Devolved Environmental Management: Colonial Appropriation of Resources,

The period of colonial rule in Tanzania played an important role in the shaping of Tanzania’s social and political systems (Iliffe, 1979; Hyden, 1980). Tanzania’s colonial episode began in 1884 when Dr Carl Peters formed the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation (Association for German Colonisation), under which he secured rights to over 140,000km2 of territory, which became a protectorate a year later (Lovett, 2003). The period of German colonial rule introduced the first declaration of ‘crown land’, bringing all areas not under specific ownership under the control of the state (Lovett, 2003). The transition to British colonial rule took place in the aftermath of the First World War. Germany ceded its East African territory as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and a League of Nations Mandate in 1922 placed Tanganyika (now mainland Tanzania) under British administration (Iliffe, 1979). In 1946 this relationship was altered to that of Trusteeship, until independence in 1961 (Iliffe, 1979). Both the British administration and the newly-independent government retained the German colonial system of public lands (Lovett, 2003). The colonial period in Tanzania is very strongly associated with the appropriation of land, therefore. The annexation of land was accompanied by specific forms of state-local relations in which the role of the local level was highly restricted. The role of the local level in political administration was not completely removed, but was retained through the implementation of a policy of indirect rule during the British colonial period, in which the existing local structures of power and authority in chiefs and native authorities were used to legitimise local political systems and concurrently extend the power of the newly formed state into the local level (Mniwasa and Shauri, 2001).

As an African state, post-independence, political culture in Tanzania represents the blending and hybridisation of both social norms and bureaucratic forms from indigenous and Western sources (Hurst, 2004). In relation to the conservation of natural resources, particularly in the inheritance and maintenance of colonial systems of Protected Areas (PAs; see 3.3), and the role of external organisations in policy processes, these hybrid cultures, structures and processes comprised important aspects of the relationship between the state and local people, and are relevant to the conflicts and power struggles that still take place over natural resources (see 3.3).

69 Tanganyika gained independence from the British Empire on the 9th December 1961, under its first president, Julius Nyerere30, and in 1964 joined with Zanzibar to form the nation of Tanzania (Coulson, 1982; Boiesen and Lund, 2003). The newly independent nation retained many of the administrative systems put in place during the British colonial period, including and assembly of representatives overseeing the executive and responsibilities separated into sectors with corresponding line departments (Hurst, 2004). On the 29th January 1967 Tanzania passed the Arusha Declaration, which heralded the start of socialism in the country (Coulson, 1982). Tanzania has often been studied as a key example of the role of the local level in politics, due to its commitment to a socialist ideology and the focus of the Nyerere government upon rural development to achieve social transformation (Hyden, 1980). The Arusha Declaration was implemented under the slogan ‘socialism and self-reliance’, and led Tanzania to become the most committed socialist country in Africa (Coulson, 1982). The socialist period is famous for its ‘villagisation’ policy, which began in 1967 and by 1975 had brought about the relocation of more than 75% of the population into ‘ujamaa’31 villages, with the intention of creating communal production units (Boiesen and Lund, 2003). Whilst the policy began as voluntary, between 1973-5 it became compulsory (Coulson, 1982). The colonial era marked a period of state appropriation of resources which continued through to the independent administration, but the socialist period marked further important transitions in state-society relations. This is discussed below with respect to tenure arrangements at the local level and legislation aimed at increasing public participation in development.

Alongside the resettlement schemes, the socialist period marked the streamlining of government administrative structures, and restriction of the role of the local level in politics through the replacement of locally-elected governments with centrally appointed civil servants (Coulson, 1982; Boiesen and Lund, 2003). The socialist period’s focus upon rural development was also accompanied by the abolition of local authorities (District Councils) and creation of District and Regional Development Councils, through the Decentralisation of Government Administration Act 1972 (Hyden, 1980). The aim of these changes was to increase public participation in development and thereby to accelerate it, but ultimately resulted in the deterioration of service delivery to rural areas and decline of urban

30

Nyerere ruled for 24 years, and in 1965 he declared the country to be a one-party state, which was recognized in law in a constitutional amendment of 1975, governed by the Tanganyika African National Union (Hurst, 2004). This remained in place until the amendment of the constitution to form a multi-party democracy in 1995 (Boiesen & Lund, 2003).

31

The concept of ‘ujamaa’, which translates from Kiswahili as ‘family ties’, is based on three assumptions: respect, common property and obligation to work (Hyden, 1980).

70 infrastructure (Ngwilizi, 2002). Whilst heralded as decentralisation, this period in fact constituted the consolidation of central power at lower levels, and is better termed de- concentration (Mniwasa and Shauri, 2001; Ngwilizi, 2002). However, through the ujamaa policy, the shifting role of the local level and restrictions described above were accompanied by the first recognition of legal rights of the village to be responsible for lands and natural resources not directly under the control of the central government32 (Nshala, 2002). The colonial and newly independent eras in Tanzania both represent complex shifts in state-local relations, marked by state appropriation of land and natural resources, the prominence of the village level, but its restricted role in political administration. In the following section I trace the shifts in the role of the local level that occurred later in Tanzania and the introduction of devolved environmental management that was facilitated by these shifts.

3.2.2 Devolved Environmental Management: Neoliberalism, Decentralisation