Eviction for forest conservation : the case of West Kilimanjaro forest, Siha, Tanzania

Abstract

In 2007 about 12,000 people were evicted from the forest of West Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. The government took such decision in response to various reports that quoted the decline of forest due to relentless pressure on forest resources arising from ever increasing demand for fuel wood, fodder, timber and demand of forestland for other uses. The people who lived in the forest for over half a century were said to be 'invaders' therefore evicted from the forest boundaries. Eviction for conservation has been condemned to cause negative impacts to livelihoods therefore there has been a call for conservation policies that incorporates wellbeing of the people. This study aimed to assess the impacts of eviction to livelihood and to evaluate how it affected the forest of West Kilimanjaro. It also aimed to assess how the costs and benefits of eviction were distributed among actors involved. The objective was to see if the current forest management conform to the goal of sustainable development as stated in their policy documents. The results shows that, contrary to claims by state actors that people were invaders of the national forest, the people, were actually recruited by European settlers to work in the forest way back in 1950s and are the one that laboured to plant the very forest that is said to be destroyed by them. Furthermore, using political ecology and historical framework to understand power relations between state actors and non-state actors in Tanzania revealed that, even the said relentless pressure to forest has its roots from the power struggle to control land and forest resources by state actors the process that led to alienating of indigenous people from their land turning them into labourers living near plantations to provide labor in settlers estates. It is further revealed that even after independence, power struggle for controlling land continued to map out of land the marginal communities leading to deterioration of their livelihood. Assessment of impacts of eviction showed that since eviction there has been increase of forest cover but there has been deterioration of livelihoods of evicted people. The study has also revealed that the costs and benefits of eviction were unequally distributed among actors whereby state actors accrue most of the benefits, while the evicted people born most of the costs. The study has therefore concluded that, despite the call for incorporation of livelihood in conservation management strategies, and despite of having sustainable development as their management objective goals, the business ended in the rhetorics but not yet translated into action.