Page 8 - Local Voices, Local Choices Excerpt

6 local voices, local choices
recruited a small team of local Tanzanians who had worked with NGOs in agriculture, forestry, water, and health issues to visit the 12 villages clos- est to Gombe. To listen to the people, learn from them about their prob- lems, and find out how they felt the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) could help. We learned that, at that time, their main concerns were the need to grow more food and have better access to primary health care and better education facilities.
In consultation with village leaders, George and his team developed a holistic plan to address these needs and at the same time help improve the lives of the villagers in an environmentally sustainable way. Conser- vation of wildlife was not mentioned; the villagers were already resentful that Gombe had been set aside for chimpanzees, and it was first necessary to assure them that we truly cared about their welfare. But we believed (correctly!) that our approach would ultimately help to protect the chim- panzees as well.
First we had to obtain funding to put the plan into action. Once a proposal had been drawn up, we tried our luck with the European Com- munity (EC), now the European Union (EU). Tim Clarke, whom we knew well from his years working for the EC in Tanzania, was working as the Focal Point for Environment in the Directorate General for Devel- opment, responsible for managing the EC’s €100-million-per-year Envi- ronment Budget. This was amazingly lucky for us: JGI was an unknown organization, and Tim was undoubtedly helpful in securing that first grant as he knew JGI in Tanzania. But even though Tim subsequently told me that our approach to community engagement was innovative and scored lots of points, we were nevertheless forced to “focus.” We were told we could not do everything. So we applied to their forest conservation fund, which refused to fund non-forestry-related activities but gave us fund- ing for three years to pilot the Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforesta- tion and Education (TACARE) project, mainly intended to establish tree nurseries in the villages along the Rift. We had to fundraise with other donors to implement our holistic community-focused approach: from