FSC Issues and studies. HJ van Hensbergen Wildhorus Limited

Pre Assessment Process. Visits to KVTC January & April 2002 Inspection of field operations. Examination of management plans Discussion with local stakeholders (2 villages). Discussion with NGOs and regulatory authorities.

Key Issues Identified Forest conversion. Impact monitoring. Vegetation identification in planning. Water quantity. Social assessment. Social heritage information.

FSC Criterion 6.10 Forest conversion to plantations or non-forest land uses shall not occur, except in circumstances where conversion: a)entails a very limited portion of the forest management unit; and b)does not occur on high conservation value forest areas; and c)will enable clear, substantial, additional, secure, long term conservation benefits across the forest management unit.

Environmental Impact Monitoring Frontier (an NGO active in the area) have conducted monitoring of large game, butterflies & rodents in plantations. Main issue is impact of teak plantation on remaining Miombo. Monitoring system to be developed based on butterflies and birds.

Design of monitoring system. Identify undisturbed, lightly disturbed and heavily disturbed miombo areas as reference sites. Use standardised sampling to identify bird and butterfly communities representative of these. Birds and butterflies are good monitoring tools since their movement means they integrate the environment in space and time. Use ordination to monitor the movement of communities in two dimensional space.

Ordination Results. Unburnt Recently Burnt Recovering

Identifying sites to be excluded from planting. Existing system is largely based on trees. There is a need to incorporate the rich ground level flora into the process. The system must be usable by the existing site selection teams after training. The system must be cost-effective, cheap and quick.

Identifying plant communities. Braun-Blanquet Relevee. Two Way Indicator Species Analysis. Identifies Plant Communities. Enables communities to be recognised using indicator plant species characteristic of the community Site selection teams can be trained to recognise indicator species. Local knowledge (Tanzanian experts) can then be used to decide which communities need extra protection.

Water Quantity Social Stakeholders expressed concerns about teak trees drying up streams. This concern is reasonable since other plantation species have significant impact on streams in other parts of the world. It is necessary to evaluate the likely impact of teak trees planted in the scale and planting pattern found in the Kilombero Valley on stream flow.

Hydrological Modelling. There is a good scientific understanding of the impact of trees on stream flow from numerous studies around the world. A variety of catchment models have been developed to make predictions about hydrological impacts. A hydrologist well qualified in this field will develop models of representative Kilombero Valley sub- catchments in order to assess the impact of teak and to make recommendations about planting distances from stream edges. It is known that trees planted close to streams have a much higher impact on stream flow than trees in the middle of the plantation

Social Impact Assessment KVTC must understand the effect of its activities on the society of the districts. KVTC must have detailed knowledge of the social situation in the villages close to its plantations. Income Population, size and composition Food availability, water availability, health. Dependence on natural resources, forest land. Main risks to population. Communications, transport.

Social Assessment Official records and maps Discussions with village and ward officers. Interviews with interest groups. Women, Beekeepers, farmers, herders. Interviews with health officials. Interviews with social NGOs.

Social Heritage Resources. All societies exist in a historical and cultural context. Part of this context is represented by important sites on the ground. Graves, holy places, battle sites, ancestral homesteads. These must be identified where possible and protected from abuse. In Kilombero these sites are likely to be recent because of the recent human history which has displaced most of the original inhabitants.

Tanzanian Heritage Tanzania is known to be one of the cradles of the evolution of man. These prehistoric sites are important to Tanzania as a nation and to mankind in general. If there are such sites in the Kilombero region they should be identified and given appropriate protection.

Archaeological survey Recent sites will be identified as part of the social survey. An archaeological survey conducted by Tanzanian and foreign experts will try to identify sites of prehistoric occupation. Management advice will be developed so that these may be maintained in good order.