Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 162 (2012) 90–100 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment jo u r n al hom ep age: www.elsevier.com/locate/agee Biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation in Namtumbo District, Tanzania Richard Y.M. Kangalawe a,* , Christine Noe b a Institute of Resource Assessment, University of Dar es Salaam, P.O. Box 35097, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania b Geography Department, University of Dar es Salaam, P.O. Box 35149, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 19 August 2011 Received in revised form 20 August 2012 Accepted 22 August 2012 Keywords: Biodiversity conservation Community livelihoods Poverty alleviation Wildlife management areas Namtumbo District Tanzania a b s t r a c t The emergence of community-based conservation across the world has been associated with ecological, political and socio-economic benefits. However, lack of active involvement in planning and limited access to conservation areas makes the economic prospects of initiatives like the Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) rather questionable. This study was undertaken in the Mbarang’andu WMA in Namtumbo Dis- trict, Tanzania to assess the contribution of community-based conservation approaches such as WMAs in enhancing conservation of wildlife resources and poverty alleviation around protected areas. The study methods used included participatory rural appraisal, key informant interviews, direct field observations and household survey. A sample of 10% of the village households was selected for interview. LandSat images from 1995 were used in mapping the physical resource base and land use/cover types of the district. Household data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Findings from the study indicate that much of the village land has been allocated for biodiversity conservation in form of forests and/or WMAs. However, there is little evidence to show the results of such interventions in terms of poverty alleviation, which constrains other local livelihoods while benefiting distant resource users such as private investors. The article argues that to enhance local involvement in conservation of biodiversity while addressing poverty issues, mechanisms for accessing wildlife and forest resources would need to be reconsidered. In particular, this study establishes that the hunting quotas to the villages surrounding the WMA need to be increased to enhance community access to animal protein. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The relationship between biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation has been the subject of intense debate amongst the scientific community for several decades. The urgency of global poverty elimination has made the relation between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction an important element of the debate especially since the beginning of the 21st century (Adams, 1999; Adams et al., 2003). While there is a diversity of opinions as to the nature and scale of conservation–poverty reduction links and the most appropriate mechanisms that can help to maximise them, it has widely been accepted that biodiversity loss and poverty are linked problems and that the two should be tackled together (cf. Fisher et al., 2008; Pearce, 2011). These authors argue that livelihoods of the rural poor and options for conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity are so intimately entwined that they are better addressed through an integrated approach, irrespective of whether the primary motivation is one of devel- opment or conservation. Nevertheless, the link has remained more * Corresponding author. Tel.: +255 22 2410144; fax: +255 22 2410393. E-mail address: kangalawe@ira.udsm.ac.tz (R.Y.M. Kangalawe). complicated and contradictory, which may explain why there have been so few detailed studies addressing the link between the two (Pearce, 2011). There is an increasing concern that global efforts to maintain biodiversity are sometimes in conflict with those to reduce poverty (Adams et al., 2004). For instance, the 20th century witnessed the establishment of many protected areas in response to the loss of biodiversity. These protected areas caused the foreclosure of future land use options, with potentially significant economic opportu- nity costs (Adams et al., 2004). In the creation of national parks in Tanzania, for instance, the eviction of former occupiers of land and changes in livelihood strategies caused the exacerbation of poverty because in the process the concerned communities lost their land that was a major source of livelihoods for generations (Parkipuny, 1997; Songorwa, 2004; Shivji and Kapinga, 1998). The issue of land scarcity and its connections to rural poverty is also reported in other parts of Africa. Ellis and Bahiigwa (2003) reported, for instance that, in Uganda rural poverty is strongly associated with lack of land (and livestock), as well as inability to secure non-farm alternatives to diminishing farm opportunities. As much of land is enclosed for wildlife protection, it is still argued that the remaining wilderness in Africa may be its only hope for overcoming its poverty (Pinnock, 1996). 0167-8809/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2012.08.008