| He said “In the beginning, we agreed to work with district council forest staff as they said the government |
| has decided to give back the forests to local people to protect them and collect our needs from the forest |
| like firewood. We were asked to formulate Village forest management Committee which would work with |
| the district people on behalf of the community in protecting the forest. We were asked to plan the way of |
| using the forests without destroying them and we did. The problem is that thereafter there was |
| misunderstanding among village government (village council) leaders and that forest management |
| committee. The whole village leadership collapsed and we elected new village government. Therefore, all |
| forest management arrangements ended with the previous village leadership. However we continued to |
| protect our forests and get our needs there until when district people wanted to give the forest to African |
| Wildlife Foundation (AWF) with the name of REDD+ project. We refused to work with AWF because they |
| are Tarangire National Park people. It is hard to believe TANAPA people you know! They can take our |
| forest as they did to other places we heard in Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions. Although we refused to |
| work with AWF as our partners, they forced us to accept REDD+ project and have imposed many |
| restrictions on the forests. To date if we enter the forest we get caught by a team of forest guards of AWF |
| trained from every village and sometimes with park rangers of Tarangire national Park who join district |
| people in patrolling the forest. When youngsters are caught cutting poles for repairing or constructing a |
| house they are beaten hardly without taking them to court, which is against the Forest Act and our village |
| by-laws”. |
