The traditional approach of conservation during the colonial- and post-independent eraes in Tanzania is to exclude local communities from protected areas without taking into account the interactions that had existed between people and wildlife.

The mandate to carry out wildlife management activities, including problem animal control and anti-poaching, is vested entirely in the Government. Given the vast size of protected areas that must be administered, the Government has not been effective in fulfilling its conservation role. Important protected areas are threatened by encroaching farming while some key wildlife species are declining to extinction levels due to imprudent use and shrinkage of habitats.

In view of the problems facing conservation, efforts to reconcile human interest with nature were initiated in the Selous Game Reserve (SGR). The process entails organizing community groups at village, district and central government levels as a preparatory step towards sharing the benefits and costs of conservation.

The SGR is located in southeast Tanzania. It covers an area of about 45,000 sq. km, representing 5 percent of Tanzania's land surface, and is the largest protected land in Africa. It encompasses a wide variety of wildlife habitats, including open grassland, Acacia, Miombo woodlands and riverine forests. The SGR contains some of the largest and most important populations of elephant, buffaloe, nile crocodile and hunting dog in Africa. About 50 to 60 percent of Tanzania's elephants are found in the SGR and there are also black rhinos remaining in isolated areas. The swamps form an important habitat for wetland plants, reptiles and resident and migratory birds. With its extensive area of Miombo forests, the Selous is one of the largest forest areas under protection. Due to its unique ecological importance, the SGR was designated a 'World Heritage Site' by the United Nations in 1982.

The Selous ecosystem has a long history of fluctuation in human occupancy caused by natural and human disturbances characteristic of the region in the past and right up to the larger half of the present century. Examples are: Slave trade in the middle ages, invasion of the warlike Wangoni and Wabena in the last century, the maji maji rebellion against the German colonial government, the movements of the first World War forces in the Selous area, the tsetse fly-borne sleeping sickness epidemic since 1936, and the 'Ujamaa' (villagisation) policy following independence. Under German rule, the first protected area in the present Game Reserve was created in 1905. The reserve was located in the southern part of the Selous.

By 1912 the Germans had increased the number of reserves in the area to four. In 1922 the British colonial government joined these reserves together and the resulting area was named the 'Selous Game Reserve' in memory of Captain Frederick Courtney Selous, an early naturalist, hunter and author. The aim of creating the reserve was to protect the large elephant population.

After Tanzania's independence the final adjustment to the reserve's boundaries was made to protect the migratory elephants which were apparently on the increase. There have been no changes in the reserve's boundaries since 1976.

The United Republic of Tanzania is a Union between the former Tanganyika and Zanzibar governments. Institutionally the Government of Tanzania is elected democratically every five years. The constitution recognizes three levels of governance, namely the central, district and village governments. At the macro-level Tanzania's economy is shifting from centrally planned to free market economy. The expanding tourism industry based on the abundant wildlife and other natural beauties of the country are part of the potential pillars of the nation's economy. Despite these economic changes the country's per capita income of less than US $ 100 remains one of the world's lowest.

In most rural areas of Tanzania, farming of food and cash crops is a major occupation for the majority of the people. Main crops grown in the southeast Tanzania include cash crops like cashew nuts and tobacco. The yields, however, barely suffice their basic requirement. For instance, meat protein among the rural communities surrounding the SGR is in specially high demand because livestock keeping hardly is possible due to the prevalence of the tsetse fly transmitted disease (trypanosomiasis). It is also not a tradition of the people in these areas to keep livestock, particularly cattle.

The villagers are thus dependent on game meat. Since the colonial times (both German and British), villagers had little or no legal access to game meat because they could not comply with the restrictive legal hunting regulations which barred them from using traditional hunting methods such as bow and arrows, and at the same time imposed unaffordable hunting fees. These restrictive regulations forced the communities adjacent to SGR to violate the law in order to survive.

These communities are not only denied benefits from wildlife resources, but faced infrastructural disadvantages as well. This is manifested by the poor access roads, non-availability of clean and safe drinking water, and inferior educational and health amenities. Matters are made worse as rural communities suffer from crop damages and dangerous wild animals causing threats and death to people.

It is estimated that more than a quarter of the food crops produced in the area are destroyed by ruinous animals, and an average of ten people are killed by wild animals annually. In spite of these calamities the law does not provide for compensation for the damages inflicted. This state of affairs led to antagonism towards the reserve and conflicts between wildlife authorities and villagers, which resulted in toleration of poaching by the villagers. Consequently commercial poaching increased in the 1980s to the extent that it endangered the further existence of the reserve. The elephant population was reduced from more than 100,000 in 1976 to below 30,000 in 1989. The black Rhino almost became extinct in the same period.

The situation changed from 1988-1989 onwards when the Government solved the problem in the short run by deployment of crack-down forces that effectively brought poaching under control. The international community was approached for assistance in initiating programmes to conserve the country's wildlife resources.

The Government of the Federal Republic of Germany responded and the Selous Conservation Programme (SCP), jointly administered by the Tanzanian Wildlife Division and GTZ (German Agency for Technical Cooperation), began in 1988. Programmes of a similar nature also took place around the Serengeti and Ruaha National Parks in Mara Region and Iringa District respectively. The two programmes were also joint ventures, between Tanzania and the Governments of Norway and United Kingdom, respectively.

Before the implementation of the programmes, the administration of wildlife was a top-down monolithic responsibility of the Wildlife Division. The rural communities that co-exist with the wildlife were legally excluded from its management, though in practical terms they continued to utilize it illegally. It was realized that an effective protection of the entire ecosystem carried out single-handedly by central government law enforcement would have meant unbearable costs as well as fighting a losing battle.

Prior to the start of the programme, results from in-depth studies carried out in the Selous ecosystem showed that poaching involved a chain of people ranging from businessmen and some public and law enforcement officials, with the villagers playing the primary role of actual killing of the animals. It was further observed that the fate of wildlife conservation in those areas was determined by the villagers, and in order to maintain protected areas successfully, the local communities must be involved in conservation activities. Conservation has to be practiced 'with' and 'through' people. In recognition of their strategic location, the wildlife authorities felt it necessary to involve a larger sector of the community in general, and the rural communities in particular, in sharing benefits and costs of conservation.

The Government of Tanzania regards the Selous Conservation Programme (SCP) as an important pilot programme, which serves as a conservation model for other areas outside the parks and reserves.

SCP has two major objectives:

• To safeguard the existence and ecological integrity of the SGR as a conservation area; and,
• To reduce conflicts between the reserve and the local population by implementing a programme of sustainable wildlife utilisation by local villages.

To achieve these objectives, it was agreed that the SCP would focus on the following activities:

• Assisting in the rehabilitation and management of the SGR; and,
• Establishing, in cooperation with local communities, a programme of sustainable wildlife utilization in buffer zones of the SGR.

In the buffer zones around SGR, Community Wildlife Management has been initiated so far in forty one villages in Morogoro, Songea, Tunduru, Liwale and Rufiji Districts (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Map of Selous Game Reserve and Buffer Zones

Over 75,000 people are directly involved in the programme. The implementation took place in several steps using the bottom-up approach and making the communities the key actors in the change process. Whenever possible the existing institutional setups were used to effect the changes at different levels in order to build capacities. The changes were effected in the following areas:

The problem of conservation cannot be solved in isolation of community needs. SCP assists the villagers with rural development schemes such as acquisition and operation of grain milling machines for women groups, construction of classrooms, dispensaries and bridges. Training in basic management tools for project beneficiaries is carried out as a strategy for sustainability. Concerned villagers base their projects on self-help and self-determination. Self-help projects are necessary for confidence building between wildlife staff and villagers as well as villagers' confidence to discover their own capabilities.

The evolution of land tenure in Tanzania had affected the customary land rights in many rural areas. A new national land policy passed in 1995 requires all village lands to be surveyed and attain certificate of village boundaries to ascertain security for their land. All villages were assisted to survey and demarcate their land and to obtain certificates of land boundaries. The villages further developed land use plans with the assistance of the respective land development offices. Among other forms of land use, village wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) has now been demarcated for sustainable wildlife utilization. A typical land use plan has areas demarcated as village forestry reserves, swamps, wildlife management areas, agricultural areas, roads and settlements.

• As a process of empowering the local communities, a training center known as Community Based Conservation Training Institute (CBCTI) was established to cater to village game scouts, village functionaries and junior officers. The center, which is located at Likuyusekamaganga in Songea District, provides training for local communities nation-wide;
• Natural Resources Committees were established at the village level with members elected by the village assembly. Women were given special consideration to serve on the committee. Village game scouts were selected among young and honest members of the villages in order to protect WMAs and carry out quota hunting for the villages. Training of village leaders and village game scouts strengthened the management capacities of the village government. After training these village game scouts were appointed authorized officers in order to oversee the compliance of conservation law in their villages and Districts;
• In Morogoro District nineteen villages opted to form a non-governmental organization which is administering the natural resources in the wildlife management areas of their respective villages. This decision was taken after villagers had realized that cooperative efforts are needed to manage migratory natural resources;
• At the District level the District Game Officer took over the function as a Community Wildlife Officer in order to animate villagers in conservation and sustainable utilization of natural resources. District Natural Resources committees for villages with WMAs are to be established. So far Songea District has already established its committee; and,
• A community-based conservation co-ordination unit has been established at the headquarters of the Wildlife Division. The unit, which is attached to the section of wildlife development and management of protected areas, serves as think tank in enhancing and furthering CBC countrywide. It is envisaged that more than 60 villages bordering the protected areas will be involved in CBC activities.

The Director of Wildlife used the Wildlife Conservation Act of 1974 to accommodate changes including approving and issuing sustainable hunting quotas to the communities. Villages were assisted to purchase initial equipment for their village game scouts such as uniforms and hunting rifles. Twenty villages in Morogoro District with 7781 households and a population of 41,361 were able to harvest over 13,000 kg of meat worth US $ 12,160 during 1996-1997 hunting season.

Currently the village game scouts carry out the hunting and protection of human life and property. The meat is sold within the village. The village assembly decides during an annual budget meeting about the use the generated revenue. Partly the money is used for protection of natural resources, management of the WMA and partly for village development projects (see Table 1).

In the future the villages will be enable to increase their income by leasing their WMAs to hunting tourism companies. This will help to increase the income of the villages as sport hunting pays more compared to hunting for meat (see Table 2).

• Villagers now have legal access to game meat, for which they have a high preference. The villages derived revenue from sales of meat from their quota and are able to decide on their own about the use of finances and development in their immediate environment;
• There is evidence that poaching in the buffer zones and in SGR has decreased significantly due to the joint efforts of anti-poaching units, district, SGR village game scouts and villagers. Wildlife is now coming back to areas where it has been absent for many years;
• Neighbouring villages, not yet enrolled in the scheme, copied the scheme in their village land without external financial assistance. This includes one village in Songea and three villages in Tunduru Districts. The idea of community wildlife management was taken up in many parts of the country, new projects started with the concept of CWM, e.g. Wami-Mbiki and Saadani-Mkwaja, west Kilimanjaro Enduimet and others;
• So far CBCTI has trained about 400 VGS from different part of the country;
• A wildlife policy which puts a lot of emphasis on CBC, based on the experience from SCP, has been approved by the cabinet of ministers;
• The villagers feel also responsible for managing other natural resources like forestry and fisheries; and,
• The transparency in utilization of natural and financial resources increased on all levels.

• Inadequate enabling legislation to implement the policy of community-based conservation;
• Limited personnel with necessary skills and commitment to work and live with villagers;
• Resistance to change attitudes on both sides wildlife personnel and villagers;
• Since a change in a system causes losers and winners there is still resistance on all levels; and,
• Revenue accrued from safari hunting is not paid directly to the communities.

Expectations after phasing out of the programme:

• With the enabling policy and legislation, the communities should be able to make full use of their WMAs, particularly through getting revenue from tourist hunting;
• Financing mechanisms for sustainable community wildlife management on all levels should be developed and implemented; and,
• The Selous ecosystem is secured, and sustainable yield benefits for local communities and the nation gained.

There is a need to have:

• A strategic plan for policy implementation; and,
• Adaptive training for key stakeholders particularly the facilitators, animators and target group such as wildlife agency staff and local communities.