Africa: Forests under threat

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TANZANIA
Preservation results in human rights abuses

The preservationist approach to forest protection tends to consider people as a threat to nature protection and frequently results in the violation of the human rights of rural communities and indigenous peoples living in the forests. This view not only supports the unrealistic idea of a nature void of people, but also ignores the benefits that the traditional management of natural resources brings to nature conservation itself. Over the last few years, conflicts related to this issue have arisen in several places and the following case is yet another sad result of such approach.

In October 1998 riot police and forest officers entered the village of Nzasa at the Kazizumbwi Forest Reserve, 45 kilometres from Dar es Salaam. They beat them, burned their crops and houses. Hundreds of structures, mainly thatched residential houses and granaries, were pulled down and burned during the operation. At least 700 people - including women and children - were left homeless, evicted out of the area and with no other place to go to.

The Forest Department, heavily criticized by human rights groups, justified the violent operation arguing that the villagers had encroached upon the forest reserve and are not entitled to compensation. After the operation, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism told the press that the government would not extend any assistance to the victims, as the area was not recognized as a village, and made the villagers responsible for the destruction of 54% of the forest reserve. Said Abdallah, one of the victims, told the press that members of his lineage had been living in the area since the beginning of the century. "Yet government agents say we have invaded the reserve" he added. The villagers say authorities had brought the forest boundary inland by at least "three hours walk". Investigations carried out by members of the press revealed that indeed every landmark in the area is new.

The victims of the abuse recently reacted suing the authorities for this violent action. The villagers argue that the so called "Okoa Kazimzumbwi Operation" was criminal, because the government agents entered their homes unlawfully, harmed and assaulted them, and burned their crops. The villagers also argue that authorities changed the reserve boundaries after the assault in order to accuse them of having invaded it. The case is now before the High Court. June 1999.

Where illegal logging is almost legal

Tanzania's 33.5 million hectares (129,310 square miles) of forests are increasingly at risk, mostly as a result of illegal logging, which is destroying some 500,000 hectares (19,300 square miles) of the country's pristine forests every year.

Government officials admit that illegal exploitation is occurring almost all over the country, both in Forest Reserves and in unreserved forest areas. Illegal trading in timber products acquired illegally is especially rife in cross border areas. An example is the illegal trading in Brachylaena Hutchinsii (Muhuhu) on the Tanzanian-Kenyan border, in which most of the timber is both illegally harvested and exported.

Not only does the government seem unable to address the problem, but its own forestry staff has been accused of being directly involved in the illegal timber trade. The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Philemon Luhanjo, has admitted that some forestry staff are guilty of engaging in illegal timber trade. He says other suspects in the illegal timber business are timber product dealers, private individuals, sawmillers and logging companies.

Within such context of illegality, working conditions of logging employees are so bad, that their subsistence depends on bushmeat, which is resulting in the decimation of wildlife populations, including internationally red-listed species.

Among other measures, such as stricter police controls along the main roads, the government is now trying to engage local communities living near the forests to assist in the implementation of adequate long-term management of forests. However, unless the underlying causes of illegal logging are clearly identified and addressed, forests will continue disappearing. September - October 1999.

Afforestation, reforestation and the real causes of forest destruction

News from that country say that the government has launched an ambitious national tree planting campaign aimed at "re-greening" the country by planting 100 million trees. To the official viewpoint, forest destruction is particularly alarming in the rural areas where traditional shifting cultivation and livestock keeping are practiced.

Thousands of refugees form Rwanda and Burundi have migrated to Tanzania to escape from the situation of extreme violence resulting from the conflicts that affect their respective countries. The authorities have recently urged Burundian refugees in the western region of Kigoma to stop felling trees and instead join the government's green campaign. Like their Tanzanian hosts, the refugees rely heavily on wood fuel for their daily energy requirements, since wood is by far the most important source of energy in that country, as is common in Africa.

The government's initiative deserves some comments. It is not clear if the government is envisaging a reforestation or an afforestation campaign. The difference is essential, since the former means that areas that used to be covered by forest will be planted with native species, aiming at the rehabilitation of the original ecosystem, while the latter consists of the plantation of exotic trees, usually fast-growing species. The social and environmental consequences of the two approaches are totally different and there is therefore a need for clarification on the matter. Secondly, the official analysis of the causes of deforestation seems to be cleary biased against the poor. While the emphasis is put on shifting agriculture, grazing and the use of firewood by local people and refugees, nothing is said about the intensification of export crop production in semiarid areas - which has led to soil erosion and desertification processes - or about illegal commercial logging - the main cause of deforestation in the country - which is linked to corruption within its own agencies and officials. December 1999.

Local people benefit from forest products

Corruption and incapacity among forestry officials, as well as the activity of illegal loggers, timber product dealers and sawmillers are responsible for the disappearance and degradation of Tanzania's forests. This not only means the destruction of a valuable ecosystem in a tropical region but also the loss of the source of resources and incomes for forest dwellers and forest dependent people.

A recent research performed by G.C. Monela, G.C. Kajembe, A.R.S. Kaoneka, and G. Kowero of the Sokaine University of Agriculture shows that honey, charcoal, fuelwood, and wild fruits contribute with 58% of farmers' cash incomes in six villages from the Dodoma region, the peri-urban area near Morogoro, and the Kilosa District. Those results, together with findings from a rapid rural appraisal conducted in the same location, are presented in the book "Household Livelihood Strategies in the Miombo Woodlands, Emerging Trends".

Honey alone accounted for one third of all cash income in those villages. Farmers in the peri-urban area, which had greater access to markets, produced more charcoal, which represented 38% of their total cash income. Women have increasingly become involved in many of these activities, particularly in the peri-urban area.

The results from this study confirm the findings of a previous survey of seven administrative regions (conducted by Munishi et al.), that found that two thirds of all Tanzanian households obtained at least 15% of their incomes from forest products. Both studies make clear how important traditional forest knowledge and practices are for the survival and well being of local communities. They also show once again that forests are not only a source of roundwood for a few companies, but a rich source of products that can benefit local people. January 2000.

Another case of Norwegian "CO2lonialism"

A project implemented in Uganda by Norwegian company Tree Farms to set up between 80,000 and 100,000 hectares of plantations of pines and eucalyptus to act as carbon sinks has been severely questioned because of its negative social and environmental consequences. It has been defined as a "loss-loss-loss" situation, where the profits for the company are doubtful, local peasant communities are losing their lands and working for miser salaries, and Uganda is losing its sovereignity in relation to the management of its territory and natural resources.

In a report published in July 2000, a project also managed by Tree Farms - this time in neighbouring Tanzania - is analyzed ("Carbon Upsets. Norwegian 'Carbon Plantations' in Tanzania" by Jorn Stave, NorWatch). So far Escarpment Forestry Company Ltd., subsidiary of Tree Farms, has planted 1,900 hectares of Pinus patula and Eucalyptus saligna at Sao Hill, Mufindi and Kilombero districts in the Tanzanian highlands. The company is in the process of acquiring larger areas. Additionally it is funding the activities of TAGGAT (Tanzania Greenhouse Gas Action Trust), a foundation that is working with the company in the development of simulation models for carbon fixation in tree biomass.

Even though this project differs in several aspects to that implemented by the same company in Uganda, the research concludes that this is another case of "CO2lonialism" provoking negative impacts on the environment, local communities and Tanzania as a country. Local biodiversity - including two orchids and one Aloe species endangered - will be affected by tree monocultures. At the same time, the fate of carbon content of soils and roots of natural vegetation once plantations are set up is uncertain. Even though Tree Farms made consultations with local villagers before works began, it has used local work force for plantations hiring them by a salary well below the official recommended minimum wage. Moreover, there are still more than 100 workers with several months of pay outstanding. The sum the company is paying as annual rent to the Tanzanian government for land use (US$ 1.9 per hectare) is lower than the rent at Tree Farm's project in Uganda. Nevertheless, the Norwegians are pushing the authorities in order to reduce the rent by as mush as 50%. At the same time, Tanzania will lose control of the leased land during a period of 99 years.

The activities of Tree Farms in Tanzania can be considered as even worse than those in Uganda, since in this case the company is expected to make huge profits taking advantage of the very low negotiation power of local communities and the scarce institutional development of the Tanzanian state. Since the "carbon market" implies an absurd trade between agents with very different power, it is not surprising that the more powerful and richer gain while the more feeble and poorer loose. Definitely carbon sinks are not a solution for climate change, but an additional problem, both at the global and the local levels. September 2000.

Gold mining adds new problems to Lake Victoria

The Tanzanian territory embraces a wide variety of landscapes, including mountains, savanna, bushlands and forests. Some 53,000 square kilometres of the country comprises lakes, being Lake Victoria the biggest one. With an area of 69,490 square kilometres Lake Victoria is the world's second largest freshwater lake. It is an essential resource for the life of the surrounding region, which has one of Africa's highest population densities. Farming, fishing and boatbuilding are the most significant economic activities that directly depend on the lake.
The ecological health of Lake Victoria has been deeply affected by a combination of degrading processes of different nature, such as the clearance of natural vegetation along the shores, a booming fish-export industry, the disappearance of several fish species, the eutrophication of the water body, and the dumping of untreated effluents by several industries. Traditional lifestyles of lakeshore communities have been disrupted and it is feared that together with the degradation of the lake they could disappear.

This sad story goes back to the first decades of the 20th century, when the British colonialists started to exploit Lake Victoria's watershed, and continued after the political independence of the country in 1963. During colonial times the surrounding forests were cut down, and the swamps that were part of this complex hydrologic system drained. Cash crops, such as tea, coffee and sugar, were planted instead. Over the years they have grown in size and number. Since these crops are based on Green Revolution agriculture, a significant portion of the chemicals used are washed into rivers during the rainy season, and end up in the lake, causing eutrophication and providing nutrients for algae bloom, which completely alters the dynamics of the whole water body.

The exagerated growth of the economic activities in the lake and its surrounding area has overcome the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. Not only the surrounding lands but also the water body in itself is subject to overexploitation. With the introduction of modern fishing methods, overfishing has become a problem and catch sizes have dropped. A survey of the lake carried out in 1980 revealed a total reverse in biomass composition. As a consequence the populations of smaller fish, which traditionally have been the source of livelihood for nearby communities, have been decimated by larger predators and overfishing.

Polluting industries - from textile and leather-tanning to paper mills and breweries - located near the lake, constitute another cause for the present situation. A recent study shows that industrial plants located in the Tanzanian territory produce daily two million litres of untreated sewage and industrial waste that flow into the lake.

To add to the problem, last June a new and extremely polluting activity began in the region: gold mining. The companies involved are Ashanti Goldfields of Ghana and AngloGold of South Africa. Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa himself, who inaugurated the Geita Gold Mine, the biggest one in East Africa, located 20 kilometres away from the southern shore of Lake Victoria, even pledged more incentives for investments in the sector.

Environmentalists from Tanzania and Uganda have clearly expressed their opposition to gold mining, and warned that there is a high risk that sodium cyanide, a strong poison used to extract gold from ore, might leak into the lake through the rivers and cause an additional negative effect to the already affected water system. Concerned voices from the academic sector in both countries have also harshly criticized the Tanzanian government for supporting a project that would jeopardize the environment of the lake and the lives of communities living around it. I has been underscored that mining in the region will also bring negative consequences for the region and the country's economy, since the European Union is about to ban all fish imports from East Africa because of the presence of toxic elements in the fishes' bodies. October 2000.

Human rights, social justice and conservation

Efforts to conserve certain threatened species or habitats have in too many cases been implemented at the expense of local peoples throughout the world. Although modern conservation thinking has been shifting away from its original anti-people bias, it has yet to redress many of its past abuses and to accept that people are part of the environment. The following quotes from the conclusions of a study on Tanzania carried out by Neumann, may prove useful to that debate:

"The establishment of virtually every national park in Tanzania required either the outright removal of rural communities or, at the very least, the curtailment of access to lands and resources. The historical processes of colonialism and postcolonial nation-building thus shaped the basic relationship between peasant farmers and pastoralists and the conservation regime. From the perspective of pastoralist political activists, numerous injustices have been carried out by the state in the name of wildlife conservation. The fact that pastoralist voices speaking out against conservation as usual are now heard loudly at international conferences and workshops is in itself a remarkable historical shift in Tanzania's conservation politics. Rural activists have incorporated the potent rhetoric of sustainable development and human rights into their struggle, an action that heralds a new assertiveness."

"Local resistance to the loss of access rights to land and resources has motivated new efforts by international conservation NGOs to redistribute tourism benefits and promote social welfare in communities adjoining protected areas. Continued pressure from "below" will necessitate further attention to questions of land rights and justice. Increasingly in contemporary cases, local groups, often through the formation of indigenous NGOs, are demanding autonomous control of land and resources, which they view as customary property rights that have been usurped by the state. In this context, 'it is often sociopolitical claims, not land pressure per se, which motivate encroachments' into protected areas (Fairhead and Leach 1994:507). Local demands can be politically radical, and most international conservation NGOs and state authorities are reluctant to go so far as to grant sole control of forests and wildlife habitat to villages or other local political entities. Local participation and local benefit-sharing, however, are not the same as local power to control use and access. Yet, in the end, this is what many communities seek."

"So far, pastoralists are the main social group organizing to redress the perceived injustices of wildlife conservation in Tanzania. Other affected groups, such as peasant farmers on other park boundaries, have not yet organized around similar issues. The potential exists, however, for a much more widespread and comprehensive political struggle over land and resource rights in protected areas, such as developed as part of the nationalist movement in the colonial period. Provided with new democratic openings, pastoralists are moving away from 'everyday forms of resistance' and protest toward more organized and formalized forms of political action. It is difficult to predict what new structures and policies for wildlife conservation will emerge as a result of their activism. Land rights activists have, however, made it clear that wildlife conservation issues cannot be addressed without considering broader struggles for human rights and social justice." August 2001.

The death of the Rufiji Delta Prawn Project

The plans to build the world's largest shrimp aquaculture facility in the Rufiji Delta of Tanzania have encountered strong opposition from local people.

The Rufiji Delta, located about 150 km South of Dar es Salaam, contains the largest continuous block of mangrove forest in East Africa, comprising some 53,000 hectares. The Delta supports the most important fishery in Tanzania's coastline, accounting for about 80% of all wild-shrimp catches in the country. The Delta is home to approximately 41,000 people, many of whom are small farmers and traditional fishers. It provides important habitat for endangered animals and plants. The Rufiji communities that rely on fish, mangrove poles and rice farming have made an ancestral sustainable use of this area.

In 1997, the government approved a proposal by the African Fishing Company (AFC) to establish almost 20,000 hectares of shrimp farms there. The AFC wanted to use "public" land in the Delta to create shrimp ponds, hatchery, a processing plant, and a feed mill. Thirty-five percent of these facilities would be located within a "mangrove forest reserve", and the hatchery would be located on Bwejuu Island, which is part of the Mafia Island Marine Park. The driving force behind the proposed project was the harvest of 6,210 kilograms of prawns per hectare per year which would be expected from the farm, with most exports going to Europe and Japan. The business would allegedly produce US$500 million a year in export profits, but social and environmental experts said the damage to the environment would far outweigh the profit.

The National Environmental Management Council (NEMC) - the environmental advisory body of the Tanzanian government - urged the government to reject the project on the grounds that it would have considerable negative impact on forestry, fisheries and marine environment, land use, water resources, as well as agriculture and wildlife. It would destroy 1,200 hectares of mangroves, including rare species such as Rhizophora and threaten habitats of a variety of endangered species. The proposed aquaculture operations would generate substantial pollution which would cause increased eutrophication, toxicity, and acidification of surrounding water resources. From experiences in other parts of the world, on average, semi-intensive prawn farms fail after about ten years. In spite of their sustainable use of natural resources and adequate management of the environment, local communities are usually left out when resource management plans are being made.

In spite of NEMC's recommendation and over the objections of Tanzanian and international NGOs and agencies, the Tanzanian Cabinet approved the project. John R. Nolan, the majority shareholder of AFC, had also wanted to set up (in the Rufiji Delta) a fish mill and a fish processing factory all aimed at the Japanese, European and North American markets.

The project was strongly opposed by Tanzanian environmentalists, most notably the Journalist Environmental Association of Tanzania (JET), international environmental organisations, and local residents. They argue that this aquaculture project will deny them access - through plans that are underway to fence off the prawn project area - to the natural resources including prawns, fish and other marine resources with which local communities have coexisted from time immemorial. They further state that the decision to allow the project to go ahead was taken without taking into account the environmental hazards the project will cause to the area. Furthermore the decision to undertake this "development" project was taken without their consent and involvement.

From July 1997 to date, JET members have led the discussion on the negative impacts of shrimp aquaculture. Recently, 2,000 Rufiji Delta villagers filed an application with the Tanzanian High Court for permission to sue the Government to challenge the approval of the AFC project, and there is also another case pending in Court, filed by over 2,000 former employees of the company.

A proposal to establish the same by Coastal Aquaculture at the Tana delta in Kenya - an area with ecological features similar to those of Rufiji Delta - is still unresolved since mid 1992. The company purchased 10,000 hectares of land for this purpose. Later the land allocation was nullified by the Kenyan government through a presidential directive declaring the Tana Delta a wetland of international importance. However the Coastal Aquaculture company challenged this decision in court after which the high court ruled in their favour in 1996, meaning that the company may proceed to develop the 10,000 hectares for prawn farming.

In April 1999, Tanzanian NGOs were able to secure an interim order staying plans of the African Fishing Company's 10,000 hectare shrimp farm project at Rufiji Delta. Would the project have been implemented, one third of the whole Rufiji Delta would have ended up in the hands of the company for a period of no less than ten years, thus threatening the livelihoods of thousands of local farmers and fisherfolk living in the delta, and causing severe environmental impacts that would have put at risk the future of the region.

The panel of three judges chosen to hear and dictate on the case disintegrated when one of its members retired and another one was transferred. The case has not yet been assigned to another panel and it appears that at present there are not enough judges to constitute a new one. In the meantime, the company is said to be facing severe financial constraints which would have even forced it to sell part of its assets. Although the situation is not yet clear, it seems that the efforts carried out by concerned citizens and organizations have managed to save - at least for the time being - the mangroves and local peoples' livelihoods.

Finally, it seems that all those years of resistance to a damaging project have borne fruit. On August 15, 2001, it was announced in the press that the fishing vessels of AFC were to be sold through a tender team supervised by the High Court of Tanzania, apparently to offset part of the company's huge debt, accumulated over the years by the Rufiji Delta Prawn Project as a result of the opposition of local people to its implementation. The liquidation of the company implies that the project has been halted, thus ensuring the survival of Tanzanian mangroves and preservation of their social, economic and environmental services. October 2001.

Biodiversity loss linked to IMF-promoted commercial agriculture and mining

A country with profuse forests (open hardwood woodlands being the dominant type though there are also closed forests and mangroves), Tanzania has 33.5 million hectares of forest cover richly endowed with biodiversity, which account for one-third of the total land area.

However, this biodiversity is being threatened by several direct and underlying processes which have implied the clearing of forest land at a rate of 400,000 hectares per year during the past two decades. One of those damaging processes relates to forest conversion to commercial agriculture and mining, which in turn have to do with export-oriented policies widely applied at the national and global levels.

During the last years, the government of Tanzania has given high priority to the development of agricultural production aimed at export markets. Caught in the ups and downs of market prices established by powerful economic groups, the falling price of Tanzania's main exports, plus the growing cost of imported products, led the country to suffer the trite fate of other Southern countries. In 1986, Tanzania signed a structural adjustment agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and continued signing IMF loan agreements for the following 15 years, thus increasing its burdensome debt. In the late 1990's, annual debt servicing averaged US$ 438 million - amounting to 37% of total export revenues.

The IMF loans associated Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) requires the implementation of a number of policies such as support to large-scale export-oriented agriculture - e.g. the elimination of a tax on agricultural exports - and mining for gemstones and other precious minerals by domestic and foreign companies.

Between 1980 and 1993, 25% of the nation's forests were lost. Logging, deforestation and mining have been some of the major causes, but almost half of forest loss was due to cultivation of export crops. In the district of Simanjiro, for instance, over 50,000 hectares of land were cleared to give way to the production of beans. Eighty large-scale commercial farms, ranging from 90 to 13,000 hectares, produce those crops, mainly exported to The Netherlands, and have resulted in the displacement of the local Maasai inhabitants.

Meanwhile, agriculture for domestic consumption remains low and the predominant productive model has implied the displacement of thousands of local inhabitants, land-tenure problems, more poverty. Also, as mining companies have acquired large concessions, local pastoralists and farmers have lost access to land and water rights, and forests have been plundered to supply fuel related to the mines. In this way, forests are lost as both resources for local peoples' livelihoods and as habitat for wildlife.

Almost 10 years have passed since the Convention on Biological Diversity was launched. In these 10 years, SAPs have continued imposing their policies in Tanzania, reinforcing the world labour division: commodities produced by impoverished and biodiversity-rich Southern countries to feed money-rich consumerist Northern markets. Everybody knows - at least at the decision-making level - which are the causes of biodiversity loss. The IMF and the World Bank know. The Tanzanian government knows. Transnational corporations know. The governments of consumer countries know. However, destructive trends have not only not diminished but, on the contrary, have increased.

This scenario clearly shows that Southern countries like Tanzania, which rank on the weakest side of the "international order", are pushed to follow policies imposed by multilateral institutions and their leading Northern countries. Those policies are inherently unsustainable since they imply at all levels the destruction or degradation of the countries' biodiversity. Political will within Southern country governments to conserve biodiversity is thus a necessary yet insufficient prerequisite for biodiversity conservation, because many of the underlying causes lie outside the country's borders. That is precisely one of the main issues that need to be addressed by the Convention on Biological Diversity. Will delegates have the necessary political courage to address it at the upcoming April meeting in The Hague? March 2002.

Traditional knowledge in forest restoration

Forest restoration has become a necessity in many parts of the world, particularly where local communities are suffering from the social and environmental impacts resulting from deforestation. The success of this activity depends on the involvement of the communities themselves, based on their traditional knowledge regarding resource use and conservation. The following example serves to illustrate this.

The Shinyanga region lies in central Tanzania, south of Lake Victoria, and is occupied mainly by the agropastoral Sukuma people. They have provided a key tool for forest restoration, with their indigenous natural resource management system called "ngitili", which involves conservation of fallow and range lands by encouraging vegetation regeneration, particularly for browse and fodder. The Sukuma have had to deal with erratic and poorly distributed rainfall with high variability between seasons, so they have developed a response to acute fodder shortages caused by long and frequent droughts.

The Shinyanga region used to be extensively forested with dense woodland and bushland species, and good cover of understorey grasses. But, massive clearing of forests to eradicate tsetse flies between 1940 and 1965, and impacts of intensive cropping leading to clearing of land for agricultural expansion, rapidly declining land productivity, and shortages of herding labour, have prompted the establishment of communal ngitilis - with an average size of 50 hectares - which together with individual ngilitis now cover over 70,000 hectares of restored woodland.

The traditional ngitili system of the Sukuma people provided a good entry point for forest restoration through local community efforts. Objectives of ngitili have been expanded to cover other wood products and services required by the community while retaining the original objective of providing fodder for the dry season. Currently, traditional and scientific experiences are shared in management of ngitilis to facilitate restoration of forests and improvement of community livelihood.

Ngitili areas have led to soil conservation and reduced soil erosion, consequently contributing to improvement of agriculture and livestock production. Important naturally regenerating indigenous trees are being left and managed on farm and grazing land. To ensure that the ngitili were guarded and respected, traditional law known as mchenya was applied, supervised by the village security committee.

This example proves that forest restoration is not a technical issue but one of community involvement and adaptation of traditional knowledge systems. The revitalisation of ngitili has thus contributed to improved livelihood security through the restoration of woodlands which now provide a wider range of goods and services for the local people. April 2002.

Community-based forest management as a way forward for conservation

Biodiversity rich and varied African ecosystems, including tropical rainforests in central and western regions, were disrupted when the European powers landed and encroached on those territories. This disruption extended to customary social structures which were subordinated to a central decision-making organisation to handle regulation and management of natural resources exploitation.

Later, independent processes in many African countries failed to change this imposed centralised model. However, Tanzania is an exception. In the 1970s, during post-independence, the government began to devolve power and control over natural resources back to local authorities for community based development. Through a process of "villagization", the management authority was vested in elected local governments of village lands. The 1975 Villages and Ujamaa Villages Act, further supported by the 1982 Local Government Act, regulated the village system for community-based natural resource management encouraging common property a legal form of ownership.

According to 1998 data, out of a population of 30 million people, 25 million live within one of the 9,000 registered villages. Each village has a legal and institutional base, a defined perimeter boundary, and an elected village council - which acts as Trustee or "Land Manager" of communal village lands, and is the controlling authority over management decisions on water sources, grazing land and forests.

Village Forest Reserves cover more than 19 million hectares. A number of Public Land Forests and National Forest Reserves are being transferred to communities for management. The 1998 National Forest Policy promotes Village Forest Reserves and inter-jurisdictional collaborative management regimes between local communities; the 2000 draft forest bill goes even further providing delegation of authority "to the lowest possible level of local management", further empowering the community.

The new law sets out three types of community-based forest management:
- Village Land Forest Reserves: forest land ownership is vested in the entire village community;
- Community Forest Reserves: forests owned and managed by a sub-group of the village community; and
- Village Forest Management Areas: areas of government reserves placed under community management, not ownership.

Within this pattern, the village is the "manager" of the forest, while the central government provides technical advise, liaison between central and local governments, and mediation in dispute among village forest managers, acting as a watchdog on progress.

The restoration of the deteriorated Duru-Haitemba national Forest Reserve under the community forest management approach demonstrates the success of the Tanzanian model: the state Forest Department agreed to work with the eight neighbouring communities which began to manage the forest themselves, upon discreet management areas governed by local by-laws. The communities have successfully monitored and enforced these rules with visible improvement in the forest.

The Tanzanian experience shows a promising way ahead for a conservation pattern which takes into account power relationships and control over land - it tries to decentralise management, regulation and control - while increasing citizen participation at the community level. May 2002.

TOGO
Community rights and forest conservation

Located at the Northern limit of the African tropical forest region, Togo still has 1,396,200 hectares of forest cover, which represents 24% of the country's total area. In a landscape dominated by the savanna, forests constitute a very important biodiversity site as well as a fundamental source of livelihoods for local communities. Nevertheless, forest management in Togo has been facing important problems.

Amis de la Terre-Togo (Friends of the Earth-Togo) considers that, even though promising conservation initiatives do exist, the management of the so-called "classified forests" (forêts classés) and that of protected areas has not been successful.

Twenty-four classified forests occupying 434,382 hectares are spread in the country. However, already in 1994 it was reported that about 20% of those forests were occupied by 47,500 displaced people. Local population has got a negative view of classified forests, as they are seen as an unfair interference of the State in their territories. This is basically true, even though the State's vision has been having a positive evolution to this regard - if compared with the situation in colonial times - and nowadays local communities can exert at least partially their rights to use natural resources in those areas. According to their culture, local people practice a sustainable use of forest resources. On the contrary, the commercial exploitation of fine woods - such as acajou, sipo, aybé, fraké, okoumé, ozigo and sapel - has been identified as one of the main causes of forest degradation in Togo.

The situation of national parks and fauna reserves is not better. Two national parks (Fazao Malfakassa and Kéran) and nine fauna reserves (Togodo-Sud, Togodo-Nord, Ahaba, Kpessi, Aboulaye; Aledjo-Kadara, Galangashie, Fosse aux Lions, Oli-Mandouré) have been created in Togo since 1970, occupying 697,185 hectares. The case of Kéran National Park is paradigmatic. Its creation in 1971 provoked the forced resettlement of about 60,000 people, who did not receive any compensation and were installed in an area completely lacking infrastructure and services. Whenever the State has tried to increase the area of natural fauna reserves conflict has arisen with local communities, who see their livelihoods menaced. It is clear that they see protected areas as the direct cause of the reduction of their agricultural areas and hunting sites. In 1990 the situation became critical and massive attacks against protected areas took place. After the democratization process started in 1991 the occupation of protected areas increased.

How to combine local community rights and forest conservation? Friends of the Earth-Togo considers that the National Forest Plan approved in 1994 constitutes a positive step to this regard. The plan envisages the realization of an inventory of forest genetic resources to be used in management projects with the participation of local people; the sensibilization of local dwellers in relation to the negative impacts produced by fires, itinerant agriculture and the excessive cut of the forest to obtain firewood; the revision of protected area boundaries so that alternative activities can be developed, and the promotion of agroforestry. Friends of the Earth-Togo is initiating a project based on agroforestry, involving local people, to ensure the sustainable use of forests. Another project related to forest conservation has also been started to evaluate the characteristics and present situation of community forests, and to address the causes of community forest destruction in Togo. July 2000.

UGANDA
Carbon sinks and Norwegian "CO2lonialism"

Forestry companies worldwide are enthusiastically trying to implement the idea of establishing tree plantations in Southern countries under the Clean Development Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, allegedly as a way of sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere to mitigate the effects of global warming ... and of making good profits at the same time. Even if presented as "environmentally friendly", the whole idea of plantations as carbon sinks is based on weak scientific arguments and does not constitute an effective way of reducing CO2 concentrations in the air. Additionally, it enhances the detrimental effects of the hegemonic tree monoculture scheme at the local and regional levels.

Norway has also got on the bandwagon and has set its sights on Uganda. The Norwegian company Tree Farms established itself there in 1996, and has one afforestation project in progress. Additionally, the Norwegian Afforestation Group got the authorities' agreement on a project in November 1999. The former - which operates in the Bukaleba Reserve area under its subsidiary's name Busoga Forestry Company Ltd.- has already started a project to set up between 80,000 and 100,000 hectares of plantations of pines (P. caribaea, P. oocarpa and P. tecunumani) and eucalyptus (E. grandis). Such scheme is very similar to that adopted by the Dutch foundation FACE in the Ecuadorian and so are its consequences.

A recent research in the field performed by the Norwegian NGO NorWatch shows that both projects - and particularly the one of Tree Farms - have some very questionable aspects: both Norwegian companies have leased their land from the authorities for a bargain price, since on the one hand Ugandan authorities have virtually no capacity to assess what value the companies plan to generate, particularly through carbon trading, and on the other hand, corruption is present at the decision making level.

The Tree Farms project has provoked the eviction of some 8,000 people from 13 villages - mainly farmers and fisherfolk - from their lands, that the company is now occupying, condemning them to poverty due to the loss of their livelihoods, and creating a source of social and environmental conflicts. Moreover, under the "taungya" system, local dwellers are allowed to grow maize, beans, and other vegetables between the rows of planted trees during the first few years, but, surprising as it may seem, they have to pay for this land use and, additionally, they are being exploited by the company since their weeding and managing of trees during these first years is not paid.

By leasing out areas for "carbon plantations" during periods of 50 years, the country is giving away the option of changing land use in the future. The so called carbon-storing plantations have to remain as such for the foreseeable future, depriving the country's authorities of the choice of using the areas for other purposes in the peoples' interest. Additionally, Uganda will not be allowed to use these carbon sinks for its own carbon accounts when the country itself faces commitments, because the credits will already have been sold to Northern countries and companies in the rich countries.

As is usually happening, the carbon account in the Tree Farms' project is uncertain, since there is no way of establishing the net amount of CO2 that could be removed and stored by tree plantations during long periods. It is even possible that they become carbon sources instead of sinks. Additionally, plantations face risks posed by fires, political unrest, and upheavals, which are factors that make it hard to guarantee that the activities will be allowed to continue without obstacles. Not to mention the impact of tree monocultures on soils, water and biodiversity, including the ability of the understorey and surrounding vegetation to remove and store CO2.

It is unclear whether the Tree Farms project will survive, because of social conflicts and problems with profitability. A recent EU-financed study, covering among others the mentioned Tree Farms project, concluded that there would be a "loss-loss" situation both for forestry and the local people". NorWatch has got the view that the Tree Farms project is really a "loss-loss-loss" situation: forestry is ailing, local people are suffering, and Uganda is being "CO2lonized".

In relation to the Climate Change Convention process, the Conference of the Parties will discuss - when it meets in The Hague next November - whether carbon trading based on tree plantations in Southern countries should be approved as an option to emissions reduction. In the meantime Norway, that in 1997 made the commitment that its greenhouse gas emissions for the period 2008-2012 would decrease, has actually increased them. Norwegian authorities predict that this growth will continue until 2010. For Norway, planting trees in a Southern country such as Uganda is cheaper than implementing technologies that would lead to a decrease in its own emissions. Local Ugandan poor and the global environment will pay for the costs. June 2000.

The same old story about dams

The story is not new. Dam megaprojects presented to Southern governments and local communities as a token of prosperity and progress, bring disaster with them. The promotion of foreign investments disregarding the protection of the environment and the peoples' claims is now menacing the survival of Bujagali Falls in Uganda. The government is promoting the construction of a huge dam which, if realized, will destroy the scenic virgin beauty of the Bujagali falls, and the living space of thousands of people.

A report issued last February by the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) after a delegation of the Association visited the area confirms these fears. If the dam is constructed at Bujagali the falls, as well as the nearby islands will be submerged, and people will be deprived of their farmland where many of them obtain their livelihood. The crabs, the birds the plants and other species of trees which are peculiar to such a place will be lost for ever. With the degradation of the landscape, tourism related with rafting will also disappear.

The project will not bring any advantages from a socioeconomic point of view either. "Why build another dam when there is already one nearby at Owen Falls and yet we don't have electricity! Is there any guarantee that we will get electricity from the new dam at an affordable price? We hear that even those people who are richer than we, are finding it difficult to pay for electricity. How sure are you that we poor people will be able to pay for the electricity once a new dam is built?" said one of the local dwellers interviewed by the NEPA delegation. And another one wondered: "The Company A.E.S (Nile Independent Power) promised us jobs, but are those jobs going to be there forever? Are the jobs going to benefit our children and grand children? Are those jobs empowering us to do better or to enslave us forever and ever and ever?" Local communities are also being menaced with displacement with a mere compensation to give place to the dam.

Concerned citizens in Uganda have been trying to bring pressure to bear on the leadership in Kampala to stop this cultural and environmental disaster. July 2000.

The Bujagali Dam: A useless giant

The Ugandan government - backed by the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank, the US agency Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), and a number of European export credit agencies (ECAs) - is promoting the construction of a huge dam which, if implemented, will destroy the living space of thousands of local dwellers together with the scenic beauty and historical sites at the Bujagali falls region on the Upper Nile River. Responsible for the construction of this US$ 530 million hydroelectric dam is US-based AES corporation.
The main argument of the promoters of the project is that it will be useful to alleviate poverty and reduce the use of fuelwood and charcoal in a country with one of the lowest per capita income in the world, and where about 95% of the population does not have access to electricity. This argument clearly confuses causes and consequences. As Martin Musumba of "Save Bujagali" Campaign says, "the real issue in Uganda is not electricity but poverty. Currently the majority of Ugandans have no money for electricity, for they are below the poverty line. Production of more electricity will not reduce use of fuelwood and charcoal until deliberate programs are evolved to reduce poverty and the cost of power."

The megaproject would completely alter the landscape, since it would flood the Nile all the way to the base of the Owens Falls Dam. As well as in the case of the Owens Falls Dam, located just 10 miles below the projected site of the Bujagali Dam, no independent environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been performed. According to Dr John Baliwa of the Fisheries Research Programme, the sources of the Nile, an extensive fishery resource with an estimated potential of 10,000 metric tons of fish per year, are menaced by the accumulation of water hyacinth behind the several dams existing in the region. Cumulative impacts including the desiccation of wetlands and the destruction of forests along the river are also feared.

From the socioeconomic point of view, consequences are equally negative. An EIA performed by AES itself considers that the dam would permanently displace 820 people, and affect an additional 6,000 by submerging communal lands and sacred burial sites. Replacement land for those who would lose homes or crops is not planned. In addition, the reservoir is expected to increase seRious water-borne diseases like schistosomiasis and malaria, being the latter already the most important cause of death in Uganda. Sustainable tourism activities especially by foreign visitors who like to enjoy rafting in the spectacular series of cascading rapids of the Bujagali Falls will disappear, which will mean a significative decrease in the incomes of local communities. Jobs for local people promised by the company during the works have never turned into reality.

Ugandan and international concerned organizations are putting forward alternatives to this useless giant. They are promoting the use of true renewables like solar and wind, which constitute realistic and viable possibilities in order to stop the pressure on native forests for fuelwood and charcoal. "Future economic prosperity and sustainable water resource management in Uganda will not lie in huge dams. The way forward is the wise use of river-based environmental goods and services; not their extinction through the pursuit of hydropower lunacy," says the Kampala-based National Association of Professional Environmentalists, which carried out a study of the area in February 2000. January 2001.

Bujagali dam project questioned by World Bank's Inspection Panel

In July 2001, Ugandan civil society groups had filed a complaint with the World Bank's Inspection Panel, claiming that the Bujagali dam project violated several World Bank policies and that it would cause social, economic, and environmental harm to the local people. As a result, the Panel took up the case and on May 30 submitted a confidential report to the Executive Board, which concludes that the planned Bujagali dam violates five key World Bank policies. The Panel report suggests a series of corrective measures to rectify the project's problems.

According to the Inspection Panel - the World Bank's independent investigative body - the planned dam violates the Bank's policies on involuntary resettlement, environmental assessment, natural habitats, disclosure of information, and the economic evaluation of investment operations.

The Panel report finds the economic analysis for Bujagali to be seriously deficient. It reveals that a mild depreciation of Uganda's currency would drive power tariffs up to 20 cents per kilowatt hour, which the report calls "surely unaffordable". The report says that the fundamental project contract, the Power Purchase Agreement, is unfavorable to Uganda, and not always up to International Best Practice. It also reveals that the World Bank has neglected to assess potential alternatives, particularly geothermal energy, in the preparation of the project.

The report also finds that important measures to analyse or mitigate the social and environmental impacts of the Bujagali dam were either missing or seriously deficient. These measures include an assessment of the cumulative environmental impacts of dams in Uganda, a resettlement and a community development action plan for the affected people.

The Panel report suggests corrective action for rectifying the problems of Bujagali. The suggestions include various measures to properly assess the project's economic viability and risks, and changes to the unfavourable Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). The report says that a publication of the PPA would be "vital" for a public debate and understanding of the project's impacts.

It is obvious that the corrective measures suggested by the Inspection Panel, as well as an adequate analysis of its economic viability, must be completed before the project is approved by the World Bank's Executive Board. The bank's managers have now six weeks to reply to the independent Inspection Panel's report.

The World Bank appears to have not yet learnt the lesson regarding the unsustainability of large scale hydroelectric dams. More importantly, it is not only ignoring the research findings and recommendations of the World Commission on Dams - made public on November 2000 - but is also violating its own internal policies and rules. Within this background, the question now is: will the Bank comply with the its own Panel's recommendations or will it ignore them and go ahead with this dam? June 2002.

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