Amani – Nilo

Settled between the Nilo Nature Forest Reserve and the Amani Nature Reserve in Muheza Tanga, the Amani – Nilo forests corridor, close to the East Usambara Mountains, is home to the largest contiguous forest blocks under protection in Tanzania (the Amani Nature Reserve and Nilo Nature Forest Reserve are the two most important and protected landscapes, in terms of forest and biodiversity resources). It plays a huge role in supplying water to cities and for hydropower. Thus, the Amani Nature Reserve (ANR), created in 1997, is the centerpiece of conservation efforts. It is the largest forest zone under unified management in the Eastern Arc, and its dedication as a nature reserve (the first in the country) gives it a special mission in national conservation commitments. Thus, it is a prior source of livelihood for the surrounding villages (many small-scale farming activities such as cash and subsistence crops, tea estates, butterfly farming, small businesses development and trading of the seeds of indigenous tree species, firewood, timber, building poles and ropes, bushmeat, and medicinal plants were also obtained from the area…). A key part of conservation planning for the East Usambaras is the gradual linking together of some twenty-four previously-separated forest reserves in the mountains and the adjacent lowlands. These forested areas which are serving as separate reserves are a reflection of the fragmentation of the earlier continuous forest belt which covered the mountains.

Continuity was originally broken by belts of population along the valleys and mountain roads, and areas carved out and planted to tea and commercial forest. In turn, the increased fragmentation of the forests had led to biodiversity loss and the proportional reduction in numbers of the whole ecosystem and species present in the forest, according to both ecological theory and the observations of long-term scientific observers in these forests. Indeed, these montane, lowland and coastal forests are facing degradation pressures from adjacent agricultural areas, fires, illegal logging, artisanal gold mining and illegal livestock grazing. Therefore, restoration of natural habitat is critical to ensure that a critical water supply is sustainable. The region is also home to endangered species including the Usambara Hyliota (Hyliota usambara) in high mountain forest and the black and white coloured Colobus monkeys in the mid elevations, as well as the critically endangered long-billed Tailorbird. In time, continuing pressure on, and loss of species could radically disturb the ecological balance in this limited bio-region.

Since then, long-term programs seeking to reconstitute as much continuous forest as possible have been developed, with a direct link to biodiversity preservation. Indeed, during the 1980s, a radical change of model took place, while the corridor’s area was supported by international stakeholders (Finnish development cooperation, WWF…) among which gradually shifted from utilization of the forests to conservation. It was under the three-phase Finnish-supported “East Usambaras Catchment Forestry Project” (later known as the “East Usambaras Catchment Management Project” or “EUCAMP”) that planning for the expansion of conservation was done. Researchers and forest managers together developed the inventories, mapping and some of the scientific basis for the concept of reserving ecological corridors to link the reserves and therefore enlarge the areas under continuous protection. EUCAMP also provided the resources to do the demarcation and slashing of the boundaries of the corridor and the evaluation of the crops to be eliminated from within the latter.

1128 farmers living on the steep slopes of the Eastern Usambara Mountains were told in mid-2002 that the crops in their small fields within the forests outside their villages would have to be eliminated in order to conserve the forests. The new corridor would provide a link between two protected forest reserves, and continuity of the habitat for hundreds of bird, reptile, insect and plant species that are rare and in some cases threatened with extinction. The villagers were given compensation for the crops in a three-meter boundary strip around the corridor that was demarcated by slashing the existing vegetation. Their crops inside the boundaries – high value cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and black pepper, along with some fruit trees — were counted and inventoried for later compensation. Farmers stopped tending their crops. However, some studies found that late implementation and the means and scope of compensation of the activities that have been developed following the implementation of the corridor, through monetary restitution of investments without adequate supportive measures, had been quite insufficient for local farmers. To conceive the process by which compensation was paid for the crops slashed when the boundary of the corridor was established on the ground, under Finnish support of EUCAMP, no international standards for compensation were used (despite Finland’s adherence to OECD guidelines on resettlement and compensation which have been in effect since 1991). Instead, Tanzanian law had been used. By 2004 ,Tanzanian authorities asked the World Bank to help finance a substantial portion of the compensation money. Finally in 2006, the government decided to make a formal request to reallocate money within a Bank supported forestry project to provide the balance of the compensation funds needed. This was made in the context of the Tanzania Forest Conservation and Management Project (TFCMP) and the East Usambara Forest Landscape Restoration Project: “Facilitating the Compensation Payments for the Derema Forest Reserve, East Usambara Mountains” (ex-Derema corridor – from 2005 to 2010), in partnership with WWF.

Since then, the regulation of the forest and nature reserves that compose the corridor seem to have given way to a high number of initiatives that seem to be more inclusive and participatory for the surrounding populations. Indeed, activities focused on biodiversity and species conservation’s capacity building arised. Mainly (i) strengthen Tanzania’s capacity to coordinate and lead forest biodiversity conservation interventions, (ii) support an integrated community-based pilot intervention in a priority conservation area to achieve sustainable impact related to both biodiversity and human development, (iii) improve the institutional mechanisms and capacity to undertake forest biodiversity conservation, and (iv) develop and implement, on a pilot basis, a sustainable financing mechanism for conservation activities in the Eastern Arc forests.

A very recent initiative led by the Amani Nature Reserve, in the context of the “Connecting Amani – Nilo forests Project (CAN) corridor project” ,aimed at conserving the critically endangered Amani Flatwing damselfly (Amanipodagrion gilliesi), reunited the Muheza District Council and local communities to demonstrate the importance of conserving the water quality, in a context of frequent droughts, due to the critical survival for the concerned specie (the last remaining population of the Amani Flatwing damselfly is extremely precarious and its survival depends ). Also, some activities focused on the endangered following species for raising awareness of local communities on the importance of their conservation: Usambara Vosseier Eagle Owl, pangolin (the conservation of pangolins and their habitats is of much concern for organizations such as the Tanzania Research for Conservation Organization (TRCO) that combat their trafficking in the country).

In 2021, a nationally-wide five-year project “Tuhifadhi Maliasili” was implemented to strengthen the management of the corridor and increase stakeholder policy, regulatory and management capacity to conserve forest biodiversity in protected reserves and sustainably manage natural resources through biological research, participatory processus for community participation and private-private or private-public training programs (land use, forest management, sustainable investments for conservation and wildlife corridors protection…).

The final aim is to restore ecological corridors to reconnect the southern and northern forests.
Until today, 43 hectares of land are being restored near watercourses, farms and schools – with the help of over 1000 students.