DID YOU KNOW THE CONTRIBUTION OF COMMUNITY IN PROTECTION OF FOREST?

Audience (all people and government)
The involvement of the community in forest was new concept which was established by the government at the early 1990’s this aimed to replace the previous system where government used to own all forest reserve areas. At Ayasanda village in Babati, before the government return the forest to the community, there were open discussion on the crucial benefit that community might get upon decide to protect the forest. The community started to participate fully in securing forest from been degraded, few years later they started benefited from their effort.
According to chairman of Ayasanda village Mr. Kwentlema Khwantlay “forest declared to be under community based forest management in 4/10/1994”, every village around the forest were responsible to ensure the survival of the forest. There after they establish environmental committee, which effective started to implement by-laws as means to support the policy. Inoder to reduce forest destruction the following was agreed: some products such as firewood, grasses, medicine and wild fruit were allowed to be collected freely, some uses of forest products were allowed after having licence, examples poles, logs, and fire wood used in schools and institution. The last category was the restricted uses of some of the forest product such as removing of backs of the tree, making fire, timber and charcoal production. All those categories have played the vital roles in the protection of the forest.
However there is number of challenges that they face during protecting of the forest such the cost of forego other activities like agriculture and small business they used to conduct, although there are some compensation that used to be given to the guard of the forest. The emphasis should be put in conserving forest to ensure that there is sustainable supply of the forest product. If our government could wakeup early and cooperate people with villages or and allow villages to protect the forest, our forest could be secured.
Prepared by
JOHN REUBEN