Abstract
Despite the importance of forests to the communities in rural Tanzania, information is scarce regarding the contribution of non-timber forest products to household incomes. Based on the variation in institutional regimes and income categories, we aimed to assess the contribution of NTFPs to the households in rural communities of West Usambara, comparing those households located around state and community managed forests. We randomly sampled 159 households from four villages at the fringes of jointly managed forests and community managed forests in the West Usambara Mountains. Household income accounting and cluster analysis were employed, in order to categorize households into income groups based on their total income. We observed a significantly higher amount of NTFPs income for households located around the state than the community managed forest, and high-income households had high absolute but lower relative NTFPs income. The NTFPs proved to be crucial in poverty and inequality aspects of the low-income households. Our findings imply that NTFPs are important income sources in rural communities and insightful assessment is needed, within a particular context, to understand the local situation. Interventions that improve the conservation of forests and NTFP flows to rural communities are important to the rural development agenda.
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The data used for this study are available and can be provided upon request.
Notes
Factor 1 for adults from 15–64 years; factor 0.5 for children below 15 years; and adults above 64 years.
The countries involved included Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ghana, D.R Congo, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, and Zambia.
Abbreviations
- CBFM:
-
Community-based forest management
- FAO:
-
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations
- IGAs:
-
Income-generating activities
- JFM:
-
Joint Forest Management
- NTFPs:
-
Non-timber forest products
- SDGs:
-
Sustainable development goals
- WUMs:
-
West Usambara Mountains
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the villagers in Sunga, Goka, Viti, and Kibaoni in Lushoto District, for taking part in this study. We also acknowledge the team which took part in the data collection for this study.
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This study was facilitated by the German academic exchange service (DAAD) and the Russel e train education for nature program, grant number SS 44.
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H.L. carried out the study, including the writing of the manuscript. EAN edited and improved the manuscript. In the end, both HL and EAN read and approved the final manuscript.
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Luswaga, H., Nuppenau, EA. Non-timber forest products income and inequality status for communities around West Usambara Mountain Forests in Tanzania. Environ Dev Sustain 24, 11651–11675 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01914-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01914-y