Tanzania: Biodiversity action plan

Protecting biodiversity

UTT’s Mufindi estate is protecting the region’s eco-systems and working with local communities to help them become more sustainable.

The estate’s natural forests are under serious threat from felling, bush fires and firewood collection. UTT’s biodiversity action plan (BAP), launched in 2003, prohibits felling indigenous trees, improves management practices for containing forest fires and identifies alternative sources of firewood for employees and nearby communities.

Responding to local threats

UTT has also committed to long-term monitoring of endangered species, a biodiversity education programme for local people and introducing communal tree planting plots to supply building material and firewood. This follows research into threats from local communities conducted by UTT, the Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania, and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), who support biodiversity conservation programmes in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Kenya and Tanzania.

A tree nursery and planting programme has planted over 70 000 trees between 2006 and 2008 to tackle deforestation and help rehabilitate degraded land. UTT has also piloted more efficient cooking stoves that use half the amount of wood. In 2008, UTT, the environmental organisation WWF and CEPF started distributing the stoves to surrounding villages. By the end of 2008 they had supplied 600 stoves, reaching about 25% of households.

In 2008, UTT launched a study into the consequences of global warming on mountain amphibians, a group of species that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Study sites have been identified that will be used for future monitoring.

Protecting water supplies

Eastern Arc forests are part of the water catchment area for two of Tanzania’s major rivers, the Ruaha and the Kilombero. Protecting the forests is hugely important to the whole region as their degradation could put the region’s water supply at risk.

Working with colleagues from Unilever’s Sustainable Agriculture Programme, UTT raised awareness among employees and communities about the importance of not cultivating land adjacent to water courses. By the end of 2008, over 20 000 trees had been donated to nearby villages to plant near rivers and streams. UTT aims to plant over 150 000 indigenous trees in the estate and surrounding countryside by 2010.

About the Mufindi estate

The estate is located in the heart of the Eastern Arc Mountains - one of 25 terrestrial biodiversity hotspots recognised worldwide. Forest, wetlands and grassland cover over 75% of the estate’s 20 000 hectares. More than 100 000 people live in 15 villages surrounding the estate.

UTT is working with local and international governmental and non-governmental organisations, academics and key local stakeholders to put the BAP into practice. They include Mufindi District Council, the Tanzanian Forest Conservation Group, the UK’s University of York and the Museum of Natural Sciences in Trento, Italy.

A hotspot is defined by scientists as an area supporting more than 1 500 endemic (native) plant species. Most hotspots are areas of rainforest.