Forest Conservation and Management Project

closed

The Forest Conservation and Management Project will initiate an integrated biodiversity conservation strategy for the Eastern Arc Mountains, thus strengthen Tanzania's capacity to coordinate forest biodiversity conservation interventions. Through its components, the project will support forest management institutional change, and improve service delivery, by providing resources to strengthen the capacity for administration, and management of the Tanzania Forest Service, which will be established, and supported (in part) by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and, by improving as well revenue collection from forests and woodlands, including service delivery mechanisms for a participatory forest management. A framework will be developed, and implemented to involve the private sector in the management of existing industrial plantations by enabling an institutional, and market environment, based on the implementation of a communication strategy, and capacity strengthening within the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. Additionally, the project will finance aerial photography, mapping, and indicative inventories of state-owned plantations, to improve the plantation resource information base, and management planning capacity. Alternative management of selected industrial plantations will be piloted, emphasizing on the monitoring and evaluation of operational performance indicators. Largely financed by the GEF, institutional reforms of biodiversity conservation will be supported, including development strategies, pilot community-based conservation, and the development of sustainable financing for tropical high forest conservation in the country.