ABSTRACT
Tanzania’s recent forest reforms, discussed in detail in Chapters 5 and 6, following the 1998 National Forest Policy and the Forest Act of 2002, formalized the introduction and expansion of participatory forest management (PFM) as a new approach to managing the country’s forests. The reforms aim both to ensure the protection of Tanzania’s forests and to reduce rural poverty (MNRT, 1998; 2002a; 2002b; Blomley and Ramadhani, 2005). REDD+ – Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation – has similar aims to PFM: to reduce the loss of forest biomass, while protecting the livelihoods of those dependent on forest resources. Tanzania’s experiences of implementing PFM over the past decade, following the forest reforms, therefore provide a natural platform that a number of REDD+ initiatives in the country build upon.
