Mtwara

IMPROVING COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN MARINE RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN VILLAGES WITHIN THE MNAZI BAY RUVUMA ESTUARY MARINE PARK (MBREMP), MTWARA, TANZANIA

Introduction
PAMOJA Environmental Focus has a contract with BG Tanzania to implement a community project in collaboration with MBREMP in Mtwara, to improve community participation in marine resources management in 22 villages within MBREMP. The project is aimed at ensuring that conservation of the Park is enhanced through community participation in socio-economic and livelihoods development. The project purpose is: to establish and improve socio-economic and livelihoods opportunities; to improve interaction between the communities and other institutions within and outside the Park on sustainable development issues; and, to improve the level of awareness on marine and coastal resources. The outputs are: sustainable livelihoods through income generation schemes; interaction and cooperation between MBREMP communities and other institutions; and, increased level of awareness on coastal and marine resources utilization.

Activities
Since its establishment, the project has managed to improve awareness of all village leaders on natural resources governance issues which resulted into poor management of the marine resources and how to overcome its consequences and manage resources wisely. Also about BG through familiarization visit to BG's supply base office and port in Mtwara, thus reducing the information gap between BG and the community in the project area to the extent that BG is now in the vocabulary of many community members in the project area. Schools children and teachers are among the beneficiaries of the project in environmental awareness and sustainable utilization of marine resources through teacher awareness meeting, video shows and awareness clippings using projector acquired by the project and field excursions to project sites including visits to coral gardens using glass-bottom boat donated by BG Tanzania. The project has printed 2000 copies of two marine resources awareness booklets which have been distributed to all 17 schools. In addition, gardening tools and indigenous fruit tree seedlings were distributed to schools in environmental competitions. Over 50 percent of trees planted in 2014 progressing well.

Due to budget limits, timely project support to MBREMP has improved monitoring of marine resources thus reducing destructive resource use activities. For example, more turtle nesting sites are being discovered instead of carcases due to frequent visits to nesting sites. In sustainable livelihoods, 11 micro savings groups have been established. Savings rose from Tsh.9 Million in June-August 2014, Tsh. 25 Million in September - November 2014, Tsh. 40 Million in December 2014 - February 2015 to about 60 Million in March - May 2015. The community has benefited from capital for micro-business from own savings and loans to improve or repair houses and paying school fees for private school students. The project has also managed to support 8 villages in training and vaccination to control disease in local chicken whereby 3,600 local chickens were vaccinated. The project is also supporting 5 cat-fish farming groups in Magomeni, Kihimika, Kitunguli and Mahurunga villages and also 1beekeeping group in Kihimika to improve beekeeping activities.