In Tanzania this week, 47 countries gathered to talk about reducing deforestation and forest degradation. According to one Tanzanian spokesperson, the most effective way to reduce deforestation is to improve people's lives through income generating activities like agroforestry and fuel efficient stoves -- a very cool affirmation of the work we are doing in Tanzania!
“The rate of deforestation would greatly reduce if alternative income sources are provided to the local communities,” he said, adding that rural communities will gain more money and improve their lives if they are trained and made to carry out profitable beekeeping, agro forestry, ecotourism and the making and using of fuel efficient stoves.
[Mahmoud Mgimwa, Tanzania’s Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) Parcipant Meeting (PC18), Arusha, Tanzania]
About 40% of Tanzania is forested with about half of that in reserves and protected areas. Only about 10% of Tanzania's forests are actively managed and the remaining forests are on village land; and this is where deforestation and degradation are most severe. With approximately 40 million people living on the land as subsistence farmers, the major contributors to deforestation are clearing land for agriculture, overgrazing, and especially a persistent reliance on wood fuel for energy. [more on Tanzania's forests here]
Tanzania has committed to planting millions of trees in the next 16 years [UN-REDD], which is definitely good news, but I'm not sure how they will ever manage such a large campaign or how effective it will be when people need to cook their next meal today. Like Mgimwa said, what is really needed is alternative sources of income for subsistence farmers to improve their lives so that they can move beyond survival to actually caring for the land and planning for the future.
From our experience in Malawi, it is community based organizations like churches and dedicated interest committees that have the potential to make a real difference because they already have a mandate to change lives and change their communities. With a hunger and a vision for change, they are able to utilize even their very scarce resources to make improvements in their communities. That's why we want to come alongside churches and other community based organizations to empower them to make a real difference where it counts. And that's what we love about Emmanuel International's grass roots approach.
