Arusha: Tanzania’s school clubs are nurturing a forest-friendly future. There are more than 30 such clubs in primary and secondary schools in the country to impart the skills of how to nurture seedlings to grow into trees, improve surroundings and restore the land to children from an early age.
The students have already started to transform the dry, dusty and windswept degraded lands around their schools into greener, shadier and more pleasant places to be. In the long run, they hope to be able to harvest fruit from the trees and prune the branches for firewood.
As well as engaging in practical work to change their surroundings, the children, aged eight to 16, are also learning about landscape management, techniques for mitigating climate change, using mulch to save water and, for the older kids, linking up with parents to learn how to use biogas instead of firewood. The aim is for new generations to grow up with a practical knowledge of how to restore and conserve forests and confront a growing climate crisis. Hope and purpose are clearly visible as these Tanzanian school children get their hands dirty and their ideas broadened by the work of cultivating trees and restoring their surroundings.
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The programme, in the northern Arusha and southern Njombe regions, is run by local farmers’ organisations and supported by the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF), a partnership between FAO, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the farming organisations’ alliance, AgriCord.
The thinking behind a project is that one is never too young to make a start to protect the forests. “The effects are already there for all to see,” says Lotha Paulo Zairiam, head teacher at Arusha’s Simba Milima Primary School. “When we started this project, the school was bare, no trees in this area. It was dry, windy and dusty. We planted trees of many purposes, for example fruit trees, timber trees, shade trees and many other trees.” He says the trees are already growing rapidly and helping to mitigate the wind and dust around the school. But “the most important thing we gained are skills and knowledge to plant trees and contribute to sensitize villagers in environmental protection.”
The impact of the initiative goes far beyond the surroundings of the childrens’ schools. “We have acquired skills on how to protect planted trees by watering, applying manure and mulching. We also apply the same skills at our individual homes,” said Prisca Regnald Gibesh, a 10-year-old student at Zairiam’s school.
It may be mentioned that The Review of Forest and Landscape Restoration in Africa 2021, published by FAO and the African Union Development Agency – NEPAD, revealed that up to 65 percent of productive land in Africa was degraded, while desertification affected 45 per cent of the continent’s land area. While there was overall improvement in the trend of desertification and land degradation, net loss of forests was still increasing in Africa, with four million hectares of forest disappearing every year.
According to the review, much more was needed to be done to tap into the continent’s potential to return land to sustainable production, protect biodiversity and shield livelihoods in the battle against climate change.
“It is clear that FAO’s work together with our partners in FFF to promote practical skills and understanding among school children in Tanzania is doubly important in helping to address present issues and lay the foundations for a more sustainable future,” said Nyabenyi Tito Tipo, FAO Representative in Tanzania.
Under the school project in Tanzania, FFF provides funding to two forest and farm producer organizations’ regional networks, called MVIWAARUSHA and MVIWWAMA, their acronyms in Swahili. Their staff deliver services such as business incubation trainings, entrepreneurship methodology and community microfinancing to the adults in the community. They organize tree-planting campaigns and have started tree nurseries supervised by environmental teachers. FFF has further encouraged the organizations to engage with schools on restoration programmes, working in partnership to raise awareness together with district and regional government.
These efforts form part of the Pan-African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, or AFR100, in which Tanzania pledged to restore 5.2 million hectares of its degraded land and forests by 2030. Tanzania joined in 2018, setting up a national task force led by their National Forest Service and the Tanzanian Vice President’s Office.
FAO stated today that its involvement in the programme testified to its commitment to help reverse the widespread land degradation and deforestation affecting many parts of the world.
Source: the FAO News and Media office, Rome
– global bihari bureau
