Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests of Tanzania and Kenya ...

Workshops and meetings are expensive and they lose value when the same faces repeatedlyappear.The lack of local mechanisms for controlling forest exploitation reflects both a breakdown incultural traditions and how the Tanzanian and Kenyan governments took such matters out of thehands of the local people sometime ago. That so little forest remains, outside forest and localauthority reserves suggests that the government interventions were well advised. Where there hasbeen continuity in forest protection by local communities, as in the case of some of the Kayaforests in coastal Kenya, there has been real success and the prospects for replication with othersacred forests in Tanzania are good. Where the continuity is lacking, the prospects are weaker.This is a serious issue for Participatory Forest Management initiatives in the hotspot. Soundtechnical advice on sustainable offtake is also, obviously, essential. Good networking on theseproblems should help.The need for an ecosystem-wide strategic focus has long been recognized in efforts to conservemajor water catchments such as the Ulugurus, which supply 3 million people in Dar es Salaamwith water. In biodiversity conservation, the lack of such a focus has been the impetus for majorconservation investments such as the big GEF project for the Eastern Arc Mountains. The CEPFapproach of defining species, sites and corridor outcomes within the context of landscape levelhotspots is also a systematic attempt to deal with this difficulty.Weak forest governance is pervasive in the hotspot and is being increasingly addressed byinvolving more stakeholders, particularly among the local communities and civil society. Forestmanagement is a multi-stakeholder business. As described in the section on policy andlegislation, reform in both Kenya and Tanzania is directly tackling this issue. This reform iscreating opportunities for both the private sector and for local communities to become involvedin forest management. To date, most conservation organizations have paid far more attention tothe latter than the former.The issue of inadequate and poorly directed fiscal resources afflicts nearly every governmentdepartment in Kenya and Tanzania. A good example in the hotspot is provided by Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. In the 1998-99 financial year, the Forest Department spent $106,497 on this41,700 ha forest (Muriithi & Kenyon 2002), out of which 98 percent ($104,536) was used to paysalaries. This left only $2,114 for operational costs. In 1998, $7,536 was raised from this forestfrom fines, rents, timber royalties and sales of fuelwood, polewood and Christmas trees. The bestthat can be said for such a situation is that it is easy to persuade local communities that they havemore to gain from their own enterprises than from sharing in official Forest Departmentrevenues. Although the budget for Arabuko-Sokoke is obviously inadequate, it is nonethelesshigher than those for most forests in Kenya and Tanzania. It works out at roughly $.2.5 perhectare, compared to overall estimates of $ 1.08 (Kenya) and $ 1.01 (Tanzania) per hectare forpublic expenditure on forestry (Whiteman 2003).With funding like this, it is surprising that there is any protection at all. It is hard for ForestDepartment officers to do a good job in such circumstances, particularly when corruption comesfrom the top (as in the recent past in Kenya) and where the resource is valuable (e.g. carvingwood at Arabuko-Sokoke). This problem can only be effectively tackled by a combination of47