Istituto Oikos’ project aims to conserve and restore forests and pastures in Tanzania, create sustainable sources of income and raise awareness of the importance of the environment among children and young people.
Northern Tanzania’s mosaic of mountain forest and savannah woodlands is losing biodiversity at an alarming rate. At least 250,000 people and two million heads of livestock call the region home but severe environmental degradation cause poverty and malnutrition, complicated by gender discrimination and vulnerability to climate change.
Through the practice of supporting small and remote populations of farmers and shepherds on a daily basis, Istituto Oikos is trying to establish a paradigm shift, a transition towards an inclusive economy able to create sustainable communities by combining biodiversity, income production and social innovations. Istituto Oikos pays particular attention to professional training and integrating young people and women into the labour market, with the ongoing involvement of multiple stakeholders including companies, local authorities, associations, and academic institutions. As such, the project conducted in Tanzania has a fourfold objective: community-led conservation, women-led rangeland restoration, financial benefits and education.
Thanks to the project, an existing understaffed and under-equipped group of volunteer community is given the training and equipment needed to effectively patrol 15,000 hectares of forest and savannah. To this end, 20 "Forest Guardians" received training to provide the resources needed to strengthen the conservation and the sustainable management of mountain forest and woodlands in the Arusha-Longido corridor.
Sustainable rangeland management restores grazing opportunities for livestock and wildlife. The project involves the training of 20 women as "Rangeland Guardians", adding complementary rangeland restoration skills to their existing knowledge of the environment. The women-led rangeland restoration team oversees the removal of invasive species and reseeding of Indigenous grasses to restore unusable portions of the rangelands.
The project aims to achieve tangible financial benefits from simple environmental enterprises able to provide income from a healthy ecosystem. Beekeeping, a green enterprise of national priority, is set up as a midscale enterprise run by Forest Guardians. A group of 10 newly trained community tour guides are also able to offer quality guiding and a small portfolio of low-cost experiences to visitors, hosted by the renewed community-based camp of Mkuru.
Finally, an accompanying education campaign in primary and secondary schools exposes the links between rangeland health and human health, culminating in the nomination of 20 “Mini Rangeland Guardians”.
