In deploying Guards, villagers felt that the forests were no longer
their concern. The fact that Forest Guards could be persuaded
to issue permits—legally or illegally—to clear fields in the forests,
burn charcoal, fell timber, etc., which the elders had not allowed,
made their resolve only stronger. In both Duru-Haitemba and
Mgori Forests, therefore, large amounts of timber began to be
illegally extracted, game hunting multiplied to unsustainable levels,
including poaching of elephants for ivory and encroachments
by a steady stream of pioneer farmers from neighbouring areas
increased. By eliminating the local sense of proprietorship, no
matter how weakly this was backed up in statutory law, or implemented
on the ground, government also eliminated local guardianship,
or recognition in the wider community that the forests
were not public property in the “free rider” sense. Indeed, there
was a sometimes actively antagonistic mode, both local people
and outsiders regarding the forest as for the taking, and government
as “fair game”. Even those who were dismayed at the degradation
taking place (and in Duru-Haitemba concerns that forest
degradation was affecting stream flow from the ridges, emerged
after 2-3 years) made no attempt to help government foresters
identify illegal users among themselves or the more commercial
offenders from usually more distant areas.
To ensure sustainable exploitation and management of these
two forests, villagers offered the way forward. Village leaders (initially
the Duru-Haitemba villages) insisted that they could be active
and responsible forest managers by evicting encroachers and
banning damaging users. With its hands and budget tied, local
government (the Babati District Council) agreed to let them try.
The only condition was that Duru-Haitemba remain as uncultivated
forest and used only in sustainable ways. Later, in the case
of Mgori Forest, which has more income-generating potential, a
caveat was added that should commercial utilization take place,
the government would receive a share through taxation on forest
products sold in the official markets.
The Forest Guards were withdrawn, and the village communities
provided with facilitation to decide how they would manage
the forests themselves. The main sentiment of villagers at this
stage was one of mixed amazement, anxiety and determination,
aptly expressed in their fear that, “We have a great responsibility.
Now we cannot blame Government if our forest disappears. Our
children will blame us if we fail”. It is of note that without exception
each community promptly banned obviously damaging activities,
including those which they had so forcefully insisted were “essential
forest uses” at the time the forests were to be owned and
managed by the government; Government Foresters watched as
encroachers were evicted, charcoal production, ring-barking and
forest clearing banned, and the mainly non-local loggers “encour |
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aged”
to leave the community. An increasingly nuanced range of
regulations were devised and implemented through which fuelwood,
pole-wood, and other common requirements were able to
be sustainably extracted.
Most villages zoned their “Village Forest Reserves”, closing off
the most valuable or most damaged areas to consumptive use,
confining permitted uses, often including grazing, to certain areas
or months of the year. With their forest springs now protected
against livestock, several villages rehabilitated the environs with
tree planting. Finally, forest guarding was actively instituted, involving
selected young men in the community, thereafter exempt
from providing other work inputs in the village, and “rewarded”
with a share of the fine payments levied on offenders. It is logical
that the prime incentive for these communities to actively manage
forests is their sense of “ownership”, and control over the use and
future of the resource. In the kind of forest management arrangements
that Duru-Haitemba and Mgori represent, all partners may
be seen to benefit; government has lost the burden and costs of
fielding Forest Guards and management, and the considerable
costs of conflict with local populations.
The villagers themselves gain not only prime rights over the
resource but dramatically heightened capacities, again that spills
into other spheres of village organization and livelihood. Some
villages have used the organization of Village Forest Management
to tackle grazing and swamp land management. The forests
themselves offer visible evidence of gain; un-regulated in-forest
settlement or cultivation, charcoal burning and rampant timber
harvesting have all largely disappeared. Boundaries are not only
stable but in some cases extended, where a community has
added to the area under protection, in stark contrast to the demands
for reduction of the proposed government-owned forest
reserves. Damaging forest use has dramatically declined to an
extent that most villages are looking for other ways to reward
their Guards.
In the more degraded Duru-Haitemba the return of under storey
shrubbery and grasses, and the return of bee swarms to the
forest is a welcome sign of improvement. The return of wildlife in
Mgori, is similarly observed. Meanwhile, both Duru-Haitemba and
Mgori forests enjoy protection not seen prior to, or during their
intended gazettement as forest reserves. For the last 30 months,
more than 200 young village men patrol and watch over the two
forests. This is at no cost to government, with vested interest
in its survival and with local accountability that no government
regime could sustainably provide. Perhaps it is this feature more
than any other that signals the advantages of community-based
forest management. |