Project Summary
Over just six weeks in spring 2021, generous donations from WLT supporters allowed WLT’s £360,000 appeal ‘Saving Tanzania’s Coastal Forests’ to raise over £400,000 in funds for this exciting project.
Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG), are using the funds to improve the conservation of the unique and threatened biodiversity of Tanzania’s Coastal Forests by establishing ten new Village Land Forest Reserves (VLFRs) in Lindi District and gazetting them to maximise their level of legal protection.
The project will establish 49,000+ acres (20,000+ ha) of new VLFRs, with over 37,000 acres (15,000 ha) proposed between the first four villages in the first six months of the project.
TFCG is working to bring further benefits to communities to incentivise conservation of their forest areas, including implementing climate-smart agriculture, establishing village savings and loan associations, supporting small-scale tree-planting on farms and degraded forest lands, and revisiting carbon (REDD+) project opportunities.
Biome
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests
Ecoregion
Southern Swahili coastal forests and woodlands
Habitats
The area’s coastal forests are characterised by a mosaic of vegetation types, including evergreen forest, Brachystegia woodland, scrub forest and dry forest.
Method for Land Protection
Land acquisition through designation and legal recognition from declaration/gazetting areas, along with reserve management
BIODIVERSITY
Rondo Forest Reserve in Lindi Rural District is the East African Coastal Forest Hotspot with the most single-site endemics. Furthermore, the Lindi Local area has been described as a Local Centre of Endemism.
Twenty-six kilometres to the north-east of Rondo, the adjoining Noto, Chitoa and Likonde Plateaux (in which the 10 new VLFRs are to be located) are poorly known areas of coastal forest that may have similar biodiversity values to Rondo.
While the highest levels of biodiversity are found in the closed canopy forest, this only makes up about 1% of the total area of the coastal Forest mosaic. Notwithstanding the small area covered by these forests, they retain high numbers of endemic plant and animal species including over 100 endemic plants, five birds, three mammals, 24 reptiles, five amphibians, 86 molluscs and 75 butterflies.
Global Prioritization
Lindi’s deeply fissured inland plateaus are a local centre of endemism and are part of the Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa Biodiversity Hotspot.
The Lindi District Coastal Forests are also recognized as an Important Bird Area (IBA).
Main Threats to the Area
Large-scale deforestation for commercial agriculture – predominantly cashew but also sesame – remains the main threat.
Community forest areas also suffer from unsustainable resource exploitation, and deforestation and forest degradation for subsistence agriculture and charcoal making.
Local communities
The Lindi District is inhabited by three main groups, the Mwera, Makonde and Makua, as well as small groups of Ngindo and Matumbi.
The project region is characterised by high levels of poverty and most people depend on forests for medicinal plants, fuelwood, building materials and food. The forests also help to maintain a regular water supply for towns and villages.
At least 84 percent of the population in Lindi District are engaged in agriculture as their main economic activity and this sector contributes around 75 percent of the total GDP of the District. Traditionally agriculture in Lindi has been for subsistence use and follows shifting cultivation patterns and customary practices; however, major crops grown now include maize, wheat, millet, cashew and sesame.
Livestock grazing is also important but in the dry season the quality of grazing land diminishes, forcing livestock keepers to expand into new areas, including forests, in search of better grazing.
