THE COMMUNITY OF BABATI STEPING UP ON CONSERVATION

Conservation of natural resources to the eyes of community is becoming more visible and already their resources are showing realized tangible benefits. With combined effort people in different community in Tanzania have been fighting towards conservation of their natural forest, wildlife and water catchment areas so as to nurture with the nature and ensuring sustainability of their natural resources.

This can be realized from the recent visit of group of Young Environmentalist Trainees( YETs) to the number of villages in Babati region which includes Dareda, Bermi,Ayasanda and Hali.The effort and acceptance of the community in these villages towards adaptation to the Livelihood option such as Beekeeping,Tree nursery,Mushroom farming ,Butterfly farming and improved stove shows a promising future to our natural resources as well as the Language of Environmental conservation. Despite of the conservation projects from different NGOs busting the community in conservation issues but individual effort and commitment was realized to be the engine towards this success.
“I and my family for number of year we have succeeded to conserve Natural trees,protection of water sources and practicing sustainable Agriculture’ Mr Joackim Mtambo who is the senior Local conservator from Hale village said when trying to highlight some of the major activities which have driven him towards conservation success.



Beehive being kept by Bermi Villagers as one of the Livelihood options(i.e. Beekeeping).

Community themselves however, they realize that ,it is madness waiting until the Conservation NGOs and Agencies harmonizing them to protect their environment and Natural resources , for this reason each villagers is responsible for conserving and protecting their Natural Resources and Environment. Speaking at the meeting between YETs member and the villagers of Bermi village, the Chairman of Bermi village about 10Km in the Southern part from Babati town said ‘through direct involvement in different projects implementation activities from the NGOs called ‘Farm Africa’ they are gaining a lot of benefit from being engaged in different livelihood options ( i.e Beekeeping , Butterfly farming , Mushrooom farming and Tree nursery) as mentioned earlier . Further more reports from the leadership from all villagers revealed that, to overcome the problem of threats to their Natural resources (Wildlife and Forest) and Environment within their village , they have formed responsibles task force such as Village Environmental commitee and village scouts to make tightly followup on those threats, however in most cases every one within the village is responsible to protect the resource.

Despite the truth that , there is promising voice from the community towards succes in Natural resource and Environmental conservation ,increased involvement of the government, NGOs and other private sector is the cornerstone which will make the dreams of the community on conservation to grow higher.Responsible NGOs investing in different conservation projects must ensure efficiency Capacity building to the community via different training ,seminars and workshop on various conservation techniques and this will act as fuel to achieve more succes as well as meeting the Millenium Development Goals.

By Justine Gwegime