From: barnhart@netcom.com (Aaron Barnhart)
Subject: IPS:TANZANIA: FARMERS LEARN THEIR LESSO
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 22:18:15 GMT
Organization: Netcom
Reply-To: barnhart@netcom.com

Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Reference: Africa, southern
Title: TANZANIA: FARMERS LEARN THEIR LESSON FROM DROUGHT


an inter press service feature

by alpha nuhu

luhwaji, tanzania, aug 14 (ips) -- when the tanzania government
launched a nationwide afforestation campaign 15 years ago,
mbalai chilo, a subsistence farmer in the central part of the
country, thought it was a waste of time and resources.

but after drought wilted crops in his village last year and
every household looked to government hand-outs for survival,
60-year-old chilo realised the importance of raising trees in
the wind-swept fields around the village.

''throughout my life, i never thought that one day we could
endure such a hellish experience for lack of trees'', he says,
recalling the lush vegetation that covered the fields when he
was young.

through indiscriminate felling of trees and the traditional
slash and burn system of cultivation, peasants have turned
croplands into open parkland unfit for cultivation.

with an estimated deforestation rate of around 400,000 ha a
year, tanzania has become one of the worst cases of wilful
environmental degradation in africa.

commercial logging has already devastated parts of its
north-eastern usambara mountain range and coastal rain forests
while more timber licences are issued in central and western
tanzania woodlands.

scared by the denuded landscape around his village and the
emerging agricultural crisis, chilo is appealing to his
neighbours to ''seek ways of preserving what remains of the
environment and reverse its quality''.

''but we cannot restore the scenery we had here in the
1950s'', another peasant, 55-year-old elikana mandilo says.

environmental conservation is not new to tanzanian rural
communities. a variety of indigenous techniques were used in the
past to conserve the soil and manage its fertility.

mixed cropping, fallowing or minimum tillage are among
traditional techniques applied by farmers to maintain vegetative
soil cover. but in the context of basic survival, their modern
needs have tended to overshadow consideration for environmental
sustainability. (more/ips)


tanzania: farmers (2)

however, as awareness spreads, tanzania's policy measures aim
at arresting degradation of soil fertility and conservation of
inland water sources.

community forestry is undertaken with government support in
various regions of the country as a way of ensuring
sustainability of natural resources, basically land and water,
on which agricultural production depends.

but tanzania's president ali hassan mwinyi repeatedly tells
the tanzanian public that the primary goal is to get rid of
poverty in order to save the environment.

''the poor and the hungry cannot be expected to put the
preservation of their environment above their own pressing
struggle to survive. of necessity, survival takes precedence
over concern for future viability of resources'', the president
is on record as saying.

expansive clearing of land for growing cotton and fire-cured
tobacco in the mid-western regions of mwanza, shinyanga and
tabora has turned the area into semi-desert. cotton and tobacco
are among tanzania's leading export crops.

price incentives for farmers to increase output has resulted
in environmentally damaging farming practices. tobacco growers
have to move to virgin land every season and they need
firewood to cure the crop.

agriculture accounts for 80 percent of tanzania's export
receipts and provides a livelihood for 90 percent of the
economically active population.

''the pertinent feature of our economy is the extractive
preponderance in agriculture, mining and livestock -- all
heavily dependent on environmental factors'', mwinyi says.

the east african country faces a double challenge to save its
environment from further destruction and meet the ever
increasing demand for food to feed the population, growing at an
annual rate of above three percent. (end/ips/ain/ar/92)

-- 
Aaron (Barnhart@netcom.com) -- posting from Evanston, Illinois