A rural revival in Tanzania: how agroforestry is helping farmers to restore the woodlands in Shinyanga region

C Pye-Smith, 'A rural revival in Tanzania: how agroforestry is helping farmers to restore the woodlands in Shinyanga region', p.37, 2010

When President Julius Nyerere visited the Shinyanga Region in 1984 he was shocked by what he saw. Decades of deforestation and inappropriate land management had turned Shinyanga into the â??Desert of Tanzania.â?? The president immediately launched the Shinyanga Soil Conservation Programme, widely known by its Swahili acronym, HASHI. This booklet relates the remarkable story of what has happened since then. The HASHI project helped tens of thousands of smallholders to restore degraded land, and in doing so to significantly improve their incomes. One of the projectâ??s great achievements was to revive a traditional system of land management which increases the supply of livestock fodder for use during the dry season. When the project began, there were just 600 ha of documented ngitili â?? enclosed fodder reserves â?? in the region. There are now thought to be over 500,000 ha of such reserves. The ngitili provide fuelwood and building timber as well as livestock fodder. Their rapid expansion has brought about a significant increase in biodiversity. Species that had disappeared decades ago are now returning. The economic benefits have also been considerable. One study calculated the total monthly value of benefits derived from the ngitili to be US$14 per person â?? a significant sum in rural Tanzania. The HASHI project also encouraged farmers to adopt a range of other agroforestry technologies, including the planting of woodlots, fodder banks and fertilizer trees. These, too, have yielded considerable environmental and economic benefits