Hunting for the benefit of Joint Forest Management and Locally-based Monitoring in Tanzania

Project summary

This project investigates the outcome of Joint Forest Management (JFM) and Locally-based Monitoring (LBM) in two locations in the Udzungwa Mountains of the Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot in Tanzania. Project outcome is evaluated in relation to the three policy objectives: forest conservation, improved local livelihoods and promotion of good governance, based on a temporal comparison spanning six years of effective implementation and using bushmeat hunting (i.e. hunting of wildlife for food and trade) as an indicator. Findings show that JFM can lead to conservation improvements by reducing hunting and thus facilitating recovery of depleted wildlife densities. However, in one location improvements were skewed towards one end of the forest and in another location hunting activities had been displaced into the forest thereby increasing the threat to endemic forest dependent species. Evaluation of the second policy objective indicates that JFM income was unable to compensate hunters for not hunting. Instead hunters were forced to diversify into alternative livelihood strategies and those that continued hunting may have been less able to do so. Hunters also continued hunting because they suspected embezzlement with JFM funds and an audit of accounts supports these suspicions. Despite the dissatisfaction members of the responsible village natural resource councils proved difficult to replace because of district authority intervention in elections. In combination this suggests that JFM in Tanzanian is faced with a number of fundamental problems in providing the appropriate incentives for mangers as well as users and that considerable effort is needed to correct these issues before it can aspire to achieve the three policy objectives: conservation; improved local livelihoods and good governance.