National forest programme: forestland tenure systems in Tanzania

This paper begins by exploring the history of tenure in Tanzania's forests. It states that, while the government has retained ownership of forests centrally; locally, people have used forest resources without restriction. This has led to the over exploitation of many forest resources and a lack of sense of ownership and responsibility among forest communities.The author states that the government plans to transfer management rights for forests while retaining tenure centrally, but that there is confusion over how this division of rights can occur legally. He discusses a lack of knowledge of forest resources, which in turn means there cannot be titles for land to transfer. There is also a lack of knowledge among the public around the proposed new laws.The paper recommends three priorities:improved tenure through participatory land use planning, land surveys, valuation and titling of land and transfer to relevant partiesthe development of land information systems though remote sensing training and infrastructure developmentsensitization of the public thorough the media about their rights and responsibilities with regard to forests.