ABSTRACT
Usangu, in southern Tanzania, offers a ‘who-dunnit’ with a cast of characters whose individual interests coincided to confuse reality and to marginalize issues of poverty and the environment, even while using the environment and poverty as guises for action. Local, national and international actors, through good intent or neglect, oversimplified a complex situation, leading to inappropriate actions that have had, and will continue to have, negative effects on local livelihoods of the most vulnerable and on the environment. However, most local resource users, whose livelihoods and well-being are inextricably linked to Usangu’s environment, were effectively excluded from the decision-making processes that have affected those livelihoods.
