Integrated Conservation and Development Projects and Efforts around Amani Nature Reserve, Tanzania, and Their Effects on Livelihoods and Forest Conservation

Key points in document

• This paper, a master’s thesis, reviews integrated conservation and development projects (ICDP) around the Amani Nature Reserve, Tanzania. The study assessed multiple ICDPs and their ability to improve livelihoods without harming nature, increase environmental awareness, and provide incentives for forest conservation.
• Adjacent to the Amani Nature Reserve, the ICDPs act as a form of compensation for the people affected by the restricted use of the forest, which may reduce resentment towards the protected area.
• The ICDP projects around Amani Nature Reserve have done little to reduce people’s dependence on forest resources, though they have successfully reached varying degrees of compensation and benefits for the local communities.
• Participants in the ICDPs seemed to have improved knowledge on conservation and the importance of protecting their natural resources and ecosystems, but little evidence showed a reduction in natural resource exploitation.
• It can be difficult for some to participate in the ICDPs because they lack the necessary financial, social (connections to support initial needs), and natural (land) capital.

Information relevant to Learning Questions:

Are enabling conditions in place to support a sustainable enterprise?

• Participants’ Livelihood Needs are Met: diversification
• Market demand, profit potential, access to credit/capital
• Ownership, governance
• Business alliances
• Financial management capacity, technical capacity
• Inputs, equipment, infrastructure
• Benefit sharing, targeted participants, biodiversity linkage, policies for and enforcement of resource use, planning for external disturbance

Does the enterprise lead to benefits to stakeholders?

• Increased income for participants
• Non-cash benefits

Do the benefits lead to positive changes in attitudes and behavior?

• Attitudes regarding sustainable use of resources
• Behaviors regarding sustainable use of resources

Does a change in stakeholders’ behaviors lead to a reduction to threats to biodiversity (or restoration)?

• Agriculture and aquaculture
• Biological resource use

Does a reduction in threats (or restoration) lead to conservation?

• Forest ecosystems

Enterprise Types:

• Crops: Allanblackia stuhlmannii, spices
• Livestock: dairy cattle
• Aquaculture and mariculture: fish farming
• Ecotourism
• Other natural products: butterfly farming, beekeeping