Terminal Evaluation of the project on Improving Natural Resources use on the Eastern side of Udzungwa Mountains National Park, Tanzania

Background:
The Udzungwa Mountains National Park (UMNP) and its surrounding areas represent one of the few parts of the Eastern Arc Mountains range, a global biodiversity hotspot, which have endemic species of plants and animals and also have dense rainforest cover remaining from low to high altitude (approximately 250-2,500 m a.s.l). The mountains serve as water towers for surrounding high value agricultural land and feed streams and rivers flowing into the Great Ruaha and Kilombero Rivers and the Rufiji Basin. The water from the mountains supports various commercial services such as two of the countries key hydropower generation facilities (total capacity of 380 MW at the Kidatu and Kihansi hydropower stations connected to the national grid), irrigated agriculture, tourism and fisheries.
Despite the Udzungwa catchments being one of Tanzania’s critical water towers, information on its true value for the economy is poorly analysed, understood and documented. Unsustainable utilisation of forest, water and land resources in areas adjacent to the Park, particularly the Vidunda hills (adjacent to Great Ruaha River and Kidatu Dam) is alarming and threatening local people’s access to forest products and causes loss of ecosystem goods and services such as freshwater supply, fertile soils, building materials, fuelwood and non-timber forest products. The conservation of these forests is an essential pre-requisite to sustainable development not only in the districts immediately surrounding the land, but to the broader Tanzanian population through being part of the wider and vital Udzungwa Mountains. Sustainable catchment forest protection, management and restoration are needed to allow for maintenance of ecological services and local and national economic development. Unsustainable financing and inadequate coordination of partners’ efforts have led to limited impacts from previous conservation initiatives in the Udzungwa Mountains. There is a need to stop degradation on the Vidunda catchment and explore possible means for sustainably financing catchment management and protection.
Project Goal: The project goal, which the proposed project will contribute to, is “the integrity of the Udzungwa Mountains Catchment is conserved so that it continues to provide vital sustainable goods and services at local, national and international levels.”

Methodology:
The evaluation was conducted through reviews of key project documents as well as meetings and discussions with key stakeholders and Project beneficiaries adjacent to the Udzungwa Mountains National Park. Consultations were also undertaken with Morogoro Regional officials, the Regional Commissioner in
particular. Local Government representatives at villages/ district levels were also consulted. One of the key approaches employed in this assignment was undertaking systematic consultations. The methodology involved both primary and secondary data collection

Key findings:
The project intervention has increased conservation awareness among the target community. Although the level of increase could not be assessed, different interviewed respondents indicated this aspect. This also had been assessed through the physical change of the Vidundas which was reported to have been in a very critical condition before the project interventions.

The main objective of facilitating land use planning and implementation by WWF was to restore the degraded catchment forests of Vidunda so that the catchment continues to provide the required service for livelihoods of local communities and social economic development of the country. The positive sign of this could now be seen and this is based on the results from four sampled villages (Ruaha, Kifinga, Tundu and Iwemba) which have indicated a total area regenerated of about 1,887 ha equivalent to 6.4% regeneration of originally degraded area in Vidunda catchment. The process has also helped in identification and establishment of village forest reserves (6,858 ha). Farmers in Ruaha, Kifinga and Tundu villages (villages targeted for land reallocation) have stopped cultivation activities on the fragile steep slopes of Vidunda Mountains and regeneration is gradually taking place.

The evaluation team understands the difficult in realizing tangible project benefits direct to the human livelihoods within such short duration. However, some indirect livelihood benefits such as reduction of floods in the lowlands are acknowledged. Since the park remains to be an important protected area for both its biodiversity and the people living around it, there is a need for the project to set a long-term monitoring plan that will track both human impacts and benefits accrued from the park’s protection by the target community. This is to ensure that there will be a win-win scenario in the whole project implementation.

Another significant impact which under pins the success of this project is the fact that people in the project area have started using alternative source of energy (e.g. the use of biogas and the popularity of using rice husks in brick making). Also the project’s effort to implement efficient stoves, whereby about 30.6% of households have these stoves, was noted as a great move in ensuring reduced pressure on the natural resources in the Udzungwas. If this initial momentum is continued it will in the long run play a great impact on the sustainability of the project’s current impacts. It is the view of the evaluation team that close monitoring of the adoption of these new innovations would provide much confidence and define what should be the future direction and effort of the project.

Comments from the organisation, if any:
WWF-Norway view this final evaluation report as of very poor quality, not demonstrating quantifiable and tangible conservation and livelihood results, or otherwise achieved by the project. In addition, the overall poor quality of the project execution experienced during the projects lifespan does not provide a base for WWF-Norway to provide further support to this initiative unless major changes and improvements are planned. Unfortunately WWF-Norway did not see any improvements forthcoming, so will not support an additional phase of this project and will only fund some limited exit activities in 2010