DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania - The United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) last week launched the
multi-million dollar project in the East Usambara Reserve areas aiming
at empowering residents of area to make good use of the resources for
their economic well being.
East Usambara is part of the
Eastern Arc Mountain Range which is considered one of the twenty five
biodiversity hot spots in the world. The East Usambara rain forests are
one of the most valuable conservation areas in Africa and one of the
biodiversity hot spots and centers of plant diversity of the world.
Their biological significance has been compared to the Galapagos
Islands.
The $422,072 (Tsh700million) project was made possible
after the - Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) offered the
fund for the project to be implemented in nineteen villages surrounding
the reserve as part of the implementation of the project dubbed “Green
Economy in Biosphere Reserves” (GEBR).
The project will enable
villagers to protect the reserve and use their resources wisely by
reducing deforestation and creating economic and entrepreneurship
related activities.
A member of the National Committee on Tanzania
Live Reserve, Mr. Joseph Kigula explained that some of the activities
that will be carried in the project include training in empowering
villagers to run economic activities in the reserve.
The economic
empowerment has already taken place in three out of the 19 villages and
was coordinated collaboratively between the Ministry of Natural
Resources and Tourism and The East Usambara Biosphere Reserve (EUBR)
biodiversity hot spot area offers living environment for more than
100,000 villages where the villagers were taught among other economic
activities business management, marketing, accounting, finance,
entrepreneurship and education in environmental conservation.
The
training is expected to expand understanding of the villagers about
business relationships with environmental conservation and capacity
building of entrepreneurship. Two other expected to take place at the
end of the year.
Some entrepreneurs said the launch of the project
will enable majority of the people living in the area to concentrate on
the economic activities they have been trained on and do away
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