Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
both of these areas, as places for the ancestors to live in. Moreover, in the
Uluguru Mountains of Tanzania the national cash values of the forests in
terms of maintaining water l ow to the capital city and most of the nation's
industry are huge. The appreciation of these values and the development
of systems that capture some of this value and use it for long-term man-
agement, of ers one of the best ways to achieve sustainable management
of the forest resources and some assistance to the development of local
human populations.
Ownership
Both of our two example projects illustrate a gradual shift in emphasis from
forest ownership by the national government to a situation where local
people have a role in the management of government-owned reserves (for
example, in the Ulugurus), or more promisingly perhaps where they estab-
lish and manage Village Forest Reserves on their own land and where the
government, or a local NGO, is a facilitating and problem-solving agency.
The legal mechanisms that allow these community approaches to forest
ownership and conservation may provide a boost to forest conservation
ef orts more widely across Africa in coming decades. An evolving issue in
development thinking involves attempts to ensure that issues of equity and
rights are considered fully in development projects. This novel thinking,
especially on rights, is likely to become an important aspect of ICDP design
and implementation, especially given the global re-emphasis on solving
some of the fundamental issues of poverty and inequality across the devel-
oping world, especially in Africa. One of the risks of this approach is that
the choices that local people make might not be ones that 'conservationists'
want, but equally there is a potential for people to reject centralized govern-
ment models (for example, large-scale concessions, clearance for industrial
agriculture - oil palms and so on) and choose their own pathway.
Planning
In our opinion one of the most helpful mechanisms for designing and
managing an ICDP to ensure that it works towards its goals, and has the
chance to periodically review and alter these goals, has been the Logical
Framework Approach (or related planning systems). By building a set
of interventions around solving the environmental (and human develop-
ment) problems in an area, and monitoring these carefully over time, best
practice conservation management can result. However, even in cases
where log frames have been developed, many are poorly formulated and
do not attempt to measure conservation impact - instead they monitor
whether activities are progressing and funding is being used. The major-
ity of ICDPs in operation have this l aw, which is one reason why it has
