Deforestation in Tanzania

A not well-known environmental company based in Dubai is ferociously striking deals across Africa to control African forests. 

According to the UK magazine, 8% of Tanzanian forests are now owned by it, including over 20 percent of Zimbabwe and 10 percent of Liberia! The scramble for African forests is now on, and as is usually suspected, affected Africans are not sitting on the high table to determine their collective future. 

Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa expressed dissatisfaction with the increasing pace of deforestation in the country and outlined measures to stop the malpractice.

Majaliwa told the parliament that deforestation has increased from 372,800 hectares in 2015 to 469,420 hectares in 2022.

He blamed the deforestation on human activities, including agriculture, livestock keeping, and settlements, mentioning the Great Ruaha ecosystem and the Ruvu River basin as the most affected areas.

"This situation is unacceptable. Deforestation is one of the causes of climate change that we are experiencing today," he said, adding that climate change was causing devastating impacts, including drought, increased temperature, flooding, and erratic rain patterns.

To reverse this malpractice, Majaliwa said the Tanzanian government was taking several measures, including reinforcement of conservation laws.

As rising gas prices drive demand for the polluting fuel, illegal loggers depend on the trade to live – even as the forest disappears around them large swathes of Ruhoi forest reserve in eastern Tanzania now lay bare, the ground in some sections dry and scorched, covered with stumps and brittle and fallen trees.

The country lost almost 470,000 hectares (1.16m acres) of forest a year, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

For many loggers, however, environmental concerns take a back seat to more immediate economic needs. Almost 45% of Tanzanians live on about $2 (£1.70) a day.

NIBIO has been working with Tanzanian institutions, primarily with the NCMC and Sokoine University of Agriculture, in gathering national forest data, forest area and change, as well as the carbon content of forests by forest type to construct FREL. This will serve as a baseline to show reduction in deforestation. 
Country has, however, experienced high rates of deforestation — at 469,000 ha per annum.

Alarming is an assessment of global forests by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which suggests that more than 5.86 million hectares of Tanzania's forests were lost to deforestation and degradation.

The study, by an international team of scientists, supports an economic model that predicted the sequential removal of products from high to low value radiating out from major demand centres.

The authors conclude that tropical forest degradation can be modeled and predicted, an important finding in shaping policies such as the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) negotiations taking place within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
They found that waves of degradation moved each year out from the city.

For example, charcoal extraction extended up to 170 km from the city. Similarly, the areas where mid-value timber was logged ranged from 270 km .

This is despite most logging and charcoal production in Tanzania being illegal and the cause of major financial losses.

IFC has invested in Green Resources, a plantation and forest products company operating across much of East Africa, to help plant forest and implement international environmental standards that will help tackle the causes of climate change.

IFC will provide a $10 million senior loan and an $8 million subordinated loan to Green Resources. The company will use the funds to plant 8,000 hectares of forest in Tanzania’s grassland and deforested areas to develop sustainable forestry. The new plantations and improvements will help it create 500 permanent jobs and 5000 seasonal positions by 2011.

Green Resources will also modernize its sawmill and wood harvesting equipment, and build a 15 megawatt heat and power plant fuelled by wood waste from its own and neighboring sawmills. It will sell surplus capacity from the plant to Tanzania’s national grid.

The new plantations and power plant, which uses recycled wood and eliminates methane emissions from decomposing wood waste, will enable Green Resources to sequester roughly 700,000 additional tons of carbon emissions annually from its operations. The company will sell these carbon credits directly to buyers from developed countries.

Illegal and unsustainable deforestation A majority of Tanzanians rely on wood and agricultural residues for their energy needs, causing deforestation and environmental degradation.

The problem, of course, doesn't stop there. Deforested areas no longer provide a home for wildlife - leading to biodiversity loss - and are also susceptible to soil erosion.

The amounts to an average annual deforestation rate of 0.99%.
In total United Republic of Tanzania lost 14.9% of its forest cover, or around 6,184,000 hectares.

A recent study conducted by the University of Dar es Salaam's Institute of Resource Assessment confirms the environmental crisis facing the East African country.

The research shows that between 40percent to 55 percent of Tanzania's land surface of 85.6 million hectares is seriously degraded because of over-exploitation of its natural resources.

Symptoms of desert encroachment are found almost everywhere in the country, although they are much more pronounced in the semi-dry and dry central, western, and northern provinces of Dodoma, Singida, Tabora, Kigoma, Arusha, Mara, Shinyanga, and Mwanza.

Tanzania's National Environmental Management Council has repeatedly warned the country's population that desertification would cause an extremely negative socio-economic impact and grave ecological consequences if immediate measures are not taken to check land degradation.

Losing an average of 400,000 hectares of land annually through deforestation, Tanzania has failed to protect and conserve its environment and achieve sustainable development.