To protect and restore Tanzania's “breadbasket,†communities are front and center
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Loading... - Irene Robert
- 22 Sep 2022
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As a child, I grew up in a small settlement in the Pwani region of Tanzania. One of our neighbors used to take us to a small urban forest in Kongowe, just outside my village. Even in such a small natural space, his passion for nature inspired me; I remember looking up at the huge indigenous trees and thinking about how old and beautiful they were. My mentor at school spotted this spark and helped me apply for a place at university where I studied Wildlife Management. The course included forests and lots of other interesting science too.
When I graduated, I applied for a volunteer position at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) helping collect socio-economic data and data on a newly discovered monkey (Rungwecebus kipunji), and three months in I was offered a permanent job on a REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) project. And the rest is history!
Much of my early work focused on community engagement, working with communities to help find methods to avoid deforestation. Some of this included developing ways in which people could earn a living sustainably from the forest, for example through beekeeping or community forest management. But it also addressed ways of helping people generate income from the areas surrounding the forest so that trees didn’t have to be cut down and reduce communities’ dependency on these ecosystems. Tree-planting was complemented with raising community awareness on the importance of conserving their forest and sustainably utilizing the planted trees.
Tanzania is committed to protecting its forest and natural habitats while restoring degraded areas in collaboration with organizations such as WCS. For the last three years, WCS has been piloting REDD+ as a potential opportunity to fund forest conservation. My role is to support project implementation and engage with local stakeholders. I work closely with the Tanzania Forest Services Agency (TFS) as the main project partner, which directly manages the forest. Apart from TFS, I also work very closely with our community engagement team, which plays a vital role in working with villages and educating schoolchildren about the importance of protecting and restoring nature. Read More…
