforts and commitment to SLR.

He said the national child project will improve landscape management through the implementation of restoration plans and integrated landscape management practices in 18 wards selected from seven districts in the Great Ruaha and Lake Rukwa basins, as well as develop and share knowledge, disseminate good practices, and put in place appropriate systems and financing arrangements that support adaptive management of SLR interventions and strategies.

Dr Mapunda said the project will address key challenges such as landscape degradation, climate change and extreme weather events.

Moreover, he said it will also address inadequate gender and youth mainstreaming and inadequate coordination of best landscape restoration practices, insufficient information about the role that agricultural and forest diversity plays in maintaining ecosystem services and sustainable production.

Furthermore, Dr Mapunda said at the national level, the project works with the central government of Tanzania and other key stakeholders to support establishing and operationalising Sustainable Landscape Restoration governance and regulatory structures.

“At the ground level, the project will improve landscape management through the implementation of restoration plans and enhance the adoption of innovative SLR practices.

“The project is implemented in the Great Ruaha and Lake Rukwa basins bordering some important protected areas, including Ruaha National Park for the Great Ruaha River Basin, the Katavi National Park and the associated game reserves of Rukwa and Lukwati in the Lake Rukwa Basin,” he said.

In addition, he said those basins are home to a large number of forest reserves. The priority project district councils are Iringa, Wanging’ombe, Mbarali, Mbeya, Sumbawanga, Mpimbwe and Tanganyika from across five regions.

The Project Advisor from IUCN Tanzania, Doyi Mazenzele says the project expects to put a total of 110,000 ha under SLR transition, to promote, catalyse and facilitate collective support and aligned investment to strengthen systems and capacities for country SLR initiatives.

The project will engage with national platforms and networks to promote the SLR approach, disseminate standards, and tools and build sectoral and national capacities as well as to provide a platform for communication, documentation and dissemination of country results, best practices and joint learning on SLR.

Mr Mazenzele says the project is going to restore 11,000 ha of degraded areas under forest and agricultural landscapes.

“It is also established and operationalized national landscape restoration governance and regulatory structures, and mainstream SLR and biodiversity conservation into policies, regulations, and strategies as well as reducing 4.7 million Carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2 eq) emissions in the project area through SLR and SLM activities.

“Through this project among others, the Government and its partners are expecting to establish and operationalize national landscape restoration governance and regulatory structures,” said Mr Mazenzele adding the Tanzania child project is to strengthen integrated natural resource management and restoration of degraded landscapes for resilient socioecological systems in Tanzania.

“The project aims at restoring and maintaining the critical ecosystems of the Great Ruaha and Lake Rukwa basins to secure the flow of multiple ecosystem services and enhance resilient economic development and livelihoods in the regions,” explains Mr Mazenzele.

He said the project also will improve knowledge of SLR finance and facilitate conditions for financing arrangements for restoration initiatives and increasing national commitment to forest and landscape restoration as well as strengthen the capacities of national institutions for developing integrated SLR programmes.

The Tanzania child project was developed during the 6th replenishment cycle of the Global Environment Facility (GEF – 6) and has a total cost of 81,490,937 US dollars which includes 11,205,872 US dollars grants from GEF and 70,285,065 US dollars co-financing (in cash and kind) from Tanzania government and other stakeholders.