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 environmentalpolicies to institutionalise community participation and improve governance ofcommunity forests. The question is: to what extent has the governance of theseforests improved as a result of the specified measures? The aim of this paper isto understand whether the institutionalisation of community participationthrough Community Forest Management Agreements (CoFMAs) guaranteessustainability in the governance of community forests in Zanzibar. Data for thispaper were collected through structured interviews from 323 respondents inselected households, and complemented with in-depth interviews with 27 keyinformants (government officials, elders from the communities, local leaders andleaders of community conservation groups). The results show that theestablishment of CoFMAs followed existing legislative frameworks to formalizecommunity participation to ensure governance sustainability of communityforests. However, the established conservation initiatives such as communityparticipation in decision-making processes, benefit-sharing of forest resources,technological transfer, and community monitoring of forest resources haveremained elusive as most of those initiatives have not been sustained overtime.Although CoFMAs have slightly improved community forest areas, illegalhunting of wildlife in and out of the conserved forests still remains a challenge.As such, the institutionalization of community participation under CoFMAcannot guarantee sustainability in the governance of community forestresources, unless it is community-led, and has access to reliable sources ofincome. Communities should, therefore, be facilitated with income-generatingconservation projects, and/or establish reliable alternative sources of income tomeet their needs to ensure sustainable governance of resources.