Managing natural resources in the West Usambara Mountains: A glimmer of hope in the horizon

Past efforts in the management of natural resources in the West Usambara Mountains have not been successful mainly because the approaches were top-down and did not consider local communities important in natural resource management. Current initiatives active in the area have shown that participatory approaches involving all stakeholders as well as empowering local communities to take charge of natural resource management have more chances of success. Different biophysical, socio-economic, institutional and policy opportunities exist that can be exploited to attain sustainable natural resources management in the area. Scaling up of experiences obtained so far, exploiting indigenous knowledge on conservation, improvement in the information flow and market infrastructure and establishment of appropriate policies and by laws on natural resource management are some of the strategies for the way forward in attaining sustainable natural resource management in the West Usambara Mountains.