By Christabel Ligami
In one of Africa’s fastest deforesting nations, community control over the land offers villages new income, infrastructure and dignity.
Yusuph Juma can confidently drive his truck fully loaded with timber past the traffic police officers without being stopped or questioned of the origin and destination of the timber.
He is a licensed and recognised logger in Angai forest in the south east of Tanzania and has nothing to fear while taking his timber for sell.
Years back, when his business was illicit, he says he would not attempt that. Instead, he would either transport his timber late at night or bribe the police.
“Now I have nothing to fear. I have been licensed to cut and export timber from the forest here,” Juma told Climate Home News.
“I have been permitted to cut about 1300 trees in this area between June and December at my own pace. But I have paid for it,” Juma said.
He sells his timber mostly to China and locally to timber wholesalers in Dar Es Salaam.
Juma’s transformation was made possible by a 2002 law, which provided a legal basis for communities to own and manage forest reserves, and a clear pathway transfer land rights to the community.
Deforestation in Tanzania has become a big challenge as logging, agricultural expansion and climate change displace East African forests.
According to the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Tanzania lost over 5.86 million hectares of forest between 2000 and 2015. The report also found more than 70% of the harvested trees in the forests are unaccounted for due to illegal logging and as a result the government loses revenue.
The measures implemented in 2002 – including the licensing system Juma works under – were designed to control illegal logging. Now people can legally harvest trees in the forest only after getting approval.
Liwale region is one of the communities around Angai Forest designated as a village forest reserve (VFR), as people in the region have the right to use the forest for its resources – mainly the trees – while conserving it. This has been made possible under Tanzania’s community-based conservation programme called participatory forest management (PFM).
