The population of the Tanzanian province Kilombero is heavily reliant on agriculture. Approximately 100,000 small scale farmers cultivate predominantly rice and cocoa. On average, their fields are only around 0.5 ha in size. Roughly 35 % of the farmers are female. Economic dependences and lack of management knowledge lead to high losses during both, harvest and processing, resulting in insufficient income.
This is where the GNF project comes in. In collaboration with the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG), GNF has set up a consultation program for some 2,000 small scale farmers from 13 different villages adjacent to the Kilombero Nature Reserve and wildlife corridor. Pastor Mangingi, project leader in Ifakara, states: "The goal is to increase the income of the smallholders by providing support on better cultivation techniques and new marketing opportunities in order to increase the profit from the sale of rice and cocoa. The intention is to help to further the amount of small businesses in the economy and also prevent the expansion of agriculture fields into nature conservation areas thereby avoiding human-wildlife-conflicts.”
Kathleen Fitzgerald, AWF expert from Nairobi, explains: "The project Inclusive Green Growth aims at enhancing nature protection and biodiversity conservation in this amazing location, while simultaneously improving the lives of the local communities. In order to achieve this, we help the small scale farmers to generate a higher income from their agricultural activities and better linkage to market, in exchange for conservation of the natural resources. Through the GNF partnership we are putting an emphasis on the protection of habitat corridors. On the one hand, we want to conserve and maintain essential migration routes for critically endangered and charismatic species, such as elephants and lions. On the other hand, human-wildlife-conflicts can be prevented by reducing the impacts on fields by wildlife and therefore the strain on farmers.“
An appropriate market for the agricultural produce is a necessity to ensure a sustainable and stable income for the farmers. As part of the project, we are setting up collaborations with some of the small, local processing plants which pay a significantly higher price for cocoa to the farmers. The access to an appropriate market and higher revenues serve as a strong motivation for the farmers to conserve habitat and resources adjacent to the Kilombero Nature Reserve and the essential habitat corridors.
All actions within the project were designed to create a constructive dialogue between the farmers and the reserve authorities. Therefore, other benefitting stakeholders are the administration of the Kilombero province as well as the SUSTAIN programme, a joint AWF—IUCN program. Maintenance of the buffer zones and commitment to jointly defined harvest quotas are controlled by selected “Natural Resource Committees”. Adequate documentation and regular checks of procedures are necessary to ensure that nature conservation is integrated and efficiently implemented in each step of day to day farming.