Institutionalisation of Community Participation And Sustainability in Governance of Community Forests: Perspectives from Zanzibar, Tanzania

Abstract

Tanzania, like many other tropical countries, has streamlined its environmental
policies to institutionalise community participation and improve governance of
community forests. The question is: to what extent has the governance of these
forests improved as a result of the specified measures? The aim of this paper is
to understand whether the institutionalisation of community participation
through Community Forest Management Agreements (CoFMAs) guarantees
sustainability in the governance of community forests in Zanzibar. Data for this
paper were collected through structured interviews from 323 respondents in
selected households, and complemented with in-depth interviews with 27 key
informants (government officials, elders from the communities, local leaders and
leaders of community conservation groups). The results show that the
establishment of CoFMAs followed existing legislative frameworks to formalize
community participation to ensure governance sustainability of community
forests. However, the established conservation initiatives such as community
participation in decision-making processes, benefit-sharing of forest resources,
technological transfer, and community monitoring of forest resources have
remained elusive as most of those initiatives have not been sustained overtime.
Although CoFMAs have slightly improved community forest areas, illegal
hunting of wildlife in and out of the conserved forests still remains a challenge.
As such, the institutionalization of community participation under CoFMA
cannot guarantee sustainability in the governance of community forest
resources, unless it is community-led, and has access to reliable sources of
income. Communities should, therefore, be facilitated with income-generating
conservation projects, and/or establish reliable alternative sources of income to
meet their needs to ensure sustainable governance of resources.