WMA Case Study

The case study WMA project is located within the district of Iringa Rural within the site of the former Lunda-Mkwambi Game Control Area⁴⁴ (GCA, see Fig. 4.2), which is located along the eastern border of Ruaha National Park around 130km from the town of Iringa (Health and Development International Consultants (HDIC), 2010). The project began as a British Overseas Development Association bi-lateral aid programme named the Ruaha Ecosystem Wildlife Management Project (REWMP), which has been described as a “classic integrated conservation-development project” (Hartley, 1997: 2). REWMP’s mission comprised two major foci; the first was to assist in the planning for the adjacent Ruaha National Park, for which the project villages provided a buffer in the previously designated Lunda-Mkwambi GCA (Hartley, 1997). A smaller focus was the development of a sustainable wildlife utilization scheme aimed at providing benefits for communities

43 The remaining ten were not producing revenue at the time as they were closed for regeneration of the forest.

44 The southern portion of this Game Control Area has been re-gazetted as a WMA. The Northern section remains under government authority.

93 surrounding the park (Hartley, 1997). REWMP was not the first project of this kind in Tanzania, but followed the models applied in both the Serengeti Regional Conservation Strategy (SRCS) and Selous Conservation Programme (SCP; Hartley, 1997).

94 Fig.4.2: REWMP/MBOMIPA Case Study Area. This map does not show the final two villages to join the WMA (Kitisi and Magombwe), which were both formerly sub-villages of Idodi and Isele respectively.

95 REWMP ran from 1992 to 1996, and Hartley’s (1997) review of the project shows that whilst the project is widely considered as a success, there were several periods of tension and difficulty, relating to the new arrangements for hunting in the area, the exposure of corruption and institutional weaknesses and the setting and sale of hunting quotas (Hartley, 1997). REWMP officially ended in mid-1996, and the project was transformed into MBOMIPA⁴⁵ from October 1997, just six months before the Wildlife Policy for Tanzania (WPT) was published (Walsh, 1998). MBOMIPA began as a collaboration with both the Wildlife Division and the Tanzanian National Parks Authority (TANAPA) with financial support continuing to come from the Overseas Development Association, now re-named as the Department for International Development (Walsh, 1998).

International funding ceased in 2002, with the project operating as an unofficial pilot of the new WMA policy (Interview P74). From 2003 the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) became a facilitator for implementation of the WPT nationally, and began to assist MBOMIPA with the long procedure of securing final gazettement of the WMA (Walsh, 2003). WWF acted as technical advisors to MBOMIPA and negotiators between the project and the government authorities, through their Tanzania Policy Implementation Programme Team (Walsh, 2003). In January 2002 MBOMIPA was the first WMA pilot project to register its Authorised Association (AA; Walsh, 2003), although official completion of the application procedure took place in 2007, when the WMA was gazetted and the MBOMIPA AA received its user rights. In a 2007 assessment of the WMA pilot projects (Institute of Resource Assessment, 2007), MBOMIPA was listed as a gazetted WMA with no allocated user rights. Fieldwork carried out in the WMA villages during 2010 showed that these have since been granted by the Wildlife Division, and the project has now secured several investment agreements with both hunting and photographic tourism outfitters.

In the last financial year (2009-2010) MBOMIPA accounts show that the project generated over Tz Sh. 160,000,000 (around $110,000), which provided approximately

$1,590 for each of the 21 participating villages to use as they wish. MBOMIPA is well-known for its record of generating income, initially from the sale of a wildlife quota to resident hunters under REWMP and subsequently MBOMIPA (Hartley, 1997; Walsh, 2003; Institute of Resource Assessment, 2007), and later greatly increased by the

45 ‘Matumizi Bora Maliasili Pawaga na Idodi’ meaning sustainable use of natural resources in Pawaga and Idodi.

96 incorporation of revenues from the Wildlife Division tourist hunting block within the previous GCA.

MBOMIPA WMA is an association of 21 villages, which are split between the administrative divisions of Idodi and Pawaga, as shown in Fig. 4.2 and Table 4.1.

Administrative Division Village Name

Idodi Mahuninga

Makifu Tungamalenga Mapogoro Idodi Malinzanga Mafuluto Nyamahana Kitisi

Pawaga Isele

Magombwe Mbuyuni Kimande Kisanga Kinyika Mboliboli Itunundu Mkombilenga Ilolo Mpya Magozi Luganga

MBOMIPA has been selected as the case study project due to its long history as a CBNRM project, its inclusion within the pioneer group of such projects (URT, 2007) and its presence during the critical period of policy formation in the late 1990s. It has also been selected because it has stood the test of time, and remains a celebrated example of the WMA policy, due in part to the income the project is generating, the significant area covered by the WMA (776.65km²) and its proximity to what is now the country’s largest national park, the potential for managing wildlife for community benefits in the area (Taylor, 1995; Walsh, 1995) and the large number of villages involved (21). The village selected for further research within MBOMIPA was Makifu. This village was selected according to the findings of the

Table 4.1: Villages Participating in MBOMIPA by Administrative Division.

97 preliminary qualitative survey, which highlighted Makifu’s strategic position within the political struggles taking place within the WMA at the time, its average population size amongst the participating villages, alongside logistical reasons for creating a base for research. The preliminary qualitative survey also led to the decision to expand the fieldwork undertaken during the second phase to include further interviews, alongside the in-depth research undertaken in Makifu, in five other MBOMIPA villages. These villages were Tungamalenga, Nyamahana, Luganga, Mbuyuni and Itunundu. The justification for this decision and the selection of these particular villages was based on the findings of the preliminary qualitative survey, the supra-village nature of the governance system implemented in WMAs, as discussed in 5.2.3, and the power struggles taking place within the MBOMIPA WMA, as described in 6.3.3.2.