Communities' Perception on Forest Management Approaches in Tanzania

As most of the countries in the African region are striving to transform their old fashion centralized policing forest management approaches to Participatory Forest Management involving local communities adjacent to forest resources, there have been likewise, growing concerns among conservation and development agencies to try to find out how important are different forest management approaches to adjacent communities in terms of costs incurred and benefits accrued from the various participatory schemes including the participation levels of the intended beneficiaries. The book illustrates the study by the author, which aimed at assessing early perceived costs, and benefits from four different forest management approaches by adjacent local communities, and their implications to implementation of participatory forest management in the study area. Results from this study revealed that local communities adjacent to the Government Forest Reserves and Udzungwa NP were involved in the management of natural resources and incurred substantial costs but accrue some benefits at varying scale depending on the forest conservation approach applied.