AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

Sustainable Forest Management in Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park

by Rosen Lozev




Institution: Roskilde University
Department:
Year: 2013
Keywords: Sustainable Forest Management; Jozani, Zanzibar
Record ID: 1119652
Full text PDF: http://rudar.ruc.dk/handle/1800/11570


Abstract

Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park is located in the south-east region of Zanzibar and attracts millions of tourist each year. This tourist flow is mainly due to the fact that Jozani had been declared a biodiversity hot spot with endangered species and variety of mixed forestry vegetation. At first glance, Jozani enjoys rather stable status which is mainly due to the collective efforts of various forest related actors. In fact, the Park had become widely associated with community based forest management and is indeed performing relatively well. Nevertheless, the 3 months of field work in Jozani for an NGO called JECA (Jozani Environmental Conservation Association) had led to the establishment of some warning patterns that question the sustainability of the forest management in Jozani. Hence, this report aims at providing an understanding of Jozani as a complex social-ecological system consisting of numerous conflicts primarily related to overexploitation of the scarce forest resources pushed by the high poverty levels and the lack of alternative income generating means for the forest communities. JECA is among the many actors that approaches this problem with a strategy that not only aims at mitigating those conflicts but actually trying to end them in the long run by providing means of self-empowerment to the 9 villages that coexist in the boundaries of Jozani. Despite all the progress achieved and the outstanding results in the management of Jozani, there are still some doubts over the sustainability Jozani. Therefore, the report also aims evaluating the sustainability performance of Jozani and providing a perspective on how Jozani could be managed even more sustainably whit JECA being the main facilitator. Put in a problem oriented context, the report aims at answering the following question: How could JECA increase the capacity for sustainable forest management in Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park? The findings indicate that JECA has a good potential or capacity to contribute to more sustainable forest management in Jozani by pushing forward alternative income generation programs to slowly become the mainstream forest management initiatives and not the tourism related, as it is at present. JECA could do that only in a setting of good ecosystem governance while acting as a mediator addressing conflicts from the local communities to the governmental authorities and increasing its co-operation with internal actors in Jozani for more efficient results.