The Santaca Pilot Project is located in Matutuíne District, Maputo Province in the South region of Mozambique. The project emphasizes mainly forest management for fuelwood production, however it deals also with soil and water management related to agricultural development, towards a better sustainability of natural resources use. The important contextual factors in this case are:

1. Political – The signing of the Peace Accord in 1992, and the democratic elections in October 1994 encouraged profound and rapid transformation from a centralized to a market economy, and to a decentralized and democratic, participatory system of Government. This area has a strong traditional power structure, which was associated with RENAMO during the civil war in Mozambique. Since the Mozambican Government is from FRELIMO, it was important for the project to link the traditional power structure and the Government bodies to facilitate the dialogue between them.
2. Economic – The National reconstruction Plan initiated in 1987 has the main objective of reducing food deficit situation by restoring the productive capacity of the rural sector. This region, due to the forest resources and its location near Maputo City, is the one of the suppliers of fuelwood (Charcoal and firewood) for this urban center and Santaca economy can benefit from a carefully planned fuelwood production. Furthermore, due to its location near to the Elephant national reserve and to prime tourism places, the Santaca community can develop eco-tourism projects in their area.
3. Social- The existence of a sacred forest in the area and the danger of its exploitation by outsiders to the community strengthen the need for an intervention in the region.

The author is the Head of the Forestry Department at the Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry, Eduardo Mondlane University and the Coordinator for the Research and Consultancy Unit for Natural Resources Management at the same Faculty. The author was the coordinator of the RRA team whom identified the need for the project, team member for the Santaca Project Formulation, and now coordinator of Santaca Project in the areas of Forest Management and Agriculture.

Community-based management of Forests in Mozambique was seen isolated from other natural resources as soil and water. Furthermore, the projects did not take into consideration the integrated nature of Forestry, Agriculture, Credit and Markets in the community life. The projects only consider forest-related areas of intervention. Most of the staff involved was trained as foresters.

In relation to problems faced by rural communities in Mozambique, one of the major problems, due to the movement of people during the war, is the existence of outsiders to the communities ("ninjas"), whom are not community members. The "ninjas" exploit the forests and do not follow the traditional rules concerning natural resources management. The communities are powerless in this respect, and their lack of knowledge in terms of laws and regulations, and the deficient links between community’s leaders and State Institutions do not help the situation.

Another characteristic of the communities in the South of Mozambique, is the lack of organized villages. People live far way from each other, and rarely have economic activities that are carried out as a community. They get together to discuss their problems and possible solutions, but not to organize themselves to produce better or to conquer a specific market.

The Santaca project identified the need to have an integrated approach, where the way of life of the communities was taken into account.

The changes in the project area are:

• Associations of producers are now being organized by community members, and there is a will to work with the neighbors in commercial terms.
• The training of 48 community members as community forest officers initiated a change in attitude towards the outsiders and towards resource management in the area.
• The introduction of cash producing activities, as brick making, production of sun-flower and seedlings creates new income possibilities for the community.

In terms of institutional setup and project implementation, the main changes are:

• The coordination set-up is different. Due to the integrated nature of the project, instead of a project coordinator, the project has a coordination team, comprised by 3 members.
• The project has five components: Forest management, Agriculture, Technology, Markets and Financial systems. The project staff comprises foresters, sociologists, chemical engineers, mechanic engineers, agriculture engineers and economists. Every three months a one-day workshop takes place. During the workshops the staff discusses the component’s activities and together with the other teams redefined the planned activities.
• This project have an enormous amount of community training activities(on the job or through seminars). The project aimed to the development of capacities of the community. They include the use of improved technologies (for charcoal making, for brick making), and also involving the community members in the control of their forest resources (48 members of the community were trained as community forest officers whom work now together with the State forest service). The project carried out informative workshops related to Forest regulations and the new land law. The project nursery runs training seminars for community members interested in nursery. The agriculture team is carrying out trials to introduce new cash crops in the area, and it is working with 32 families, following the farmers practices through out the agriculture year, and discuss with the farmers the findings, problems and possible solutions.

The Outcome

In terms of the community, the main impact was felt to be in the better relations between the traditional community leaders and the State Institutions. The community forest officers work closely with the State Forest Officers, and Maputo Provincial Forestry Service is now licensing the community members for charcoal production, and sending the charcoal retailers to the Project area. The training of community forest officers was the first in Mozambique, and the impact of community involvement in the forest control system was readily felt, so much that the Governor of Maputo Province requested the training of other communities in the Province of Maputo.

Some outsiders, are integrated now in the licensing of charcoal producers and they are interested in working with producers from the community of Santaca.

The key institutional changes were the involvement of multidisciplinary teams in the identification, formulation and implementation of community based projects. The Forestry National Directorate (Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery) is now starting to work closely with the National Institute of Rural Development. The Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery is also working with Eduardo Mondlane University, an agreement for research cooperation is now being developed.. At the University level, different research groups are working together in the development of community-based management systems. Students and recent graduates are involved in research projects concerning rural development, and a new short-term course was developed at the Forestry Department at the University, concerning Social forestry.

The main lesson for the author was the necessity of a clear picture of the community, so that the project is part of that and not something foreign to the community. It is also important to have a strong power structure in the community, so that the information and implementation can reach every member of the community. The management of natural resources (forest, wildlife, soil and water) is very much linked to the cultural characteristics of the community. The power structure in place deals with these aspects, and it is important for the implementation of the project that the power structure is the vehicle of information and implementation.

The multidisciplinary approach is difficult to coordinate, and requests clear objectives to be attained for the whole group. It requests also, a good coordination between the different teams and an open-mind and wiliness to learn and accept other ideas, in order to achieved good final results.

The experience of the Santaca Pilot Project can be applied to many of the communities in the country. The integrated approach in natural resources management used by Santaca community is not unique, and in most rural Mozambique it is present in the daily life. However, the strong traditional power structure and the social development found in Santaca is not widely spread in Mozambique, and most of the success achieved in this project was due to the commitment of the Santaca community, and their leaders. Another important factor was the level of commitment and understanding found in Maputo Provincial Forestry Services. The wiliness found in this State institution, although not unique, is rare.