Eastern Arc Mountains, Tanzania - Tentative NWHS
Udzungwa Mountains National Park in Tanzania forms part of the Eastern Arc Mountains tentative World
Heritage site and the Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot. The area is recognised for its habitat diversity
and high number of endemic species, which include primates such as the Udzungwa red colobus (Procolobus
gordonorum).
With many of Tanzania’s rich forest blocs destroyed, the Udzungwa Mountains are one of the country’s three
remaining sites that support savannah elephants in a montane habitat. Rapidly expanding human populations
in areas around the Park and the farming of land up to the Park border have led to conflicts between people
and wildlife, particularly elephants, of which around 2,000 live in and around Udzungwa Mountains National
Park. 2011 saw a rapid increase in the number of elephants killed in retaliation for crop damage. Eight were
killed between August 2010 and April 2011.
To exacerbate matters, Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) announced that it would be closing the Park border
to communities and enforce this decision through increased patrolling. People have used the Park since before
it was gazetted to collect fuelwood, both for personal use and as an income source.
As wildlife is trapped by growing numbers of people, communities similarly felt trapped by a combination of
TANAPA’s decision and the development of vast privately owned sugar plantations on the other side of their
village land. With 4% population growth per year, the area of land per head is decreasing, creating a tense
situation. People were scared and angry that they were being denied access to the firewood they used to
collect and sell as an income boost. There was a series of angry showdowns with Park staff, with people
vowing to keep killing elephants in retaliation.
Wishing to resolve this heated issue, the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania (WCST) applied to the RRF
to implement a project to reduce human-elephant conflict around Udzungwa Mountains National Park,
through practical steps to stop destruction of crops by elephants and to incorporate alternative livelihoods
into the mitigation measures, which could reduce people’s dependency on both Park resources and their
subsistence agriculture activities.
Results were successful and will be long lasting. Sisal ropes treated with oil and chilli were erected around
raided farms near to the edge of the National Park. 50 beehives were erected as part of the fence and
colonisation of the hives by bees has reduced attempts by elephants to pass through farm boundaries. Postproject monitoring of elephant raiding behaviour is ongoing but initial results show that there has been a
decrease in the number of crop raiding incidents (8 in a 3-month period in 2012 compared to 38 in the same
timeframe in 2011). More statistics should become available after camera and video-trap monitoring has been
taking place for longer. Proposals for in-depth research projects have been submitted, as there is plenty of
material for further study, such as why elephants continue to crop raid (albeit at a reduced level) when the
Park seems to contain enough food and they have to use very difficult access routes to reach farmland.
The beehives are permanent structures and have been designed to need minimal maintenance and to give a
profit to their owners. WWF Tanzania and the National Park’s Outreach Department provided some training to
local people on beekeeping and the processing of honey ready for sale. This has inspired the formation of 5
Community Based Organisations (CBOs), with 10 farmers in each group. The project has had national
recognition from the Ministry for Regional Administration; the government sent 20 leaders from villages across
the country to Udzungwa, so the project could be shown, and villagers from Udzungwa were likewise invited
to Dar es Salaam to receive training for new projects.
The project also received some international attention when a film crew from the National Geographic TV
channel visited via links the project has to a university in the US. The film crew were interested in humanelephant conflict and sustainable conservation initiatives so they were shown the chilli-oil fence and another
method of deterring elephants from crop-raiding; the spraying of dung on crops that elephants tend to favour.
The grantee reported that the footage is now being developed.
At the time of the final report sent to the RRF, no income had yet been earned from the beehives, but the
grantee explained it was because the project was ‘borrowing’ bees from the occupied hives to colonise the
unoccupied hives, so that honey harvesting could be done at the same time across the project, and therefore
results monitored more easily. A small amount of RRF funds remaining at the end of the project were to be
used to purchase honey-harvesting gear for villagers, with additional funds for this to be solicited from the
Community Conservation Sciences Department of TANAPA.
As this project was headed by an employee of TANAPA, local people could see that the Park itself was working
for their benefit and trying to create harmony between people and wildlife. Killings of elephants decreased in
number, with only two recorded as killed between August 2011 (when community meetings about the issue
were initiated) and the time of writing the final report more than six months later. To begin with meetings
were tense and difficult, but by the end of the project had begun to end peacefully.
The issue of the Park boundary closure is unresolved as of the end of this project and will continue to be
discussed, with WCST arguing that the negative impacts on livelihoods and Park-community relations outweigh
the impacts of fuelwood extraction. Ultimately this is an issue of law and will require parliamentary
intervention.
WCST will continue to propose sustainable solutions to support an overturn of the decision to close the Park.
The site’s designation as a tentative World Heritage site is at risk from the Tanzanian government’s desire to
retract its application to become an inscribed site, although there are rumours that the President’s bid to do
this has been withdrawn. This RRF grant can be used to underline the biodiversity importance of the site, and
strengthen the bid. The grant period has come to an end.
The grantee stayed in touch with the RRF Secretariat very closely and was very grateful for the advice and
support offered, quoting that “I am so glad at the way you have managed me and my project. I did not have
any experience of managing a project of this magnitude, but we have been able to succeed. I owe everything
to you. Thanks”. This is a very positive example of the RRF acting in a capacity building role, in addition to the
successful project that it funded.