Erik Bange
Erik received his grant of £515 to carry out an assessment of the extent and effectiveness or various water users' participation in the implementation of a government conservation programme in the Ihefu Wetlands, Tanzania.
Erik is currently in the final year of his studies at the Institute of Rural Development Planning. He chose to undertake his degree at this Institute because he wanted to develop his skills and expertise in environmental management. He hopes this will enable him to contribute to sustainable development projects within Tanzania and to better understand how natural resources can be exploited in a sustainable manner. Erik gained practical experience through his participation in HIMA (Hifadhiya Mazingira in Swahili),an organisation based in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania which supports environmental conservation and land management programmes.
Erik said..."The award of a grant from the Orskov Foundation would enable me to gain valuable practical skills in the field of environmental management, and to build on the theoretical knowledge I have gained from my academic studies. I hope that the project will highlight the benefits of stakeholder participation in alleviating poverty and environmental degradation and that it will help to establish a framework through which local communities and planners can implement appropriate action plans."
The focus of Erik's study is the Ihefu Wetlands,located within the Usangu basin in the western arm of the Rift Valley in central Tanzania. There is an increasing level of competition for the resources of the Ihefu Wetlands, as it acts as the water source for agricultural irrigation, pastoralists, the Ruaha National Park and hydroelectric power stations (HEPs). In recent years, the government has implemented a conservation programme with a view to maintaining water flows further downstream by, for example, forcibly removing pastoralist communities from their land in upstream areas. This reflects the importance of the downstream HEPs to national electricity supplies – in the wet season, the power generated from the Mtera and Kidatu HEPs represents 80% of the total national load. The aim of Erik's study is to identify the effectiveness of the government’s conservation programme and to examine the level of participation in the programme among the affected groups of water users. He hopes to achieve this by conducting interviews and consulting a wide cross section of the different communities involved in this resource conflict.
The Usangu basin contributes up to 40% of Tanzania's total production of rice, thereby supporting around 30,000 poor households in the Usangu region. For pastoralists, it has provided a good grazing environment for livestock. There is clearly an urgent need for more effective management of the scarce water resources in the basin but, in order to protect the most vulnerable communities, it is vital to fully understand the needs of the different users – the time of their peak demand, for example, or the exact nature of their water consumption. Only then can an appropriate policy be formulated which is of greatest overall benefit to each group of water users. It is also imperative that each stakeholder is allowed to fully participate in the formation of water management policies – indeed, identifying the level of different groups’ participation in the government’s conservation programme is one of the main aims of Erik's study.
It is hoped that more efficient water use and distribution will have a particular impact on local women, who often spend much of their time fetching water. Also, enabling users to have a greater degree of influence over the allocation of natural resources will encourage a more equitable distribution and will allow more income generating activities, such as animal rearing and beekeeping, to develop.
It is desirable in environmental terms for more effective water management policies to be implemented. The restoration of water levels further downstream would enable more diverse ecosystems to flourish, the threat of extinction to many endemic plant and animal species would be reduced and water supplies to populations of wild animals within the Ruaha National Park would be restored. Further upstream, more effective water conservation strategies may help to minimise both disturbance to the natural environment and the volumes of water lost through evaporation.
Also, an increasing level of stakeholder participation, through the formation of water and soil conservation committees for example, would lead to greater adherence to environmental regulations and a greater awareness of the importance of environmental conservation. Further development of hydro-electric power stations could also potentially reduce the demand for charcoal and firewood, which are used by 90% of the rural population.
