Page 36 - Local Voices, Local Choices Excerpt

34 local voices, local choices
The Roots & Shoots program has visited every single district in Tan- zania, Japhet says, and has more than 3,000 groups around the country and a database of half a million registered members. The program also has numerous social media platforms, connecting young people with inter- active lessons and activities. As a coordinator, Japhet is responsible for producing educational materials for schools, education offices, the local government, and also the central government, since the goal is to get everyone involved in conservation movements and empower people to take action.
“We design different projects under the Tacare approach and try to work with the village government to provide the technical advice on how they can live in a compatible way with their surrounding landscape. We introduce them to native, user-friendly species that perform well as substi- tute fuel species for firewood, charcoal, and timber. Whenever they want to do agroforestry, for example, they are able to get to the species that are conservation-friendly, and we also provide watershed protection species.”
In addition, Roots & Shoots works closely with the village environ- mental committees and school committees, focusing on the parents. These committees help build the villagers’ understanding as they participate in discussions about the historical trend of their resources, “how it used to be in the past, how the situation is now, what they want for the future. Then we consider what it would take for them to achieve a future they want.”
Like Shadrack, Japhet emphasizes the advantage of being a local, native to Kigoma. “You used to be a child in the same area,” he says. “Your history is still there. It is easier to get trust from the community and it helps the project become accepted in the village because then they see that somebody from their own village, somebody from ‘our’ landscape, is also part of the project.
“These are the village lands, and no matter how, they have to be com- patible with both livelihoods and conservation. Conservation farming was one of the pilot approaches to help people, rather than evicting people from the landscape. The best way was to try to use innovative methods