Friends Of Ruaha

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jan 03 2009 | By: friendsofruaha

I’m Kate, the chairperson of FORS.  I have been working with FORS for many years now and have seen it develop from an organization where enthusiastic but busy volunteers did what they could when they could, to a real functioning NGO with paid staff who can carry out a coherent programme.  This has been an exciting time.  In the last couple of years, our environmental education programme has become institutionalized in many of the schools and we have been able to step back and begin to consider other directions.

Last month, I was in Kilwa district, south of Dar es Salaam.  I was with an NGO working in forestry and during the our visits to villages, we were horrified to see European biofuel companies who had come in and acquired thousands and thousands of hectares of dense natural forest, which they were in the process of cutting down and uprooting in order to plant jatropha and sugar cane.  Most villagers we spoke to were unhappy about this – although they were getting a school classroom, a water system, a road, from the companies, their main complaint  was that they had handed over their land and forests without having enough knowledge of the facts to make an informed decision as to whether this was the best thing to do.

I have already heard whispers of biofuels coming to Iringa and since the areas we work in have huge swathes of beautiful natural forest, I believe that it won’t be long until biofuels and their massive environmental destruction (despite their so called ‘green’ credentials) arrive in Idodi and Pawaga.  We have formulated a proposal to start Participatory Forest Management (PFM) in the small woodlands behind some of our schools, and then subsequently to expand it to the wider community.  Participatory Forest Management (PFM) has been enshrined in Tanzanian forest policy as the way forward for protecting the nation’s forests.  It involves local people creating village forest reserves and managing them for their own benefit.  However, until recently, forest management for conservation has been promoted rather than using the forests sustainably as a commercial resource.  People value their forests, but when there is a financial alternative, they will pragmatically agree to their destruction.  But crucially, what has not been made clear to people is that through PFM, they can harvest their forest on a sustainable basis, sell the timber for a good price and build their own school or road.  In this way, they can make money from  their forest while keeping it with all its biodiversity and rainfall/water conservation/carbon sink/wildlife habitat value.

We want to communicate this to the people of Idodi and Pawaga, emphasizing the financial aspects of PFM, so that when the biofuel companies come with their “sweet words”(according to an angry Kilwa woman), the people are ready and aware, and understand that they have the power to push them away if they don’t want them in their villages.  So at the moment, we are working on finding funding for this proposal and hope to be able to start sometime this year, because time may be running out …

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Dec 27 2008 | By: friendsofruaha

A video is worth at least a thousand words…enjoy!!

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Category: Workshops | Date: Dec 14 2008 | By: friendsofruaha

Jackson Ngowi, FORS Program Manager

Practicing different grafting techniques

Hello! My name is Jackson Ngowi and I work as FORS program manager. From 1st September to 25th October 2008 I had the opportunity to attend an environmental education course in South Africa. The course was highly participatory with participants from all over Southern Africa

It was very inspiring to visit different primary schools, secondary schools, municipalities, a community training centre and an organic farmers’ association. At all of these sites people are doing important activities that really have a positive impact on the environment.

When I came back to Iringa, it was great to start implementing some of the participatory methodologies that we had discussed in the course. Last month FORS organized a one day grafting workshop as a reward for three Idodi primary schools that had done an excellent job in creating and maintaining tree nurseries. The teachers appreciated the opportunity to learn about grafting and were eager to start practicing their new skill both in the schools and at home.

Mr. Elia, Head Teacher of Tungamalenga Primary School, said:
“We would like to thank FORS for organizing this workshop, for sure this training came right on time; this knowledge can help improve our lives in different ways. We have learned a lot today and we are hereby promising you that next year we will raise even more tree seedlings and we would like to transfer the knowledge of grafting to our students.”

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Category: Film Shows | Date: Nov 27 2008 | By: friendsofruaha

Hello everybody! I am Magreth Fadhili and I work for Friends of Ruaha Society as Program Manager. I want to share with you one of the most productive activities FORS did this year: environmental film shows. This year we conducted film shows at 23 primary schools and villages in Idodi and Pawaga divisions, and more than 10,000 villagers and 15,000 students attended the shows! It was amazing to see the big group of villagers that gathered to see the evening film shows. Because there is no electricity and few televisions (run by generators) in Idodi and Pawaga, villagers rarely have the opportunity to enjoy cinema and learn about local and global environmental issues through films and shows. So it was a big encouragement for me to conduct these film shows because I felt that our environmental messages were reaching many people.

Villagers really enjoyed the films and said they learned a lot about current environmental issues by watching the films. After showing The Great Ruaha River, one villager from Tungamalenga said: “I didn’t know why the Ruaha River dries up every year and I didn’t understand how important the river is for people and wildlife. But now I realize why water scarcity and temperature increases in our areas are damaging for both people and wildlife alike.”

I want to thank one of our fellow WildlifeDirect bloggers, Tanya Trevor Saunders from the African Environmental Film Foundation (AEFF), because many of the films we showed, including The Great Ruaha River, are environmental films Tanya and the AEFF team donated to us. Check out their blog: http://filmingwild.wildlifedirect.org/

These environmental film shows are an annual activity part of our EE program in Idodi and Pawaga and I’m already looking forward to next year’s film shows!

Tags: Environmental Film Shows

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Category: Assessments | Date: Nov 21 2008 | By: friendsofruaha

Hi everybody! We are Friends of Ruaha Society, a small NGO based in Iringa, southern Tanzania. There are currently four of us in the office, two “watanzania” and two “wazungu,” and we regularly go out into the field to conduct environmental education in the schools and villages that border Ruaha National Park, the largest and most beautiful (sorry, we’re biased!) park in all of Africa.

We’ve just gotten back from some intense and HOT days in the field: Magreth and Jackson took one of our aging Land Rovers out to Pawaga district, where they visited 13 primary schools in 4 days, and Anette and I (Alexander) took the other Land Rover to Idodi district, where we visited 10 schools in 3 days. Our goal on these trips was to assess students’ knowledge of wildlife, one of four modules in the FORS environmental education curriculum.

In these pictures, Anette is doing her best hippo impression to the delight of Standard I and II students at Kitanewa Primary School, and a group of Standard III students from Mafuluto Primary School are holding up a picture of an elephant in response to a wild animal riddle game. We were pleased to see that most students are knowledgable about local wildlife, and did well on the questionnaires (for Standards IV, V and VI) that we gave them.

All of these schools are located in villages that have Wildlife Management Areas bordering Ruaha National Park. Of course, the animals don’t stay within the boundaries of the park, so villagers get regular visits from elephants, impala, kudu, hyena, wild dogs, etc. Human-wildlife conflicts are an issue in these villages, which is why it’s important for us to start early and cooperate with local teachers to ensure that primary school children learn to value wildlife.

We welcome you to our blog and would love to hear your comments about our work. We will try our best to post once a week, even when we’re in the field, and we would be very grateful to receive your donations. Every little bit helps!

Tags: assessment

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