Introduction

Southern Tanzania Elephant Program (STEP) proposes a community-based project that will conserve the threatened elephant population of the Udzungwa-Nyerere ecosystem, as well as reduce poverty, improve livelihoods and enhance social inclusion in communities affected by human-elephant conflict. The project will achieve these goals by building the capacity of farmers to implement methods that protect farms from elephant damage and increase community resilience through Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) and targeted outreach with farmers. The project will also test novel and innovative crop protection measures and develop a trajectory for scaling up these measures beyond the current focal area.

The proposed project contributes directly to the following GEF-7 strategic initiatives: conservation of threatened ecosystems and species and enhancing social inclusion by building community capacity for coexistence with elephants in an ecosystem of national and global significance to environmental conservation. The project also engages with sustainable agriculture and food security through mitigating crop damage and supporting investment in agriculture for household resilience.

The project is aligned with Tanzania?s national development framework, the Tanzania Development Vision 2025, by contributing towards high quality livelihoods through increasing benefits from conservation and enhancing local knowledge and skills for managing interactions with elephants. This project also contributes to the implementation of Tanzania?s first National Human-Wildlife Conflict Strategy (2020-2024, available at https://www.maliasili.go.tz/resources/view/national-human-wildlife-conflict-management-strategy), which was initiated by the Director of Wildlife and launched by the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism in October 2020. In particular, the project will contribute to Strategic Objective 1 (Community-Based Mitigation) through scaling up of farmer-led mitigation, Strategic Objective 4 (Community Benefits) through enhancing benefits and resilience through VSLAs and beekeeping, and Strategic Objective 7 (Research Priorities) through monitoring and evaluation of the efficacy and viability of mitigation methods.

The proposed project will contribute to three Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 1: End Poverty, SDG 5: Gender Equality and SDG 15: Life On Land.
? SDG 1: End Poverty. This project will contribute to this goal by diversifying livelihoods and improving food security among the rural poor in southern Tanzania. We aim to reduce crop losses from elephants, as measured against baseline data from 2019-2020 through beehive fences and other mitigation methods. The project will increase access to additional income sources from beekeeping and coexistence tourism and enhance local capacity for decision making around land use planning.
? SDG 5: Gender Equality. By involving women at all stages, this project will expand agency by promoting involvement in decision-making, resulting in programs that are inherently more applicable to the concerns of women. We will promote women?s participation and leadership in economic and nature conservation activities through involvement in CBOs and VSLAs. VSLAs provide women and youth with much needed access to loans and savings mechanisms, capacity building and business training, facilitating investment opportunities that are driven by female desires, transforming structures that tend to perpetuate the over-influence of men.
? SDG 15: Life on Land. By enhancing human-elephant coexistence and linking livelihoods to the presence of conservation areas through beekeeping and coexistence tourism, the project will contribute to the maintenance of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services provided by the Udzungwa and Magombera forests. These forests serve as important water catchments which provide water for households, irrigation for agriculture and electricity generation for Tanzania?s natural grid.



Udzungwa-Nyerere: an ecosystem of global environmental significance

The southern Tanzania landscape spans three major Protected Areas, including Ruaha National Park-Rungwa Game Reserve (45,000 km2), Udzungwa Mountains National Park (1990km2) and Nyerere National Park (formerly Selous Game Reserve, 30,000km2), of global significance for biodiversity conservation. Critical to the ecological functionality of this landscape is the Kilombero Valley, which lies between Udzungwa and Nyerere. The Kilombero Valley is a densely populated (population ~180,000) and extremely fertile matrix of villages, agriculture, grazing lands, and diminishing wildlife habitats (Jones et al. 2012; Kato 2007). The Kilombero Valley contains wildlife corridors from Nyerere to Udzungwa which represent the most critical and highly threatened link of connectivity between Tanzania?s western and southern elephant populations, which comprise 35% of East Africa?s elephants (Thouless et al. 2016). After a decline of >50% in the elephant population due to poaching between 2009 and 2015 (Thouless et al. 2016), the most recent census by the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI) shows southern Tanzania?s elephant populations to be stable (TAWIRI 2019). However, long-term conservation efforts are needed to allow these populations to recover to their former numbers.

The Udzungwa Mountains National Park (UMNP) is home to more than 400 bird species, 2500 plant species (25% of which are endemic) and six primate species, two of which are endemic (the Udzungwa red colobus monkey and Sanje mangabey). The range of this park is unique in that its vegetation cover is still predominant from low to high altitude, and it supports some of the most ancient and diverse biological communities in Africa. On the western edge of Nyerere National Park is Magombera Nature Forest Reserve, another critically important wildlife habitat in the Kilombero Valley. The Magombera Nature Forest Reserve is also home to populations of the endangered Udzungwa red colobus monkey, Verdcourt?s Polyalthia tree and the large-leaved Memecylon tree. In addition, the endangered Luke?s Cynometra tree occurs mainly in riparian gallery forests now protected in the nature reserve. Numerous other internationally threatened species of plants and animals are present, including the Udzungwa dwarf galago, African elephants, and hippopotamus.

Human-elephant conflict: a pressing conservation and poverty issue

In addition to being vital wildlife habitat, the Kilombero Valley is valuable and productive farmland. The land adjacent to these protected areas is used intensively for rice and sugar production. Magombera Forest in particular provides important ecological services such as protection from floods and soil erosion. The increase in human activity in the Kilombero Valley over the last 40 years has led to human-wildlife conflict (HWC), a pressing issue for both conservation and poverty. In particular, crop losses from elephants contribute directly to food insecurity, prompting negative attitudes towards elephants that can result in retaliatory killings, tolerance of poaching and a decline in community support towards conservation. Finding ways to reduce or resolve such conflicts are vital for the viable conservation of Tanzanian elephants, and for the welfare of local communities.

STEP?s work in the Kilombero Valley aims to enhance human-elephant coexistence and reduce poverty through deterring elephants from agricultural fields using beehive fences and through trialing other mitigation methods, and supporting livelihoods through developing additional sources of income through beekeeping, VSLAs and exploratory work in coexistence tourism. STEP selected the beehive fence model as its primary HEC mitigation strategy after years of trials and extensive monitoring and evaluation. The well-watered and forested environment is conducive to bee populations and the structure of beehive fences in the Kilombero Valley provide protection to a large number of farms. Beehive fences reduce crop losses by deterring elephants from farms (King et al. 2011; Scheijen et al. 2019). Elephants are fearful of bees and when beehives along the fence are occupied, elephants come into contact with bees at the fence. Beehive fences also provide additional income through honey sales. STEP has endeavored to foster a local beekeeping industry through the production and processing of high-quality honey. While there are limited opportunities to sell honey at a premium price, STEP?s team works to foster connections between mid- and low-range buyers as well to keep a steady stream of income coming from honey sales. STEP?s work with seven local farmers groups in the area has shown that crop-loss reduction projects which also provide alternative income, such as beehive fences, can effectively promote coexistence by linking local livelihoods to elephant conservation and thereby increase people?s tolerance of elephants. Our successful model for coexistence projects involves helping farmers register a community-based organization, providing some beehive fence construction materials (groups provide labor and other basic materials and sign a Memorandum of Understanding that works towards handover of the beehive fence in two-four years), building farmers? beekeeping, financial and management skills via training, and facilitating access to honey markets in Tanzania. The role of women in these groups is essential. Women face cultural, structural and practical barriers to involvement in the formal economic sector (including primary responsibility for childcare, household-focused agriculture and domestic maintenance) as well as lack of access to (and control of) capital, resources and training which can pose a challenge to their participation in community-based human-elephant coexistence projects. During project orientation meetings, STEP communicated to our partners and beneficiaries the importance of women and youth participation in human-elephant coexistence efforts. During interviews with prospective group members during formation of new CBOs, STEP asked women about their concerns with regards to beehive fence projects and VSLAs. The primary concern was that men would be favoured for group membership and for leadership positions. We addressed this concern by requiring minimum 50% representation of women and youth in group membership, and 33% of leadership roles to be women. Throughout training and group formation, STEP continued to emphasize the important role of women and youth in beehive fence projects and VSLAs and encouraged women and youth participation during training and discussions through moderation by STEP?s team. We also asked farmers groups to choose meeting times that accommodate members? other responsibilities. STEP?s Human-Elephant Coexistence Coordinator for Kilombero is a woman and has been told by farmer? groups members that she is a role model for women who hold leadership positions. We also conduct gender sensitive project monitoring to ensure women, youth and men benefit equally from project involvement. Before establishing our newest farmers? group, we consulted with our current groups via a series of key informant interviews with female members. Overall, feedback was positive. Female members thought that STEP was committed to ensuring equal access to opportunities and resources and appreciated our structural interventions to ensure female members in positions of leadership.