Kilombero – Udzungwa

Although the definition of corridors in Tanzania usually is taken to mean movement between two areas of ” habitat richness” through a “disturbed” landscape, some of the wildlife movements through the Kilombero-Udzungwa and Ruipa(-East) area used to be seasonal dispersals in response to water and food. However, since then, these dispersal areas eventually became part of a re-established corridor between the Udzungwas and the Selous.

The adjacent Kilombero Valley is an important site for biodiversity, hosting one of the largest freshwater wetlands in Africa. It is the habitat of endemic species and it harbors three bird species found nowhere else, the largest population in Africa of the Near Threatened wetland antelope, the Puku, and until recently supported major populations of buffalo, elephant and other large mammals including the highest density of lion in Africa. This wildlife is dependent on the seasonally flooded grasslands and the surrounding non-flooded hills, formerly miombo woodland. The wooded areas to the south and east of the valley (especially the Selous Game Reserve) and the forests to the north in the Udzungwa Mountains support many other endangered and endemic species such as the monkeys Sanje Mangabey, Udzungwa Red Colobus and the newly-discovered and Critically Endangered Kipunji or Highland Mangabey. The Valley formerly linked these two woodland and highland areas but now divides them, with the last wildlife corridors closed or closing fast. Further degradation and loss of habitat and increased hunting pressure is likely to result in further drops in populations of wildlife and may cause localised extinction of endangered species if no action is taken. 

Thus, in the last decades, even though much natural cover had been converted into agricultural and grazing lands, the Kilombero cluster has been in its planning stages for some years, with conservation research (UNEP-WCMC) and agricultural development projects that have been focusing on developing useful connectivity information (by using remote sensing…) for the most appropriate development of the territories and minimizing further impact on critical elephant corridors.

Economically speaking, the corridor has a long history of active participation in terms of territories’ development. In 1992, the Commonwealth Development Corporation established the Kilombero Valley Teak Company (KVTC), based on a 99 year lease with the Government of Tanzania. The mandate of the company, which still exists, is to use the development of plantation forestry and timber processing as a means by which to promote sustainable economic, social and environmental development in the Kilombero Valley. Over time, teak blocks developed as a mosaic into the landscape, following a practical system of corridors and conserved habitats over the entire landscape. However, in March 2009, the KVTC board of directors decided  that no further conversion of miombo woodland would take place.  

In 2009-2012, a project untitled “Conserving the Ruipa Corridor: facilitating cohesive management between diverse stakeholders” ended to facilitate a synergistic approach to biodiversity conservation within the Ruipa Corridor among key stakeholders; developing the capabilities of local and national stakeholders to sustainably and equitably manage respective parts of the corridor. This project was implemented after preliminary studies that concluded to the presence of migratory species and the importance of biodiversity within the adjacent Kilombero Valley (between Selous Game Reserve and the Udzungwa Mountains – being an integral part of the Greater Selous Ecosystem), impacted by extensive human encroachment and habitat degradation along the Ruipa corridor. It aimed at dealing with the complex matrix of stakeholder ownership (village lands in Ulanga and Kilombero Districts, private lands in the Teak Company’s part of Kilombero Valley and the farmlands present in the surrounding areas, a game controlled area managed by the State authorities) and establish collaboration amongst stakeholders in order to reduce negative anthropogenic impacts and prevent the loss of the area’s biodiversity and major large mammal populations.

Consequently, in 2012, the six-year project Kilombero and Lower Rufiji Ecosystem Management Project (KILORWEMP), intended to strengthen the capacities to implement the sustainable management policy and regulations to the wetlands ecosystem of the Kilombero Valley and Lower Rufiji , fostering sustainable livelihoods development and more effective natural resources governance within the country’s decentralization framework. Working from both the local and landscape scale to the policy level, its main focus was on the devolution of user rights for wildlife, forestry and fisheries management, through the foreseen Tanzania Community-based Natural REsources Managemnet’s framework (CBNRM). It established institutional capacities in Kilombero Valley to strengthen skills and systems in government agencies (notably, the inter agency coordination). Finally, it generated evidence for the future policy review and regulatory reform to be implemented.

Also, in 2010, an agricultural corridor named “the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania” (SAGCOT) was implemented with the ultimate objective of boosting agricultural productivity, improving food security, reducing poverty and ensuring environmental sustainability through the commercialization of smallholder agriculture. The mandate of the Partnership, which runs for 20 years (up to 2030), is to achieve this objective by catalyzing responsible private sector-led agriculture development within a continually-improving business environment. 

Central-most to the SAGCOT’s approach is brokering and supporting the work of Strategic Partnerships in the field. These partnerships are agribusiness companies, farmer organizations, civil society organizations (CSOs), and government agencies with a role to play in developing the value chains of prioritized agricultural enterprises (rice, potato, tomato and sugar cane are the most frequent crops). They work together in resolving the constraints they have collectively identified as a partnership. The partnerships are categorized into value chains and currently there are 9 value chains; Soya, Tea, Dairy, Tomatoes, Potatoes, Sugarcane, Rice, Avocado and Sunflower.

On environmental issues, this partnership intends to build arrangements for the implementation of the project, following a pair of principles:  1/ Engaging smallholder farmers and ensure environmental sustainability through their investments; 2/ Partnering with others to promote a harmonized approach and improve synergies within and across priority value chains; 3/  Maintaining engagement, communication and support for the SAGCOT Centre Ltd Contributing to the resolution of policy and infrastructure constraints; and 4/ Considering new and innovative financing mechanisms. 

Due to the diversity of its natural resources and the existing socio-economic interactions, SAGCOT and its Partners considered the Kilombero Valley, which they untitled the “Kilombero Cluster” to be a vital area for sustainable development of the region and deem it critical that it develops in a “green” manner. To facilitate this objective, SAGCOT has established a corridor level multi-stakeholder platform known as Green Reference Group (GRG) to promote and monitor the green growth agenda in the cluster linked to the SAGCOT Partnership. 

In 2017, the Development Corridors Partnership (DCP) was established : a project led by UNEP -WCMC and funded by the UK Research and Innovation’s Global Challenges Research Fund to bring together partners from Tanzania, Kenya, China and the UK to conduct research and build capacity to improve development corridor decision-making, planning and management. To do so, it takes examples of similar corridor projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative, Tanzania Mtwara and SAGCOT to address the need for mitigation on the impacts of wildlife corridors. The DCP proposed a solution for improving the quality of corridor policies, plans, programmes and projects by ensuring that they include the necessary environmental and social scrutiny based on multilateral inter-disciplinary research evidence. To do so, its approach is based on sustainability and communities’ engagement. It communicated recommendations to influence Corridor decision makers.

Finally, the Tanzanian national reports mentions the development of some activities along the corridor, mainly focused on the redefinition of the game controlled area with village land use planning (including looking at re-opening the Ruipa corridor- “Kilombero and Lower Rufiji Ecosystem Management Project”) and identifies water use associations in Kilombero that are implementing monitoring activities in the area to inform on the necessity for conserving river’s health.