07 Sep
2006 - By Anthony Field* - It is the dry season
in Tanzania’s highlands when I enter a mud house
in the dusty village of Ihahi in the country’s
southwest. Here, in the dim of the light, I find
a dozen or so people chanting and punching the
air with their fists.
I wonder if I’ve stumbled on
a political rally. But as I listen closely to
what they are saying, I realize it is more a pep
rally of sorts, praising the success of their
community conservation banks (or COCOBA for short).
“Water is life!” goes the chant.
“Let us use it wisely and conserve its sources.
COCOBA is our saviour, alleviating poverty and
improving our environment.” The chanters then
settle down to their weekly meeting to discuss
community banking and issues that effect life
within the water catchment area of the Great Ruaha
River.
Tanzania’s Great Ruaha River
flows through the Usangu wetlands and the magnificent
Ruaha National Park within a river basin that
is home to more than three million people. Overuse
of water resources, particularly for rice irrigation
schemes, coupled with intensive livestock grazing
and deforestation, have seen this river dry up
each year for longer and longer periods – the
record is 111 consecutive days.
After the meeting, in the cool
of the hut, I chat with Exavery Mbaya, one of
the COCOBA officials, about life in the village
and the severe water restrictions.
Seven years ago, Exavery made
the break from farming to become a tailor, so
he understands all too well why these community
banks, which were set up with help from WWF, are
so important to the future of the community.
“They provide people with access
to loans for the first time,” he explains. “It
has allowed me to expand my business and send
my two children to secondary school.”
Exavery beams, proud that he
has broken free of the dependency on agriculture
that ties more than 80 per cent of the population
to the land. His children are now in the minority
who go to secondary school and have a chance to
make a better life for themselves.
“Before the community banks,
if the crops failed here the need for money would
drive people to damage their environment,” he
says. “Today, the bank members act like environmental
ambassadors, spreading the word to people beyond
the COCOBAs about water management and other environmental
matters.”
Running dry in the Highlands
Tanzania is one of the poorest
countries in the world, with average incomes nearly
100 times lower than those in the UK. However,
this southern African nation is rich in natural
resources, which its people depend upon — from
water and soil for agriculture, to a healthy marine
environment for fishing. The highland regions,
such as the land that feeds the Great Ruaha River,
are well-watered, but mismanagement has resulted
in this mighty river running dry at certain times
of the year.
Petro Masolwa, a man born with
a smile on his face, is WWF’s man in Ruaha.
“Thirty years ago, the government
identified this region as suitable for irrigation
and invested in large state farms as well as created
irrigation canals and ditches for small farmers,”
he explains. “People flocked to the area, but
their poor farming practices have led to water
shortages and conflict.”
Since the 11000s, misuse of
water upstream caused the river to stop flowing
at the peak of the dry season, putting severe
pressure on the wildlife — including including
lions, hippos, kudus and crocodiles — within the
Ruaha National Park further downstream. Visiting
the nearby village of Maniega, I find that it
severely affects man as well as beast.
In heat so intense I could taste
the dryness, women were collecting water from
the Kioga River — a tributary of the Great Ruaha
— by scooping it into buckets. The water can only
be found at the bottom of a 1.5m hole in the dry
river bed. Perversely, in the wet season, the
level of silt causes the river to burst its banks.
Finding shade under a bridge
across the silted up river, I speak to Haule Leodgar,
a government trainer who is working with WWF.
“Villagers remember the deep
river,” he says. “Now they ask me what has gone
wrong. The problem lies 150km upstream, where
poor farming practices result in sediment being
eroded from fields into the river.
To address the situation, WWF
is working with the local communities, creating
and training water users associations to manage
the river better. These associations are spreading
across the whole catchment area, bringing communities
together to offer training on fair distribution
and efficient water use. In addition to cutting
the use of water for irrigation, they are also
helping to improve crop yields and incomes of
farmers. Crucially, they also help people to understand
one another’s needs, which is vital in reducing
localized conflicts.
Haule is right, there is room
for optimism. The number of conflicts has already
been reduced. What’s more, this year the Great
Ruaha River is still flowing at the peak of the
dry season, providing water for wildlife and people.
Down by the coast
My next destination is Mafia
Island. It’s also in Tanzania, but feels like
it’s a world away from the sunburnt landscape
of Ruaha. Mafia — a group of islands off the Tanzanian
coast on the the Indian Ocean — offers white sandy
beaches and translucent seas that fit the stereotype
of how a tropical island should look.
Here, one finds Tanzania’s world-renowned
Mafia Island Marine Park, a group of five small
islands whose coral reefs, sea grass beds, and
mangroves host some of the richest life on the
east African coast. Marine turtles, humpback and
sperm whales, 400 species of fish, and the the
occasional dugong, all claim the waters as home.
Some 15,000 people also call the islands home,
with most earning their living from harvesting
coconuts and fishing the turquoise seas.
But there is a flip side to
paradise. While there, I witness the ups and downs
of this abundant marine life — from the thrill
of watching turtles hatch and spying a whale during
an aerial survey, to the sad sight of a dugong
drowned in fishing nets, and the sinister glimpse
of a suspected illegal fishing vessel. These foreign
ships take advantage of the region’s limited capacity
to enforce fishing restrictions, and target the
wealth of fish here.
Over the years, the park has
won the battle against the most damaging form
of fishing — using dynamite to stun or kill fish.
Better still, conservationists and local officials
are now on the threshold of another milestone
—ridding the park of seine net fishing, which
involves fine-meshed nets being dragged through
shallow waters, causing damage to corals and seagrass
beds. The nets also indiscriminately catch small
juvenile fish that are useless to the fishermen
but important for the productivity of fisheries.
To understand the scale of this
latest achievement, I examine a 2003 fisheries
census. At that time four villages located within
the park’s boundaries that had not stopped seine
net fishing were using 225 nets, with a staggering
combined length of more than 10km. Since then,
WWF has worked with the local communities to ensure
that the majority of seine nets are handed in,
or at least exchanged for less damaging types
of net.
“WWF is helping fishermen and
local communities to diversify away from their
dependence on natural resources,” says Thomas
Chale, an enterprise development coordinator for
WWF.
To achieve this, WWF has created
two schemes: a cooperative credit and savings
scheme, similar to the COCOBA in Ruaha; and a
loan scheme to encourage seine net fishermen to
adopt alternative, sustainable livelihoods.
Creating alternatives
The beneficiaries of the loan
scheme are typified by Mr Mbaraka, a local fisherman.
With two fishing boats he was once one of the
most powerful seine net fishermen operating in
the marine park. But last year he swapped his
nets for a two tonne truck, using a WWF-supported
loan, to fulfil a transportation contract with
the fish-processing factory in nearby Kilindoni.
As he repays the loan, the money will be reinvested
to develop more sustainable alternative livelihoods.
Not far from the marine park
headquarters, I meet 20-year-old Juma Abdallah
tending his garage. He and his two partners also
used to be seine net fishermen but swapped fishing
to open up a petrol station, the only one on the
east side of Mafia that services the communities
as well as the marine park headquarters and tourist
hotels. Each of the partners now has a respectable
salary of 45,000 Tanzanian shillings a month (about
US$35), which is above the national average.
“We talked to WWF about new
businesses and decided on the fuel station,” says
Juma. “After we gave up fishing, WWF helped us
with business training such as marketing and financial
management. Our business is going well and we
want to expand.”
Travelling in Tanzania, I’m
struck by the ease with which Petro, Thomas and
other WWF staff connected with the communities
and their problems. But it is not surprising.
They live in these projects, they meet these people
every day, share their frustrations and happiness.
They want them to have better lives in an improved
environment and they believe passionately in the
work that WWF does to conserve wildlife through
supporting the development of sustainable livelihoods.
* Anthony Field is Deputy Head
of Press at WWF-UK.
END NOTES:
• Tanzania is the largest East
African country, and the catchment area of the
River Rufiji, in the south and southwest of the
country, accounts for nearly 20 per cent of the
country's area. The Great Ruaha River supplies
22 per cent of the total flow of the Rufiji catchment
system. From its headwaters, also in the Kipengere
Mountains, the Great Ruaha River descends to the
Usangu plains, a critically important region in
Tanzania for irrigated agriculture (mostly rice)
and livestock. The wetland system of the plains
is also important for the households around the
area and for the adjacent Usangu Game Reserve.
The river eventually reaches the Mtera reservoir
and then flows south to the Kidatu dam. These
two dams together generate about 50 per cent of
the Tanzania's electricity. The Ruaha continues
southwards and cuts across the Selous Game Reserve
before feeding into the Rufiji. The mangrove forest
on the Rufiji delta is the largest in Africa.
• WWF was very involved in the
creation of Mafia Island Marine Park, which was
established in 1995. The global conservation organization
currently assists in the management of the marine
park so that the ecosystem and biodiversity are
maintained for the benefit of the people of Tanzania,
and particularly the Mafia Island community. In
particular, WWF is facilitating the development
of economic activities to reduce pressure on the
park's natural resources and address the high
levels of poverty on the islands of the marine
park. WWF is also promoting environmental awareness
and education, and working with local communities
to explore sustainable livelihood activities,
such as aquaculture and beekeeping, and to establish
credit facilities for the communities.
