HARD DECISIONS FOR A FRAGILE ENVIRONMENT

HARD DECISIONS FOR A FRAGILE ENVIRONMENT: ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY INSTRUMENTS IN THE EAST USAMBARA MOUNTAINS Michael K. McCall IN: B. Venema and H. van den Breemer (eds) (1999) Towards Negotiated Co-Management of Natural Resources in Africa. Munster: Lit Verlag. pp. 227-251 (chap. 11) *1

1.

Introduction

The East Usambara mountains in Tanga Region, Tanzania contain a tropical forest encompassing a wide scope of land values - biodiversity, catchment protection, timber, bioproducts, eco-tourism, as well as farmland and plantations. These affect a range of people and institutions interacting with the environment - tea estates, teak plantations, forest conservationists, ecotourists from outside, and local smallholders and plantation workers. The population estimate for the case study area (mainly Amani Division) was 27000 in 1995. This paper examines the goals and interests of major land users and other stakeholders in the area and focuses on the interaction between two high-profile projects and local farmers. Key actors are the projects and their supporting institutions working with competing values and objectives. These pursue their interests through implementing policy tools or instruments, the intention of which is to alter the behaviour of a particular target population or other organisations, whether by eliminating a certain behaviour, creating a new alternative, or changing the pros and cons of behavioural alternatives. [1] Local communities, partly indigenous peoples, have their own dynamic and adaptive objectives, some of which are likewise pursued using 'traditional policy instruments'. The factors behind the success or otherwise of policy instruments (PI) implemented by projects in the Usambaras are reviewed in the paper. 2.

The People - their Needs and Values

The core of the East Usambara ecosystem is the moist sub-montane tropical forest, which has apparently been reduced from 100000 ha. to 33000 ha. between the 1940s and 1990s [2], due to plantations, lumbering and peasant agricultural expansion in varying proportions.

1

2

Policy instrument theory has been developed by Bressers (1995) and others. The 30 sq. km. of forest surrounding the Amani Research Centre in the core was reduced to 15 sq. km. between 1954 and 1976.

2

The East Usambara forests present an archetypal struggle between "environmental

3 sustainability" and "sustainable economic and social development"; the underlying causes of which are reflected in more, or less, visible conflicts between resident and non-resident actors. The basic understanding of the struggles lies in the competing demands for alternative uses of the forest space and its surroundings, and for the resources of the forest; whilst the most salient implementation conflicts are those between outside interventions and internal initiatives, and between different projects. Conflicts also arise from the choice of alternative policy instruments and their implementation approaches, including the allocations of responsibilities for applying PIs. The struggles are also reflected in seeking trade-off returns between proximate and distant beneficiaries, between classes of beneficiaries, and between shorter and longer-term outcomes. The projects and the institutions behind them base their interventions on explicit or implicit forest ecosystem values representing: attributes (e.g. biodiversity, endogenism, cultural features), functions (e.g. climate & micro-climate control, catchment protection), services (e.g. ecotourism, research sites, cover), and products (e.g. tree produce, game, timber, woodfuel, medicinal plants). Farm Households of the East Usambaras Accounting for the interests of the 4000 or so farming households in the Amani area begs a number of questions. The population is obviously not homogeneous; the interests and needs of all the local categories cannot be spoken with one voice, whether by traditional leaders, government or party officials, or by newer NGO representatives - so who will articulate them? It would be presumptuous to speak of the goals and objectives of local farmers without being one, or at least having participatory experience. However, from on-going research and key local informants it is clear that expected livelihood goals are present; for instance, not much subsistence food is yet purchased (Masayanyika 1995), whereas, income-earning objectives can be recognised in the rapid and adaptive responses to opportunities for growing and marketing cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum, a valuable spice of the Ginger family) or smallholder tea. The indigenous people are mainly WaShambaa, with some WaBondei. The East Usambaras were the friction zone between WaShambaa, WaBondei and Swahili and other coastal peoples in the 19th century, so were almost uninhabited until colonial times. (Willis 1992). The Washambaa have a well-developed traditional property, inheritance and land tenure system. As in many tenure systems, it is harder for women to exclusively inherit or transfer land rights, though there are circumstances under which they have usufructure rights and make de facto decisions over actual land use. (Kgaswanyane 1995). In the 1950s, WaBena immigrants from southern Tanganyika came to the tea estates. Many have settled in nearby villages and generally experience the same land rights as the WaShambaa. Lack of land disputes and ease of transfer indicate that tribal differences in "felt security of land tenure" are absent. Some immigrants still work as estate labourers or tea factory workers, others are engaged in more or less full-time farming or trading businesses. A significant land-using group is a small number of retired salaried workers and officials with resources and trading contacts who have developed the sugar cane business (for sugar and boha alcohol) which is causing concern for its impacts on soil fertility and erosion. (Masayanyika 1995; Hakizumwami 1996).

4 Population pressure is growing slowly in the Amani area, with the density already high at 180 persons / sq. km. Natural increase shows a rate of 2.6% p.a., but with an actual population drop of 8% between 1978-1988 due to out-migration. The East Usambaras as a whole may be fairly static, but the need for land, both from new families and farmers wanting to expand, is real and cannot be met. Half the population is under 18 years old. Smallholder farmers grow a variety of subsistence and local market crops including maize, beans, sugar cane, some cassava and sweet potatoes, etc. More significant in relation to the surrounding forest environment are the cash crops. A significant number of farmers grow tree crops - fruits, cloves, bananas, coffee, tea bushes, as well as cardamom. Through project intervention and using indigenous practice, many farmers invest labour in soil conservation practices, contour planting with sugar cane and pineapples, or vetiver grass which provides fodder for stall-fed dairy cows. Farmers protect certain indigenous trees in their farms and gardens. Medicine and "Minor Forest Products" (MFP) The forest is a major source of medicinal plants to a minority of local people. A survey of waganga (traditional herbal doctors) counted 185 species, of which over 1/3 are forest plants, that they use to treat over 60 diseases, including asthma, allergies, convulsions, hernia, infertility, etc. (Ruffo et al. 1989) Since the important plant parts used include the stem, bark, and roots, local impacts on certain species can be significant. There is a distinction between older 'conservationist' waganga who collect discretely and prescribe sparingly, and younger, brasher elements who harvest indiscriminately. (Andrua 1995). Some waganga now collect and cultivate plants in their home gardens. The real value of medicinal products could be estimated by replacement costs or the human costs of being sick. Other "MFPs" which are locally of major economic importance are building poles, ropes and twine for local housing, furniture, tools and utensils, thatching and weaving fibres, fodder, game, fruits, edible plants, fats (Allenblackia- also exported), dyes and ornamental plants. (Hamilton & Benstead 1989; Andrua 1995). Growing Cardamom The natural forest plays a key function for the most important cash crop, cardamom. Since the 1960s, cardamom has become big business, especially significant in the 1980s because of the ease of smuggling it to Kenya to circumvent the Marketing Board's low prices. In some villages, 90% of households grow it as a chief cash earner, encouraged by local authorities for income generation. (Mwalubandu et al 1991). Altogether, 10-20 % of households in the Amani area grow it, and about 1 % of land under crops is devoted to cardamom. The ecological drawback is that cardamom must be grown under upper-story tree cover, and does best on fresh sub-montane forest soils after the clearance of smaller trees and undergrowth. Because the plant needs good shade, the high canopy trees are not removed and the immediate effect on land degradation and soil moisture is minor. But the bigger trees become more prone to wind-felling, and natural forest regeneration is drastically affected. Most agronomists agree that eight years is the maximum productive period; after that, farmers either abandon the area to secondary growth, or fell the valuable high trees and turn the plot over to hardy food crops like

5 cassava or sugar cane. Encroachment onto public forest lands for cardamom is important for de facto changes in land tenure and for privatisation of formerly common property. (Sengoe 1994; Sah 1996). Sacred Sites There are traditional management controls underlying the sacred sites in the forest and their spirit protectors. The sites are backed up by myths and legends such as the 'giant snake' and 'invisible lake' myths, the 'white stone of Mpanga' and the 'urination miracle' stories in the Maramba area which act to keep people out (Kidombo 1997). Some argue that that the sites primarily protect sources of plants or game; like the communal guardianship of valuable, marketable medicinal plants, vines and oils in Makanya village deep in the Amani forest. (Andrua, 1995). Others claim that fundamental environmental care of e.g. stream sources and watershed protection is involved. For instance, villagers in Maramba Division have project support in establishing a village forest reserve to protect against illegal logging, building on the experience that "… for many years the villagers had respected Mpanga forest as a place for ancestor worship where ... prayers were said to ask for rain or prevent famine..". (The Guardian Dar es Salaam 25.4.95) East Usambara Farmers - taking stock East Usambara farm households - the settled immigrants as well as the original peoples - hold a store of indigenous technical knowledge together with an adaptability to new opportunities: -

their technical knowledge of forest plants for medicines and other uses, together with their untapped knowledge of sustainable cardamom growing; their ability to organise to exclude most outsiders from village common property resources; adaptability to opportunities for improved livelihoods: adoption of cardamom 40 years ago, and more recently of cloves, cinnamon, pepper and improved dairy cows; labour investment in contour bunds; and take-up of smallholder tea opportunities.

On the other hand, the essential sustainability problems are shown by the need to out-migrate and its effect on social cohesion. Farmers face other weaknesses too: -

3.

partial dependence for income-earning on an external employer - the tea estates, with a lack of alternative secure income from on- or off-farm sources; dependence for marketing on outside parastatals or limited private sector, and low accessibility (the first bus service to Amani began in 1994); The Forest - Ecosystem Values and Opportunities

Bio-Diversity and Endogenism Values The 33,000 acres of sub-montane and lowland moist tropical forests in the area are part of the Eastern Arc mountains biological archipelago which harbour a wide variety of plant and tree species, and birds and insects. Over 25% of the almost 3000 plant species are endemic to the Usambaras, including the widely-exploited Saintpaulia - African violet (Iversen 1991). Among

6 fauna as an example, of the 29 chameleon species in Tanzania, 22 are endemic to the Eastern Arc, particularly the Usambaras, most are forest-dependent and in the IUCN Red Data Book. About 50% of the remaining forests are intact. The Eastern Usambara region has received increasing attention from agencies concerned with its biodiversity values and conservation of genetic resources, particularly the IUCN which has functioned in the area since mid-1980s. This potential has not yet been effectively valued, (Rodgers & Homewood 1982; AFIMP 1988; Hamilton & Bensted-Smith 1989), although the forests' service function as a research environment is well exploited by IUCN, FINNIDA, Birdlife International, Frontier and other international organisations. The biological and evolutionary research value has been compared to that of the Galapagos Islands. A prominent danger to ecological integrity is Maesopsis eminii, a fast-growing plantation shade tree introduced from western Tanganyika in German times that colonises newly cleared forest and suppresses the growth of indigenous forest trees. It's habitats are expanded by human activities, pit-sawing, pole-cutting and woodfuel collection. (Binggeli 1989). Eco-tourism is not yet under way, but the economic potential is there. (Masilingi 1992). Birdwatching safaris have been made, and a network of trails and paths in the Amani reserve will lead botanists and ornithologists to the rare flowers and plants, i.a. remnant Saintpaulia in the wild, and fauna. Hopefully, at the same time the ecotourists help to curb illegal poaching by collectors. Timber Resources and Tea Plantations Timber has been exploited in the area since German colonial times; and even then the government introduced forest reserves mainly to protect the timber stock of important species including Cephalospharea and Ocotea. Serious damage from logging began in the 1960s, but was exacerbated in the 1970s through the operations of Sikh Saw Mills, a Tanzanian parastatal. The large-scale logging was strongly supported and funded by FINNIDA. As usual, much of the ecological damage was due to the roads and path construction and the heavier mechanical equipment introduced with the Finns. Small-scale pit sawing (lumbering) is still controversial; by the late 1980s after commercial harvesting ended, pit sawyers accounted for 2/3 of the timber cut. Although now banned, it is assumed to persevere because of mis-management and cheating over cutting licences. Pit sawing is an important part of the local economy, and some agencies argue that, with controls, it could cause little direct damage. With an integrated programme of gap planting, coppicing and transport permits, it could be locally sustainable. Firewood collection is not such a serious problem. The tea factories consume vast quantities of woodfuel for drying, but this comes from eucalyptus plantations and teak off-cuts, and is definitely not a direct threat to the forest. The quantities taken by farm households are individually small, with an increasing proportion derived from on-farm woody biomass. Currently the Forest Division tries to enforce the "Wednesday permit" regulation that permits women to collect firewood from Reserves one day a week only. German coffee and quinine plantations were converted to tea and much expanded in the 1940s

7 and now there are about 3000 hectares of tea under private and parastatal companies. The companies are historically responsible for much natural forest within their estate boundaries which function as local watershed protection and micro-climate management. With their stronger management, it is generally attested that the estates have a better record than the foresters in protecting reserves from damage and encroachment. [3] The tea estates have wider implications for East Usambaras, having land resources committed to infrastructure for the plantations, factories and workers’ settlements, nearby villages containing labourers, some smallholder tea farms, and woodfuel lots for the factories. At present, the government is adamant that there is no possibility for the estates to physically expand onto forest land. Catchment Protection Function Valuable benefits of the forest are not only local and global, but also regional. The streams in the Sigi River catchment area serve the city of Tanga and its industries, thousands of smallholders and economically important sisal estates. The steep slopes and fragile soils of the Usambaras are very vulnerable to human impact, and the catchment qualities were seriously damaged by the commercial clear-felling and selective-logging in the 1970s-80s. Young teak plantations and the Maesopsis invasions also increase soil erosion relative to natural forest. Impacts include landslides and silting of the downstream Sigi dam; and there are continuing debates over possible relationships between deforestation and reduced rainfall in the region. (Pirttila 1993). 4.

Competing Projects, Conflicting Responsibilities and Overlapping Spaces

The biodiversity and catchment protection values have raised international interest for the area, notably after the seminal report of Rodgers and Homewood (1982). The primary organisations currently in Amani are: the East Usambara Catchment Forest Project (EUCFP)- a well-funded Finnish-supported project under the national Forestry Division (FD) in the Ministry of Tourism, Natural Resources & Environment; and the East Usambara Conservation and Agricultural Development Project (EUCDP) - a participation-oriented small farmer development programme supported by the IUCN under Ministry of Agriculture. Other relevant institutions are the Muheza District Forest Office, a line agency responsible to the District Commissioner and an elected District Council, but with very limited capacity (see below), and the East Usambaras Tea Company (EUTCO), a group of parastatal estates holding long lease land. Under new management and with investment bank shareholding, the tea estates have improved production and processing and profitability (Faber 1995), but there is still overcapacity in the factories, and EUTCO is anxious to further expand tea production. EUTCO and EUCFP hold tenurial responsibility for certain land units (respectively, their tea estates, and, the Forest Reserves); thus they can directly implement their policy instruments. In addition, EUCDP and EUCFP influence land use and environment through PIs working on other land-using actors. Farm households have a direct impact on land use and environment, not only individually, but also through communal activities with an institutional basis like customary ownership, traditional regulations, or joint forest management agreements. 3

Over 1000 ha. of tea plantations has been released to Amani Nature Reserve in 1997.

8 The characteristics and institutional interests of the main actors are described in Tables 1 and 2, and their capabilities and weaknesses summarised in Table 3. However, differences between their objectives and capabilities are not sufficient to fully explain the trajectories of their various activities. A deeper analysis would also recognise implicit conflicts reflecting inter-project competition, institutional rivalries between agencies and donors, and ideological divergence between key individuals. TABLE 1.

4

INSTITUTIONAL & HOUSEHOLD STAKEHOLDERS [ ]

INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

EUCDP

EUCFP

Farm Household Community

Direct Responsibility & External Support

Min. of Agriculture IUCN

Govt. Forest Division. FINNIDA

District/ Regional Political authorities

Geographical Space of Responsibility

13 Named villages (outside FR) [5]

Forest Reserves + 11 pilot villages

Village land boundaries + encroached land

Target Population for Activities.

Populations of 13 villages.

Villages around FR; Tanga town; + regional agriculture + Global & National Stakeholders

Households - gender, economic categories.

User / Target Group Space

Unbounded + bounded

Unbounded

Bounded + Unbounded

Beneficiaries of the Activities

Farm households

Regional National Global

Farm households

Target Biophysical Resources

Crops, Trees, Fauna & Flora

Forest Reserves, Biodiversity

Crops, Trees, Fauna, (Minerals)

Resource Space

Bounded?

Bounded

Bounded

Attitudes towards Common Property Management (CPM)

Positive towards CPM. Aiming at environmental management.

CPM is negotiable.

CP Management & Exploitation by people

Communities

4

Bounded Resource Space implies known, predicted boundaries. Unbounded Resource space implies unknown, unpredictable locations & boundaries. Bounded User space refers to coherent groups. Unbounded User space implies no group identity.

5

EUCDP and EUCFP deliberately work in different villages.

9 East Usambara Catchment Forest Project The origins of the EUCFP lie in the need to make amends for the ecological damage done to the natural forest by FINNIDA-supported destructive forest operations. The first Finnish inventory by Jaakko Poyry in 1977 identified vast resources of commercial timber and paid no heed to conservation. In the early 1980s Swedish, Tanzanian and IUCN scientists publicly criticised FINNIDA for its role in the broad ecological degradation (symbolised by the disappearance of Saintpaulia habitats). A second forest inventory in 1983 barely changed anything; it presented a logging estimate down by only 5%. Although selective logging especially of Cephalospharea was the aim, the collateral damage was considerable and the whole project encouraged indiscriminate felling by pit sawyers even from southern Tanzania and Kenya. (Mwalubandu et al 1991).In the mid-80s the commercial foresters still argued that pit-sawing and farm encroachment were the prime causes of deforestation, but by the end of the decade a much more comprehensive forest and overall resource survey was carried out with a lot of input from IUCN ecologists. The AFIMP (Amani Forest Inventory and Management Plan) Project instigated aerial and intensive ground surveys including an inventory of all important trees. [6] By 1987 even selective logging in both upland and lowlands was stopped and contractors could work only in teak and softwood plantations. Licensed pit-sawing was blocked later, but observers assume that many outside pit-sawyers are still working in the reserved forests by using licences granted for other locations with the connivance of local authorities. (Mwalubandu et al 1991; AFIMP 1988). EUCFP itself got going in 1991 with a FINNIDA grant of US$32 mill. and it works alongside the national Catchment Forestry Unit. EUCFP goals are both global and local. The macro global objectives are given as: maintaining essential ecological processes and biological resources for the people of Tanga and the international community; secondly, allowing utilisation of forest-related products by local communities in a "rational and sustainable manner". More specifically, the local objectives are: to promote biodiversity and conservation in Amani Nature Reserve; consolidate and expand catchment forestry to stabilise the Sigi River; plantation forestry; and institutional support to forest planning and management capacity. Phase II significantly has traded ".. local community .. farm forestry and improved land management practices to reduce pressure on natural forests and women's workloads ..", for the earlier "plantations" objective. (EUCFP 1993, 1995). EUCFP's instruments are primarily zoning, utilising the Forest Division's legal-legislative position in Tanzanian land ordinance: Forest Policy 1953, Draft Forest Policy 1994, Forest Reserve Laws 1958. EUCFP would like to expand the range of zoning instruments to include five categories of 'forest zone' envisaged by AFIMP and requiring land tenure changes. First is a category of Nature Reserve Forest for bio-conservation for which the full national legislation does not yet exist. There has been considerable controversy over the creation of the 6

At the same time, IUCN surveyed many other resources including sub-montane forest types, fauna, medicinal and useful plants, soil, climatic change and water quality. (Hamilton & Bensted-Smith 1989)

10 strictly-controlled Amani Nature Reserve which would effectively ban local people from all hunting, plant collecting, fuelwood, etc. in the exclusion zone. The Reserve however would be open, under strict controls, to scientific researchers and probably to eco-tourists. Whether this latter activity would and should compensate local people for lost resource rights, employment, income and socio-cultural values is a key critique made by the EUCDP and concerned groups in the area. (Masilingi 1992). The Amani Nature Reserve was finally gazetted by the government in May 1997, "for the protection of the biodiversity and endemic plants and animals of the submontane rainforests". EUCFP has identified seven areas linking existing Forest Reserves which they want designated as Wildlife Corridors to allow for secure movement of birds, animals and other biota. (Newmark 1993). The exclusion corridors have been criticised as being ecologically unnecessary for migrations and breeding, as well as being detrimental to the people living in or using these 8000 hectares. Zoning could create Buffer Zones around protected forests where controlled, sustainable exploitation by local people could take place, for certain products and by specified people. (Whether cardamom growing would be allowed legally to continue is unclear.) Government legislation does not yet exist for buffers. The EUCFP would also like to zone Watershed Protection forests where Maesopsis would remain until better species could be promoted. The AFIMP plan identified the specific Public Lands where tenure changes would be needed for extending or gazetting new Reserves. The strengths of the EUCFP Project are very much with its regulatory policy instruments, land use controls and gazetting powers which other agencies do not have. Its deficiencies lie in its indirect and un-integrated lines of command and responsibility, and its weak connections with the District Forest Office (below). The weakness currently emerging is due to the project making its re-orientation towards "participatory design and planning". With its protectionist 'closed forest' background, the project and staff naturally do not yet have the expertise or experience to make the quantum shifts - in project decision-making, staff attitudes and skills, and monitoring and evaluation - needed for a participatory approach. Foresters are still burdened with their legacy as the "resource police". Jurisdiction of the District Forest Office (DFO) Other EUCFP land-utilisation designations are Forest Plantations, and Public Lands where currently permits for pit-sawing can still be granted by District authorities (District Forestry Officers). Within the Public Lands would be “Areas of Cultivation” where existing villages could continue with normal agriculture. The DFO, falling under the Muheza District Commissioner, is responsible for granting pitsawing permits on Public Lands, 'the trees outside the Forest', in most of the East Usambaras (Muheza D.C. 1992). The DFO is not included in any of the big donor-aided projects and it operates under very difficult conditions of finance, personnel and transport. The staff are subject to strong local political and individual pressures to grant permits to traders, or to overlook discrepancies between permits and actual timber cut. The opinion in the area is that the District Office is currently not able to fulfil its mission of protecting trees on Public Lands and satisfy

11 demands from the local economy. The DFO, like the EUCFP, is responsible for implementing Tanzania’s Forest Policy and government Acts; but with scant financial clout and few resources commensurate with its authority, it must rely on general administrative authority and political influence which are waning in post-socialist Tanzania. The DFO's authority, unsurprisingly, is eroded by the EUCFP's superior position. Lines of command are very confused. Whereas the EUCFP is a national-level unit reporting to the FD in Dar es Salaam from its project office - not on the ground in Amani but two hours away in Tanga, meanwhile there is a Regional Forest Office responsible for some teak forests and reporting to the Tanga Regional Commissioner, as well as the local DFO with a Muheza District mandate. (Districts have elected councils, but Regions do not). Although they all receive technical advice from the national Forestry Division, in executive terms they all report to different ministries in Dar es Salaam - the EUCFP Project Manager to the Environment Ministry, the DFO to Home Affairs, and the RFO to the Prime Minister’s Office. Participatory Village Activities under the EUCDP The EUCDP under the Ministry of Agriculture has twin objectives of improving living conditions of local people in 13 villages, through promoting sustainable agricultural development in the Forest Reserve buffer zone, as well as "sustainably securing the regional resource functions and biological values .." of the forests. Mechanisms include communication and co-operation between actors and support to villagelevel planning. Activities started with a village RRA and selecting Village Co-ordinators, and continued with promoting Village Environmental Committees, agro-forestry and a soil erosion programme with farmers planting vetiver grass. The most significant instrument is the Village Co-ordinators, local young men and women who mostly have created a fine rapport with villagers, at least with "progressive farmers", and who energetically promote the project's interventions. The Co-ordinators are a major potential of the project, because of their acceptance by the communities and their efforts to form local interest groups. As social mobilisers they can support slow and steady awareness-raising and sensitisation among villagers, coupled with some direct technical extension, as in contour bunding, or management of new tree species. (EUCDP 1990; Ningu 1994) A salient strength of EUCDP has been the European Union- and IUCN-backed budget and equipment, coupled with Tanzanian and expatriate expertise in forestry, ecological resources and social development, despite the organisational problems of working with a multi-voiced donor. [7] The EUCDP however does not have a programmatically delineated area, and it is not administratively tied to the local government structure. Further weaknesses show in the lack of co-ordination between EUCDP and other local agencies. The activities of the Project have reflected intrinsic conflicts between the environmental 7

EU funding stopped in 1996, and currently the project seeks sources of external support.

12 protection and farmer-support goals. Operationally as well as programmatically, there has been significant ideological content, with a heavy dependence on discussions for "village participation", capacity-building and planning organisation per se, with less effort given to activities of production and incentives. The empowerment approach makes for slow progress whilst it raises consciousness and seeking consensus. TABLE 2.

COMPETING INSTITUTIONAL INTERESTS in the FOREST

INTERESTS

EUCDP

Focal Scale

Community/ Global

Community/ Regional / Global

Community

Commercial Poles and Timber

N

C

L

Household Welfare Medicine, Food, Fuel, Building.

M

N

M

Smallholders' Livelihood - Cash Income

M

Drinking Water/ Irrigation: - Local Users & Tea Estates

M

C

M

(Eco)Tourism

N?

M

C

Sacred Sites

L

C

M

Research Areas

M

L

N?

N

N

M

EUCFP

Farm Household Communities

FOREST PRODUCTS

M

FOREST SERVICES

FOREST FUNCTIONS Cardamom Sites Catchment Protection

M

Climate Control

L

Groundwater Recharge for Downstream Users

M

Micro-climate for Tea

C

FOREST ATTRIBUTES Species Habitats

M

M

Biodiversity

M

M

C

13 Cultural Features

L

C

M

Lands for Expansion & Investment

N

N

M

MLNC-

Major , priority interest Minor interest Negative attitude Conditional interest (depending on circumstances)

TABLE 3

STAKEHOLDER STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES EUCDP

POWERS & RESOURCES

EUCFP (& DFO)

Farm Household Communities

INSTITUTIONAL RESOURCES and POWERS Legal Power:

EUCFP actively seeking more. Forest Policy Govt. Acts

Very limited Tenure

None

EUCFP: None. DFO may sell permits

Mass action, Sabotage

Little. Reduced external financing.

More than EUCDP. External funding. DFO very limited govt. expenditure

No savings. Little return investment or capital flows from urban.

Strengthening traditional authority. Use of NGOs.

Not traditional. Donor influence; using publicity.

Eroded traditional influence. Previous party linkages broken. Elected Dist. Council little influence.

Biodiversity, ecology, PRA approaches, etc. (mostly departed in '97)

Forestry & physical resources; limited biodiversity knowledge

Indigenous technical knowledge, e.g. medicines, cardamom. Indigenous management

International links weakened with less EU & IUCN support.

Strong publicity machine. Research, etc. International connections.

Good links with Village Coordinators. No access to modern media.

Little power - Legislation - Policing Extra-legal Potentials Financial Power: - Internal resources. - Access to outside.

Political Clout: - Traditional - Modern

Technical Resources: - Skills, - Expertise - Tools Information Control: - of self - of others

STAKEHOLDER DEFICIENCIES WEAKNESSES IN POWERS

Weak integration with Govt. line activities.

EUCFP-DFO not integrated.

Land tenure uncertain.

14 & RESOURCES Expensive, prolonged participatory activities. Inherent contradictions of "participatory approach".

Forest projects have confusing lines of command. Finding balance between traditional forest policing & social forestry.

No off-farm income. Poor accessibility. Market deficiency. Population growth.

DFO: No financial or PI clout.

Policy Instruments Employed by the Two Projects Most of the policy instruments summarised in Table 4 below are already employed by EUCFP or EUCDP, or by the communities themselves; some however are only in preparatory stages or being contemplated. In addition, the DFO and EUTCO implement some other instruments. The basic purpose of communicative instruments is to provide information about existing or potential "alternative behaviours" - e.g. awareness-raising meetings, publicity, mass media, promotions, training, arbitration, non-enforceable covenants, and participatory research. The basic purpose of regulatory, enforceable instruments is to eliminate certain behaviours, or to create new alternative behaviours - e.g. absolute enforcement, regulations, licences, quotas, permits, and landuse zoning. Incentive, selective instruments' purpose is to change the pros and cons of alternative behaviours. They include both positive and negative instruments - e.g. compensation, transfer payments, or taxes, so long as there is an element of free choice. Incentives can thus include: subsidised inputs, guaranteed prices or market outlets, or say, improved tenure rights. Non-responsive instruments, such as supportive infrastructure investments, are often not considered as policy instruments because there is no requirement for a direct response, even though the behaviour of the target groups is expected to change. In reality, PIs are normally applied in simultaneous or sequential combination as mixed instruments, the classic 'carrot and stick'. For instance, a financial incentive is offered to farmers to change their behaviour, along with threats of fines and penalties if they do not, and both alongside an awareness-raising campaign to provide information.

15 TABLE 4

INSTRUMENTS Implemented by Main Institutions & Communities EUCDP

EUCFP

Project

Project

Farm Household Communities

MAIN TYPES of POLICY INSTRUMENTS Communicative / Regulatory / Incentive / / Mixed / "Non-responsive" (infrastructure) mostly: Communicative PIs plus Incentives PIs

Mixed PIs-: Regulatory PIs + Incentives PIs some Communicative

Traditional PIs: (customary laws). mostly Regulatory

Examples of PI Applications Village Co-ordinators.

Gazetting new Forest Reserves.

Extension -e.g. soil erosion measures, vetiver; tree nurseries.

Nature Reserves & other Forests.

Incentives for crops, dairy cows, jaggery-making, fruit trees.

Firewood permits. FD Permits for pit sawyers, other forest products.

Participatory village land use planning.

Forest guards - patrolling boundaries.

Promoting environmental awareness.

Compensation.

Traditional village sanctions on forest use and products - e.g. sacred sites. Age & gender restrictions on forest use. Village forest patrolling. Resource users' groups, e.g. for medicinal plants. Joint Forest Management.

Propaganda.

Village bye-laws (approved by District Council).

Participatory forest management. Forestry extension Tourism infrastructure.

5.

Environmental Actions - Successes, Failures, Processes

The trajectory of environmental actions depends on why they are being implemented, as well as how - that is, on the types of policy instruments being implemented. It is essential to understand who is implementing an action, for what purpose, and who the intended target groups are, (though many other actors may also influence the effects). The specific outcomes of any policy instrument will depend on its mechanisms - whether through use of enforcement, incentives, persuasion, discussion, bribery, or moral authority, as well as on the elements of society that it impacts upon - finance, culture, morals, legislation, institutions, information media, etc.

16 Compensation for New Forest Gazettments, Compensation for Cardamom (EUCFP) The FD and EUCFP are responsible for compensation to any farmers whose land will be taken over by the gazetting of new Reserves. This is a very slow and politically-charged process, both in the surveying and the determination of asset ownership. The whole process of gazetting depends on political and social legitimisation which in turn depends on fair compensation. Compensation is fully determined by government regulations at rates which were set long before inflation hit; moreover it is only provided for buildings and certain standing trees and crops. The existing areas of cardamom production were roughly known and mapped, and the potential expansion areas have been identified (Sah 1996). Data were not a problem, there were welldefined maps of the proposed forest expansion areas, and the location of forest farms within the new gazettments was well-known. GIS techniques would have speeded up analysing and presenting the findings, but essentially the spatial information was available. The costs of compensation, however, were seriously under-estimated. Even now (1997) farmers have only been offered half of the correct payment, which itself is hardly "fair compensation", since there is no allowance made for the future earning power of the land for farmers, nor for all their other livelihood and income earning from other vegetation and forest products and services, e.g. medicinal plants. (Kidombo 1997). If the authorities had accurately reckoned the full costs of compensating the displaced farmers it is doubtful that this policy instrument could have been implemented. Furthermore, the agencies did not work out whether farmers would use any compensation for alternative farming or livelihood provision. In practice, compensation money mostly dispersed outside the area, or went into improved housing. The crucial link between compensation and encouraging farmers to cultivate outside the forest was absent. Over the past 20 years cardamom has provided an almost secure livelihood for a significant number of households, not always endorsed by the government, but implicitly encouraged by local political leaders. Apart from whether it is necessary, any attempt to totally ban cardamomgrowing within the forest would be politically very difficult to implement. Anyway, being under the closed forest canopy, cardamom is extremely difficult to detect, if at all, from aerial observations. The long-term ecological drawbacks of cardamom in virgin forest are well documented, but the alternative of growing cardamom outside the closed canopy forest in home gardens under planted tree cover has hardly been researched. (Sengoe 1994). This is despite field observations and anecdotal evidence that farmers can produce acceptable yields outside the forest and sustain a longer productive life through husbandry techniques such as inter-cropping with jack-fruit, banana and taro. Agriculture Department research, however, has not given this, nor forest fallowing, any priority. Controlling Woodfuel Collection from the Forest - "Wednesday Permits" (EUCFP) To eliminate a perceived threat of over-cutting of firewood, a permit instrument was instituted whereby local women could apply to collect fallen wood one day per week only. Strictly, this was a concession, since legally no wood can be taken from a Reserve. In practice however, it

17 only added to women's burdens, though the permits may help to reduce commercial gatherers. The location of farm households collecting firewood from the Forest Reserves, and the normal source areas, were not considered in this blanket control mechanism; though Hakizumwami (1996) generalised from a small sample that distance-to-forest itself is not a major determinant. The relative locations of the forest guards who are supposed to supervise and monitor firewood collection also needs to be known - can the men physically present at Forest Stations walk around enough of the forest? Estimates of the relative amount of woodfuel obtained from forests or from farms were not known. Although important knowledge about the rural fuelwood collection system has been acquired, i.a. gender specificity, estimated consumption and preferred species, this is not specific to the area. Nor has woodfuel been properly valued - 'what are the real costs and benefits of collecting, as opposed to growing or purchasing, firewood?' As in most rural areas, virtually no Usambara households are responding to projects to plant trees specifically for woodfuel, though they may use the offcuts from timber or fruit trees. Promoting Ecotourism in Amani Nature Reserve (EUCFP) Supply side information is fairly abundant for the special flora and fauna, biodiversity, historical sites and so on in Amani, with much spatial planning information showing threatened areas, strict reserves and infrastructure lines. On the demand side, however, information is missing on the potential of different ecotourism market categories, likely expenditure patterns on popular activities, or tourist carrying capacities. The incentives needed to ensure the feasibility of this PI, along with the balancing elements of control, have not been sufficiently investigated, though the potential for collaboration with, or resistance from, communities and institutions should be elicitable from key informants. Restrictions on villagers' entry to the forest, concomitant with promoting research and ecotourism, are not popular with local actors, though there will be some slight benefits for local employment and small businesses. National institutions are still debating the advantages and drawbacks of this PI, but their overall response is not complete. Ecotourism is probably more significant for environmental sustainability in Usambara in terms of raising awareness among stakeholders outside Africa, than by providing any local benefits. Incentive Payments for Constructing Macro Contour Bunds (EUCDP) Contour bunds with vetiver grass are adopted, though to what extent due to acceptance of their value against erosion or to the incentive payments, is not clear. The economic benefits to the individual farmer of macro-contouring are not known, nor the environmental value of reducing soil loss. The target groups' goals related to their labour priorities and on- and off-farm income are not well-understood; especially little is recognised of female-headed farms in the area. A study of factors positively related to adoption of soil conservation measures found that the strongest 'determinants' are the potential for increased on-farm crop or tree income, rather than any abstract attachment to the land or feeling of secure tenure. The external influence of contact with the persuasive EUCDP project staff is another key determinant. (Masayanyika 1995).

18 Basic technical information was deficient for this PI. There are no slope maps at an appropriate scale to identify focal intervention areas; 1:50,000 scale maps cannot show individual farms or even hazard slopes, and the Finnish GIS data base has not been used for mapping slopes. Moreover, there were no adequate monitoring data on the extent of bunding carried out by farmers. Village Participatory Land Use Planning (EUCDP) The EUCDP project is working towards "village land use plans" endorsed by, and acceptable to, the village communities; the argument being that since local people have their livelihood and posterity tied up with the local environment, it is in their own interests to use it "sustainably", and therefore it should be their responsibility. The first difficulty lies in reaching a common, effective agreement against objections from powerful personal interests in the village; the second is that the aggregate of village optimal solutions is not necessarily the regional or watershed-level optimal solution. Those responsible at the village level - even if allowed to implement their decisions - will not necessarily act in the long-term interests of their neighbouring villages, or the region, or say downstream dwellers in the watershed. Moreover, farmers' involvement in say, soil conservation, cannot be simply translated into a larger commitment towards environmental conservation or forest protection. Using the terms of Drijver et al. (1995), although there is convincing evidence of deliberate "individual property resource management", as well as clear signs of "common property resource use", and some of "common property resource management", there is insufficient evidence, yet, to conclude a higher level of "environmental management". At the present time, villagers are also rightly reluctant to expend time and efforts on planning, or safeguarding communal land. The uncertain legislative-legal position of communal property on Public Lands is highly complex and politically charged. Since the 1992 Regulation of Land Tenure Act, all customary rights and all litigation about them have been extinguished. There is currently no traditional tenure or common property management legally accepted in Tanzania. (URT 1994). 6.

Project Strategies and Policy Instruments - Addressing the Issues?

The main projects and their agencies are still evolving, re-actively and pro-actively. Although the effect of their strategies and policy instruments on target groups and resources cannot be finally judged, their different approaches illustrate key issues in addressing environmental and social sustainability. The most intransigent issues concern the simple questions of which values ultimately have priority, and who really has power over resource decisions. Before that, the more direct question of information for PI implementation is considered. Project Management and Targeting of Information Better organisation and management of information would resolve some problems in selecting and implementing policy instruments, through more reliable elicitation, smarter analysis and management, and targeting of information towards appropriate recipients. Methods to use include participatory-RRA, eliciting indigenous knowledge of resources, local management

19 procedures and institutions, and participatory scientific experiments in e.g. cardamom husbandry. The locations of the resources and their utilisation, the stakeholders, and the conflicts over their overlapping spaces confirm the significance of geo-information elements. Since so much of the analysis must be geographical, spatial data capture and processing, locational analysis, GIS and map products become essential to the projects. Presentation of information itself needs better management. The EUCFP project, more than the other organisations, invests considerable efforts in positive news dissemination through newsletters, calendars, participating in national environmental fora, and all kinds of public relations. This has not been evaluated, but appears to be effective in overcoming some local suspicions and hostility and raising the profile nationally. To strengthen the resource base for policy instruments, the information campaign needs to re-emphasise targeting northern public opinion - NGOs, donors, tourism companies, or the media. Obtaining more information sets up real costs - in data capture, in verification (cross-checking), in analysis and transformation, dissemination, even in selection. Beyond this, are the issues of access, transparency and ownership. Information has value, not just in reflecting the costs of acquisition, but as a tradable resource. Where conflicts are highly developed there are strategic and tactical advantages from holding information that "the other side" does not have. At this level, another truism holds, that "it is the already powerful who acquire the additional information and further consolidate their position". Grimble and Chan (1995) for instance warn of the 'information as panacea' myth, and that soi-disant independent objective researchers should be mindful of who will actually benefit most from their information build-up. But, fundamental to East Usambaras are not information deficiencies, but deep political and moral issues, dealing as they do with struggles between "environmentally sustainable" and "socially productive" land use. People’s Livelihood and Ecological Conservation - a Conflict to be Managed? The deep issues are brought upfront to the policy and planning agendas by the on-going struggles between interest groups over resources. The resources are both physical (e.g. forest products, wildlife, cardamom) and abstracted (e.g. biodiversity, landscape, catchment), and they denote different types of benefits for different groups. The extreme values for the East Usambara forests can be summarised as "promoting local sustainable livelihood" versus? or with? "preserving the integrity of ecological values". BOX ------------------------STAKEHOLDERS' VIEWS The extreme positions, as adapted from two outside stakeholders: 'Land use planning should acknowledge the villagers' ability to make land use decisions in (their own) best interests.' [based on IIED] 'Conservationists are in favour of ring-barking all the Maesopsis trees and kicking out all the farmers.' [based on IUCN]

20 ------------------------------The land and landuse conflicts are overt expressions of underlying struggles which surface when existing suppression mechanisms are no longer operative, so especially after a significant change in resources, in the actors involved, their relative powers, or their goals. In Tanzania, this was most salient in the transitions from pre-capitalist to colonial, from colonial to socialist, and socialist to a market economy. Better information generated by the projects can help actors to understand the causes of the conflict, but more likely through empathic structural understanding, rather than specific items of discrete factual knowledge. There is also the potential that augmenting information does not help to manage, but instead may precipitate, overt conflict through bringing previously hidden inequalities to the surface. Conflicts over the distribution of benefits and costs within and between groups are not limited only to those between "insiders" and "outsiders”; there is no more equality or homogeneity of purpose among the farmers and other land-user groups within East Usambaras, than among agencies and NGOs in the outside world. A "conflict management" strategy anyway begs questions - it suggests that latent struggles overtly expressed as conflicts should, and can, be "managed" through the interventions and instruments of an authoritative “outsider” agency acting on subordinate, mostly “insider” actors. Although external projects and their researchers may have some success in analysing overt conflicts between stakeholders, it is highly presumptuous to try to settle long-standing class, gender and cultural struggles at community level. Moreover, the "stakeholder-focused" approaches used tend to obfuscate where the actual costs and benefits of PIs will fall, as in the case of participatory forest patrolling - the serious benefits accrue to the FD and outsider “biodiversity stakeholders”, whilst the costs of safeguarding the resources fall on the village youth. Participation and Empowerment towards Sustainable Resource Management?

Environmentally

and

Socially

The EUCDP's positive experiences with needs assessment and group actions using the Village Co-ordinators programme has helped influence the EUCFP towards a more participatory project approach. The EUCFP is particularly open to external donor pressures for more participatory activities, with other impetuses being the drive towards "cost-sharing" in forest / environmental protection and access to indigenous knowledge, as well as the need for greater legitimisation of interventions. Participation is a contemporary rural development paradigm, even for foresters. However, despite the EUCDP's efforts, there are currently no effective political mechanisms for people's empowerment in district or region-scale environmental decisions, although in practice, villagers may hold a spoiling function which can delay or sabotage external interventions. Too often, the projects' approach to participation concerns only the mechanisms, and overlooks the why, - what ends should peoples' participation in environmental management serve? At the district, or even village, level, the crucial political empowerment questions should have been made clear: "Which 'stakeholders', practically or potentially, have entitlements and rights to the land, its products, its services, and its properties?" "Who has the responsibility to ensure the "sustainable" and "productive" utilisation of the

21 land's products and services.?" "Who bears the costs - what is the distribution of costs now, or under alternative scenarios?" To achieve the sustainable management of the East Usambara forests as a commonly-held ecosystem requires the highest level of political will and social responsibility, or 'good governance', not only of the local actors immediately responsible for the environment, but also of the outside political powers and civil society. It is the external, indirect stakeholders whose behaviour must first be changed, principally through correcting their "not my business" attitudes, towards recognising that the ecological values of the forests are primarily for the outsiders’ benefit, and therefore, are our economic responsibility. Beyond this, at the local level, the self-interest of households and communities is critical for effective resource management. In this, both the EUCDP and EUCFP are deficient, since they offer no striking incentives in terms of cash crops, employment, or any long-term subsidies like transfer payments for biodiversity protection. [8] To achieve environmental sustainability requires authentic empowerment as a first, necessary, though not sufficient, condition. In reality, this means that the external interested actors, like IUCN, FINNIDA and NGOs, would have to first accept that local people can do what they like with the land, such as growing cardamom or smallholder tea, and subject to only a minimum of over-riding environmental regulations. The principle of subsidiarity should ensure that the maximum set of decisions are taken at the level of the individual household and then the community. This devolution and empowerment, even with all the political hazards for the long-term socio-environmental vision of the centre, is an essential pre-condition which is not being met. Only after 'handing over' such powers to the local actors, could the external parties, including the environmental regulators, hope to negotiate with the farmers for a meaningful agreement on sound environmental management. But, empowerment for East Usambara farmers in resource management would itself not achieve such a balance of self-interests; overall success requires going beyond local empowerment towards co-determined decisions for the environment which sustain both local and external legitimate actors. The only hope to reconcile the opposing goals of sustainable local livelihood and sustainable ecosystem in the Eastern Usambaras is: first - empower local parties, and - only then - balance the interests between local, national and global "stakeholders".

*

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks to Emile Dopheide, M.I.L. Katigula and Margaret Skutsch for new ideas and errors corrected, and to Hans v.d. Breemer and Bernhard Venema for structural advice.

8

EUTCO with its smallholder tea project did promise cash income, perhaps at the expense of the environment. (EUCDP 1994)