Assessment of socio - economic and ecological values of halfmile strip buffer zone to the adjacent communities of Kilimanjaro National Park

M.Sc. DissertationIn many developing countries people have viewed buffer zones as a way to accommodate the needs of national parks and other categories of wildlife protected areas and in sustaining livelihoods of the local communities living adjacent to these protected areas. This study was done from September 2015 to April 2016 in eight villages adjacent to Kilimanjaro National Park in order to assess the impacts of annexing Kilimanjaro Half Mile Forest Strip (HMFS) to KINAPA. Household survey questionnaires, key informants interview, focus groups discussion, field observations and secondary data from different sources were used to collect information. The data were analyzed using SPSS computer programme, Graph Pad InStat and descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that 64% of respondents reported that they get firewood from their own home gardens and only 25% from HMFS. It was further observed that collection of fodder and firewood is performed by women while beekeeping activities are undertaken by men. Further, approximately 35% of respondents mentioned water to be the most significant ecological value and the forest cover has declined from 47.14% to 12.14% the period between year 2001 to 2014. Nearly 63% of respondents revealed poor relationship with the park management. Local community’s livelihoods were perceived to be affected by the new management of HMFS, which denied them accessibility to forest products and water services. Thus, from this study, annexation of HMFS had a positive impact to KINAPAs ecosystem and negatively affected neighbouring local community socio-economically. The study recommend communities to be allied with eco-tourism to minimize dependence on natural resources only