Monduli Pilot Project
Carbon Tanzania is working with the village of Arkaria in Monduli District, Arusha Region, to initiative Tanzania’s first community-based forest conservation initiative using financial flows from the voluntary carbon market.
About Arkaria Village:
The social, institutional, and ecological setting of Arkaria provides a strong platform for initiating the community forest carbon offset project. Arkaria village is situated in northern Tanzania’s Central Rift Valley. The village’s demarcated land area comprises about 9,200 hectares of savannah, cultivated lands, woodland, and forest. About 940 hectares (~11% of the land area) is under small-scale or commercial agriculture, mostly for maize, beans, and sunflowers. A sub-montane evergreen forest covers about 1,000 hectares in the northeastern portion of the village, with a mixture of Acacia woodland and savannah covering the balance of the village’s lands.
Residents of Arkaria are Maasai pastoralists and Waarusha agro-pastoralists, and traditional land use is dominated by livestock grazing. Farming is expanding as a result of immigration to the area and need for cash income in the face of declining per capita livestock holdings.
The village’s sub-montane forest provides values to the community through dry season livestock forage, provision of water to the village’s dams, and wood for fuel and building materials. Selective logging of large trees and valued timber species by outsiders has degraded the forest over the years, although about ten years ago the community attempted to revive traditional rules protecting the forest from such exploitation. At present the forest is valuable in terms of its ecological services but degraded as a result of insufficient local resources and incentives for more formal management and protection.
The community has clear land tenure rights over the forest, and indigenous conservation practices and management institutions that place value on maintaining the forest. Nevertheless, forest biomass has been reduced by years of selective exploitation of timber and the forest is currently degraded. In addition, agriculture is spreading around the fringes of the forest in places, creating the potential for increased land use change and release of carbon stocks in the future. Maintaining and improving forest cover depends on strengthening local incentives for forest conservation and providing enhanced resources for improved management. The community has a strong need for economic alternatives and sources of cash income in the face of declining per capita livestock holdings and limited alternatives. Agricultural potential is generally marginal because of the area’s semi-arid and variable climate and the frequency of droughts.
Monduli Forest
The project is aimed at both planting indigenous trees to enrich the forest edge but also planting ‘useful’ indigenous trees in village areas to mitigate future problems. These problems are generally pole cutting, land clearance for agriculture and fuel wood collection and are all prerequisites for land degradation (Baker, 2000) and need to be considered when planning any agro forestry and habitat restoration project.
Another important consideration is tree species and location In northern Tanzania montane forest edge is some of the most important habitat, yet the least protected. This forest edge ecozone provides habitat for seasonal and altitudinal migration amongst many of our montane forest bird species.
During studies carried out on Monduli mountain in December 1999, over half of all bird species (45 Spp. Recorded, 25 Spp. within forest edge) recorded occurred with the forest edge scrub and emerging Croton macrostachyus and Acacia lahai woodland)(Baker, 2000).
According to Lovett J.C., and Pocs T. (1993) the following indigenous tree species are suitable for planting in Juniperus – Podocrapus montane forest edge.
Cordia africana
Croton meglacarpus Ravolvia caffra
Albizia gummifera
Olea capensis
Trema orientalis
Trichylia emetica
Celtis Africana
Clausena anisata
Cordia abyssinica
Croton macrostachyus
Stand Density Diagrams recommend variable spacing of 500 seedlings per Ha (1 tree every 5 m) when enrichment planting which enhances species diversity.
References:
Baker M. (2000) A survey of the avifauna found within the isolated montane forests of Monduli District. UNDP GEF
Lovett J.C., and Pocs T. (1993) . Assessment of the Condition of the Catchment Forest Reserves. Catchment Forestry Report 93.3.
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