Village Land Use Planning: A Potential Tool for Greening Landscapes in Mbarali District, Mbeya

Overview

In Tanzania, village land use planning (VLUP) is a recently introduced tool for improving rural development processes. VLUP engages villagers in delineating their village land for various livelihood and environmental uses. Mbarali District in Mbeya Region, Southwestern Tanzania, experiences persistent conflicts over land and water resources due to declining land productivity and dwindling water resources for irrigation, environmental flows, power and livestock watering. VLUP has been introduced for managing land and water use conflicts, the environment and biodiversity conservation.

VLUP helps reduce conflicts

Assessments of one village (Mabadaga) with a formal VLUP and another with an informal VLUP (Matebete), reveal that VLUP helps reduce conflicts between land users within villages and enhances conservation efforts. Villagers have witnessed the return of annual stream flow, regeneration of natural vegetation in delineated areas for forests, re-emergence of wild animals and more systematic management of crop-livestock interactions. Furthermore, sedentary farmers assert that VLUP is highly valuable for acquiring a Certificate of Customary Right of Occupancy (CCRO).

Consideration needed for minority interests

Pastoralists tend to find that CCROs are less valuable on communally owned grazing lands and limit migration between grazing areas. It is also evident that a lack of consideration of minority interests, such as those of pastoralists, reduces the viability of VLUP for conflict management, particularly when grazing and water resources are scarce. Additionally, VLUP appears ineffective for resolving boundary conflicts between villages, which calls for other mechanisms for resolving these conflicts, as clear agreement on village boundaries is a prerequisite for initiating the VLUP process.