Forestry resources in Tanzania's wetlands:concepts and potentials

Abstract

Forestry resources include land occupied by, or proclaimed to be forest; the produce found insuch land; and human resources capable of fostering the development of such resources. The following landscape units constitute Tanzania's wetlands: estuaries, open coasts, wetlands incoastal forests, floodplains, freshwater marshes, lakes, peatlands, swamp forests, and ground water forests. Wetlands are sources of food and forest produce, contain plants potentially suitable for agro-forestry and phyto-reclamation, reduce beach erosion, and arc sources of genetic material.Most wetlands face intensive utilisation pressure which endangers their continued existence. Given the multi-utility of wetlands and their diversity in structure, it is not possible to adopt asingle conservation strategy. The ecosystem approach to conservation, incorporating thepreservation of genetic and ecological diversity alongside scientific research, environmentalmonitoring, education and training, is advocated in preference to traditional conservation. Public awareness of the uniqueness of Tanzania's flora and fauna needs to be strengthened as this should guarantee the long term protection of wetlands.