Impact of conservation and development interventions on livelihoods and forest resources management in Pangani River Basin: a case of Muheza District, Tanzania

Abstract

An increase in human population has led to land scarcity, shortage of water for irrigation and catchments forest degradation in Pangani River Basin. The response to the socioeconomic and environmental problems in the basin has been among the endeavors of Conservation and Development Interventions (CDIs). This study was conducted to assess the impact of CDIs on livelihoods and forest resources management at Pangani River Basin in Muheza District, Tanzania. Sustainable livelihood approach was employed to gather livelihoods data. Livelihoods attributes were collected using a number of PRA techniques, questionnaire, focus group discussion, key informant and field observation. Forest inventory was carried out in Kwamkoro forest reserves by laying out 50 sample plots systematically from the forest edge. Different forest parameters were compared to the 1998 record. Contents and structural-functional analyses were applied to analyse socioeconomic qualitative data. Statistical Package for Social Science and Macro soft excel was used to analyse the socio-economic various forest parameters data. The study found out that EUCAMP was the major CDIs in the study area. Butterfly farming, fish farming, bee keeping, energy saving stove, collecting and selling of Allanblackia stulhminii seeds, biointensive gardening, zero grazing dairy cattle, spice cultivation and ecotourism were the livelihoods strategies adopted from CDIs. Land size, household income, forest restoration and livelihood improvement were statistically significantly correlated with CDIs activities at (p< 0.01). Further, stems per hectare obtained in 2005 were low compared to stems per hectare observed in 1998 indicating significant decrease. The basal area and wood volume decreased while species diversity indices indicate a slight increase from 3.4 to 3.5 between 1998 and 2007 suggesting that the forest is still facing disturbance. It was concluded that CDIs interventions have not adequately improved people’s livelihoods or reduced pressure toward forest resources utilization.