PANGANI BASIN WATER BOARD

IUCN WATER AND NATURE INITIATIVE 

IUCN IUCN IUCN WATER WATER AND AND NATURE NATURE INITIATIVE 

INITIATIVE 

PANGANI BASIN WATER BOARD 1 

PANGANI PANGANI BASIN BASIN WATER BOARD 1 

Basin Delineation Report 


PANGANI RIVER BASIN FLOW ASSESSMENT 


Pangani Basin: Final Situation Report 

Analysis (2 nd Edition) 

Pangani Basin: A Situation Analysis (2 nd Edition) 

PANGANI RIVER BASIN FLOW ASSESSMENT 

J. King, C. Brown, J. Turpie, B. Clark, A. Duffel-Graham, G. Lugomela, H. Sadiki, B. L. Benno, A. 

Hepelwa, L. T Kaaya, D Salum, L. Lukambuzi, E. Materu, Felix Peter, S. Kamugisha, F. Mahay and H. 

Beuster 

Basin Delineation 2009 

2009 Report 

January 2008 

Final Report 

J. King, C. Brown, J. Turpie, B. Clark, A. Duffel-Graham, G. Lugomela, H. Sadiki, B. L. Benno, A. 

Hepelwa, L. T Kaaya, D Salum, L. Lukambuzi, E. Materu, Felix Peter, S. Kamugisha, F. Mahay and H. 

Beuster 

1 As of 2010, 1 As of Pangani 2010, Pangani Basin Basin Water Water Office Office is known is known as as Pangani Pangani Basin Water Board 

1 As of 2010, Pangani Basin Water Office is known as Pangani Basin Water Board 

January 2008

Coast Development Authority 

Pangani Basin: 

A Situation Analysis (2 nd Edition)

Pangani Basin: 

A Situation Analysis (2 nd Edition) 

IUCN Eastern and Southern Africa Programme 

2009 

i

Published by: 

Copyright: © 2009 International Union for Conservation of Nature and Naturals 

Resources 

This publication may be produced in whole or part and in any form for education 

or non-profit uses, without special permission from the copyright holder, 

provided acknowledgement of the source is made. IUCN would appreciate 

receiving a copy of any publication which uses this publication as a source. 

No use of this publication may be made for resale or other commercial 

purpose without the prior written permission of IUCN. 

Citation: 

IUCN Eastern and Southern Africa Programme, 2009. The Pangani River 

Basin: A Situation Analysis, 2 nd Edition, xii + 82pp. 

ISBN: 978-2-8317-1186-7 

Design and layout: 

Printed by: 

1 

2 3 4 

5 

6 

9 10 

7 8 

Gordon O. Arara 

Colourprint Ltd. 

Photo 1: The summit of Mount Kilimanjaro; Photo 2: Forest stand at Shire 

Njoro; Photo 3: Gate controlling the release of water into irrigation furrows; 

Photo 4: Children swimming in an irrigation reservoir; Photo 5: Sisal 

plantations; Photo 6: Irrigated rice scheme; Photo 7: Water gauging station 

at Chemka Spring; Photo 8: Vandalized gate controlling the release of water 

into irrigation furrows; Photo 9: Dam wall at Nyumba ya Mungu Reservoir 

(color changes mark the declining water levels); Photo 10: A vendor sells 

water from a borehole. 

Photos 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 copyright 2003 Kelly West; Photos 2, 7 copyright 2002 

Kim Geheb; Photos 4, 10 copyright 2003 Ger Bergkamp. 

Available from: 

IUCN - ESARO Publications Service Unit, P. O. Box 68200 - 00200, Nairobi, 

Kenya; Telephone ++ 254 20 890605-12; Fax ++ 254 20 890615; E-mail: 

earo@iucn.org 

The designations of geographical entities in this book, and the presentation of the material, do not imply 

the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the participating organizations concerning the 

legal status of any country, territory, or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its 

frontiers or boundaries. 

The opinions expressed by the authors in this publication do not necessarily represent the view of PBWO, 

CDA, WANI or IUCN. 

ii

Contents 

Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................................v 

Preface..............................................................................................................................................vii 

Executive summary........................................................................................................................viii 

A Introduction to the Pangani River Basin Situation Analysis ..................................................1 

A.1 An overview of the Pangani River Basin..................................................................................1 

A.2 Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) ..........................................................................5 

A.3 The Water and Nature Initiative (WANI) .................................................................................6 

A.4 Situation Analysis: objectives and outputs...............................................................................7 

A.5 Data sources...........................................................................................................................7 

A.6 Situation Analysis Structure.....................................................................................................8 

B 

C 

D 

The Pangani River Basin’s natural resources..........................................................................9 

B.1 Introduction..............................................................................................................................9 

B.2 Basin forests............................................................................................................................9 

B.3 Water and wetlands...............................................................................................................15 

B.4 Protected areas.....................................................................................................................18 

B.5 Biodiversity and conservation................................................................................................19 

B.6 Fisheries................................................................................................................................22 

B.7 Soils.......................................................................................................................................22 

B.8 Summary of points ................................................................................................................22 

The socio-economy of the Pangani River Basin....................................................................24 

C.1 Overview...............................................................................................................................24 

C.2 Industrial interests.................................................................................................................26 

C.3 Farming interests..................................................................................................................26 

C.4 Pastoralist interests...............................................................................................................29 

C.5 Urban interests......................................................................................................................30 

C.6 Interventions by NGOs and international organisations in the PRB.....................................30 

C.7 Conflict..................................................................................................................................32 

C.8 Summary of points................................................................................................................38 

Natural Resource Management in the Pangani River Basin.................................................45 

D.1 Introduction...........................................................................................................................45 

D.2 Government management, Legislation and policy................................................................45 

D.3 Community-level administration............................................................................................50 

D.4 Transboundary basin management......................................................................................53 

D.5 Data collection and monitoring..............................................................................................54 

D.6 Summary of points................................................................................................................54 

E Pangani River Basin problems and issues.............................................................................56 

E.1 Introduction...........................................................................................................................56 

E.2 Problems and issues of the PRB..........................................................................................56 

E.3 Priority areas for Action.........................................................................................................60 

F 

Conclusions...............................................................................................................................62 

F.1 Synthesis of findings..............................................................................................................62 

G References................................................................................................................................. 66 

iii

H 

Appendix 1: Smaller basins included in the administrative Pangani Basin........................74 

H.1 Introduction...........................................................................................................................74 

H.2 The Umba River Catchment.................................................................................................74 

H.3 The Zigi River Catchment ....................................................................................................75 

H.4 The Msangazi River Catchment...........................................................................................77 

H.5 The Coastal River Catchment (Mkulumuzi)..........................................................................80 

List of Tables 

Table 1: Tanzanian forest types, uses and legal status........................................................................9 

Table 2: Eastern Arc Mountain forest cover loss in the Pangani River Basin....................................13 

Table 3: Estimated water demand in 1995 and anticipated water demand in 2015...........................17 

Table 4: Tanzanian and Kenyan socio-economic basics 2001...........................................................25 

Table 5: Livestock population in selected areas of the Pangani River Basin (2002) .........................30 

Table 6: Water rights (WR) in the Pangani River Basin (Tanzania), May, 2003.................................47 

Table 7: Forest area under Joint Forest Management by region ......................................................52 

List of Figures 

Figure 1: The Pangani River Basin, spanning Tanzania and Kenya....................................................2 

Figure 2: The Pangani River Basin......................................................................................................3 

Figure 3: Forestry Administration in Tanzania....................................................................................49 

Figure 4: The Administrative Pangani River Basin.............................................................................81 

List of Plates 

Plate 1: The Pangani River Basin map..............................................................................................33 

Plate 2: The Administrative Pangani River Basin map.......................................................................34 

Plate 3: Kilimanjaro’s famous snowcap in 1993 and 2000.................................................................35 

Plate 4: The River Karanga at Moshi.................................................................................................36 

Plate 5: Mount Kilimanjaro.................................................................................................................36 

Plate 6: An Irrigation furrow in Moshi District.....................................................................................37 

Plate 7: The capped spring at Shiri - Njoro........................................................................................38 

Plate 8: Forested slopes on Mt. Meru................................................................................................38 

List of Boxes 

Box 1: Water Demand Management....................................................................................................6 

Box 2: Pangani River Basin forest basics..........................................................................................10 

Box 3: The Taita Hills.........................................................................................................................11 

Box 4: Threats to the PRB’s forests...................................................................................................14 

Box 5: Pangani River Basin water and wetland basics......................................................................15 

Box 6: Threats to the PRB’s water and wetland resources................................................................16 

Box 7: Pangani River Basin Protected Area threats..........................................................................19 

Box 8: Biodiversity hotspots...............................................................................................................20 

Box 9: Category 1 Globally threatened bird species of the Usambara Mountains.............................21 

Box 10: Traditional furrow design flaws.............................................................................................27 

Box 11: Sodicity and salinity...............................................................................................................29 

Box 12: Kenyan Water Administration................................................................................................48 

Box 13: The development of community-based management in Duru - Haitemba Forest, 

Arusha Region.....................................................................................................................50 

Box 14: An example of a Water User’s Association...........................................................................53 

iv

Abbreviations 

ANR ..................... Amani Nature Reserve 

ASL ...................... Above Sea Level 

AUWSA ................ Arusha Urban Water and Sanitation Authority 

BWB...................... Basin Water Board 

BWO..................... Basin Water Office 

CBNRM ................ Community-based Natural Resource Management 

CCM ..................... Chama Cha Mapinduzi 

CDA ...................... Coast Development Authority 

CFP ...................... Catchment Forest Project 

CFR ...................... Community Forest Reserves 

CPRs .................... Common Property Resources 

DFO ..................... District Forestry Officer 

DGIS..................... Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs 

EACBP ................. East Africa Cross-border Biodiversity Project 

EU-ACP................. European Union - Africa, Caribbean and Pacific region 

EU ........................ European Union 

FAO ...................... Food and Agricultural Organization 

FBD ...................... Forestry and Beekeeping Division 

GEF ...................... Global Environment Facility 

GIS ....................... Geographical Information Systems 

GoK ...................... Government of Kenya 

ha ......................... Hectares 

IRBM .................... Integrated River Basin Management 

IBA ....................... Important Bird Area 

IDA ....................... International Development Agency 

IUCN .................... International Union for Conservation of Nature 

JFM ...................... Joint Forestry Management 

kWh ...................... Kilo Watts per hour 

LGA....................... Local Government Authority 

LMIS ..................... Lower Moshi Irrigation Scheme 

MAFS ................... Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security 

MCM ..................... Million Cubic Metres 

MGR ..................... Mkomazi Game Reserve 

MMP ..................... Mangrove Management Project 

MOU ..................... Memoranda of Understanding 

MoWLD ................ Ministry of Water and Livestock Development 

MW ....................... Mega Watt 

NAWAPO.............. National Water Policy 

v

n.d. ....................... No Date 

NEMC ................... National Environmental Management Council 

NGO ..................... Non-governmental organisation 

NPF ...................... New Pangani Falls 

NORAD ................ Norwegian Aid 

NRM ..................... Natural Resources Management 

NWSDS................. National Water Sector Development Strategy 

NYM ..................... Nyumba ya Mungu Dam 

PA ......................... Protected Areas 

PBWB .................. Pangani Basin Water Board 

PBWO .................. Pangani Basin Water Office 

PRB ...................... Pangani River Basin 

PRBMP................. Pangani River Basin Management Project 

RBM ..................... River Basin Management 

RBMSIIP .............. River Basin Management and Small-scale Irrigation Improvement Project 

RCE ..................... Regional Centre of Endemism 

RHO ..................... Regional Hydrological Officer 

RNRO ................... Regional Natural Resources Officer 

SA ........................ Situation Analysis 

SNV....................... Netherlands Development Organization 

TANAPA ............... Tanzania National Parks 

TANESCO ............ Tanzania Electric Supply Company 

TCMP ................... Tanzania Coastal Management Partnership 

TCZCDP ............... Tanga Coastal Zone Conservation and Development Programme 

TFAP .................... Tanzania Forestry Action Plan 

TFCG ................... Tanzania Forest Conservation Group 

TIP ........................ Traditional Irrigation and Environmental Development Organisation 

TPC ...................... Tanzania Planting Company 

UNICEF ................ United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund 

UNDP ................... United Nations Development Program 

USAID .................. United States Agency for International Development 

VNRC ................... Village Natural Resource Committee 

VWN ..................... Vision for Water and Nature 

WANI .................... Water and Nature Initiative 

WDM .................... Water Demand Management 

WHO .................... World Health Organization 

WRMA .................. Water Resources Management Authority (Kenya) 

WRM Act .............. Water Resources Management Act 

WUA ..................... Water Users’ Association 

vi

Preface 

The objectives of the first edition of the Pangani Situation Analysis included identifying the resources that 

occupy the Pangani River Basin (PRB) and the processes and events that affect them, and identifying 

a series of broad action areas wherein interventions may feasibly be delivered. The final objective was 

to identify other organisations, interests or institutions with which IUCN may develop partnerships as it 

seeks to develop the Water and Nature initiative (WANI) initiative in the PRB. 

The IUCN Water and Nature Initiative (WANI) is an ongoing collaborative effort to address the world’s 

water crisis. WANI builds on the Water and Nature Vision and Framework for Action and is a response 

to the call for action expressed before, during and after the 2 nd World Water Forum in The Hague (March 

2000).The goal of WANI is to mainstream the ecosystem approach into river basin policies, planning and 

management. In selected demonstration site basins around the world, WANI strives to: demonstrate 

ecosystem management, empower people to participate in sustainable water management, support wise 

governance of water resources and wetlands, develop and apply economic tools and incentives, improve 

knowledge to support decision making and learn lessons and raise awareness about wise water use. 

Following consultations with stakeholders in the basin and culminating in a workshop hosted by Pangani 

Basin Water Office (PBWO) and IUCN – The International Union for Conservation of Nature in Moshi, 

Tanzania from 8-10 May 2002, the Pangani River Basin in Tanzania and Kenya was selected as a WANI 

demonstration site. 

As part of its project development activities for the Pangani River Basin, IUCN commissioned a consultant, 

Dr. Kim Geheb, to develop a Situation Analysis of this basin. The fieldwork for the Situation Analysis was 

carried out in November 2002, and involved interviews with a wide variety of stakeholders within the 

basin. Additional sources of information included published sources and the proceedings of the abovementioned 

workshop, entitled, ‘The Pangani River Basin: Options for Integrated Management.’ 

A first draft of the Situation Analysis was completed in late 2002 and distributed to stakeholders for 

review and comment. At a workshop hosted by PBWO and IUCN in Moshi in March, 2003, stakeholders 

gathered to comment on the Situation Analysis and suggest amendments. Additional comments and 

contributions have subsequently been received from both the PBWO and the Coastal Development 

Authority (CDA - Kenya) at a meeting held in Nairobi in May 2003 between IUCN, PBWO and CDA. 

In 2009, a reprint of the Situation Analysis was needed so it was decided to take this opportunity to 

update some of the information in light of the operation of the Water Resource Management Act in July 

2009. It should be noted that mainly information pertaining to the administrative structure, institutional 

arrangements, water law and policy has been addressed, as well as the impact of the Situation Analysis 

in developing the Pangani River Basin Management Project, but the remainder of the Situation Analysis 

has not been changed. Funding for the update and printing of this situation analysis comes from the 

Global Water Initiative which is supported by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. 

Felix Peter, Helen Lema, Fatuma Omar and Renalda Mukaja of the River Basin Management Project in 

the Ministry of Water & Livestock Development of Tanzania kindly provided the maps and area estimates 

in this document. 

vii

Executive summary 

The Pangani River Basin (PRB) covers an area of about 43,650 km 2 , mostly in Tanzania with approximately 

5% in Kenya. In Tanzania, the Basin is spread over four administrative regions: Kilimanjaro, Arusha, 

Manyara and Tanga. Most of the Kenyan portion of the Basin falls within the Taita – Taveta District. The 

Pangani River has two main tributaries, the Kikuletwa and the Ruvu, which join at Nyumba ya Mungu, a 

reservoir of some 140 km 2 . The effluent of the reservoir is known as the Pangani River, which flows for 

432 km before emptying into the Indian Ocean. 

The Basin contains a wide array of resources. For its 3.7 million Tanzanian inhabitants, water and arable 

land are arguably the most important. The Basin’s highlands receive substantially more rainfall than 

its lowlands. Nevertheless, highland farming intensities and the competition for land have meant that 

farmers have had to start irrigating their farms in order to maximise outputs. Those unable to obtain 

highland land have been forced to seek farmland in lowland areas, where rainfall is substantially less, 

and where irrigation is of paramount importance. This difficulty has been exacerbated by general rainfall 

declines within the Basin. 

The competition for land has ensured that other land uses within the Basin, such as forestry, have 

come into direct competition with agriculture. In some cases, forests are protected by their national 

park status, such as that in the Mt. Kilimanjaro National Park, which falls under the purview of Tanzania 

National Parks (TANAPA). Other forests are ostensibly protected by the Kenyan and Tanzanian forestry 

departments. Through a combination of low staffing levels and difficult financial circumstances, however, 

these often do not enjoy the same standards of protection as those lying within TANAPA territory. The 

pressure on the PRB’s coastal and Eastern Arc forests is of particular concern, given the high levels of 

biotic endemism within them. 

Other resources within the Basin are its mineral deposits, which include tanzanite, tin and gemstones, its 

fisheries, wetlands and its numerous tourist attractions. 

A host of different actors exploit these resources, and this Situation Analysis groups them as follows: 

• Industrial interests, which include the Basin’s important hydropower contributions to the 

national grid, mining and agro-industries such as sugar refineries and sisal processing 

plants. 

• Farming interests: much traditional farming in the Basin is supported by irrigation. Traditional 

irrigation furrows are highly inefficient, and may loose as much as 85% of water between the 

point of abstraction and its destination. There are also several large-scale farming interests 

in the Basin, including sugar cane, sisal and flowers. Between 29,000 and 40,000 ha of 

the Tanzanian part of the PRB are irrigated, consuming between 400 and 480 million cubic 

metres of water annually. 

• Pastoralist interests: present livestock population levels in the Basin are unknown. It is thought 

that, by 2015, pastoralism will consume 36,400 m 3 of water a day. 

• Urban interests: the Basin contains two major Tanzanian urban conurbations: Moshi and 

Arusha. As they grow, their demand for water has also escalated on two fronts: for industrial 

and domestic use, and as a means of disposing of waste. It is expected that, by 2015, urban 

water demand in the Basin will reach 163,600 m 3 /day. 

There are, therefore, a diversity of interests in the Basin, and these are able to wield various degrees of 

power as they seek to lay claim to its resources. These differences in power underlie the many conflicts 

that characterise natural resource exploitation within the Basin. This Situation Analysis classifies these 

different types of conflict as follows: 

viii

• Conflicts of scale: the relationship between water users of different sizes and power in the 

PRB is often described in dichotomous terms. Hence, large-scale plantations using hundreds 

of litres of water a second and employing highly efficient irrigation systems, differ starkly from 

small-scale users using far less water and employing very inefficient irrigation systems. The 

extremes involved in these regards are fertile grounds for conflict. This Situation Analysis 

provides empirical examples of such scale conflicts between urban and rural users, and 

between large and small-scale mining interests. 

• Conflicts of tenure: this document refers to tenure as the right to manage a resource. 

Throughout Tanzania, Community-based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) has 

been seen as an attractive way of increasing the efficiency of the nation’s Natural Resources 

Management (NRM) systems. This trend has been less marked in Kenya. The contention 

with these systems relates to the manner of their application and design. Here, communities 

may not be involved in the design of the management strategy, its implementation or even its 

justice systems. This may ensure that these institutions do not fulfil the management tasks 

that they were created to perform. Examples are provided of conflicts between communitylevel 

and government forestry management initiatives; between resource users of different 

kinds; and conflict over different management perspectives. 

• Conflicts of location: users located in upstream areas are placed more favourably visà-vis 

water abstraction than are downstream users. At its most basic, these problems can be 

seen along irrigation furrows where users close to the water source are able to grow crops 

with high water demands (such as irrigated rice) and those located at the end of the furrow 

obliged to plant low water demand crops. The serious problems faced by downstream 

hydropower plants are another example. Examples of such conflicts are those between 

upstream and down-stream water users, and conflicts between hydropower interests and 

small-scale irrigators. 

Conflict over resources is just one manifestation of the very high levels of competition that exist between 

the Basin’s resource users. The impact of a growing population, the Basin’s variable resource distribution 

and the finite nature of its resources mean that exploitation patterns are often deleterious. Examples of 

resource damage are as follows: 

• The Basin’s forests are threatened by logging, encroachment along their peripheries, demands 

for land, charcoal manufacture and fuelwood collection. Estimates suggest that up to 77% of 

the Eastern Arc Mountains’ forest has been lost over the past 2,000 years due to human 

activities, while 41 km 2 of Kilimanjaro’s natural forest was lost between 1952 and 1982. 

• The Basin’s water supplies are threatened by extremely high demands that have ensured that 

its water resources are considered ‘stressed’. The main sources of demand are inefficient 

furrow-based irrigation systems. The Basin’s swamps are threatened by the regulation of 

water by damming. 

• The Basin’s Protected Areas are threatened by poaching, and by threats similar to those 

faced by forest resources. 

• Most of the Basin’s biodiversity has been gained as a result of its unique array of forest habitat 

types. Threats to biodiversity, as a result, arise because of threats to habitat. 

• The fisheries of the PRB are threatened by excessive fishing pressure, and weed growth 

occasioned by high nutrient loads. Indeed, 24 tonnes of soil per hectare of catchment flows 

into the Nyumba ya Mungu (NYM) reservoir every year. In 1970, 28,509 tonnes of fish were 

landed from the NYM reservoir. Catches have declined substantially since then, and in 1983, 

2,430 tonnes of fish were landed. 

ix

A large number of governmental and non-governmental organisations exist within the Basin seeking to 

curb these trends and trying to improve the livelihoods of resource users. In recent years, perhaps the most 

important large-scale initiatives in the Basin are those of the World Bank-funded River Basin Management 

and Small-scale Irrigation Improvement Project (RBMSIIP), and the UNDP-GEF East Africa Cross-border 

Biodiversity Project (EACBP). The former project has been particularly important in strengthening the 

Pangani Basin Water Office (PBWO), as well as improving water-monitoring capabilities within the Basin. 

NGO initiatives in the Basin include those concerned with the integrated management of Tanzania’s 

coastline and its mangrove forests, and, in the north of the Basin, those concerned with the improvement 

of traditional irrigation practises, and facilitating lines of communication between local level resource 

users and the Basin’s formal administration. Additional initiatives have concentrated on the conservation 

of the Basin’s forests and wildlife resources. 

The formal administration of the Basin is complex. In Tanzania, typically two sources of management occur 

for any one resource: that provided by central government, and that provided by regional government. 

At the same time, the Pangani Basin Water Board (PBWB) has been introduced to the Basin with a view 

to providing a Basin-wide approach to the management of its water resources. This means that, in many 

instances, the lines of authority between the management of a resource and management providers may 

be ambiguous and/or confused. This type of confusion is replicated at the local level. As mentioned earlier, 

Tanzania has turned increasingly to Community-based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) as a 

way of improving its NRM. However, this has meant that committees or other community-level organisations 

have been created to deal with specific resources, and not natural resources generally. Hence, there are 

Village Natural Resource Committees (VNRCs), Water Users’ Associations (WUAs), Village Governments 

and others, complicating the delivery of management and augmenting transaction costs considerably. 

In Kenya, water resources have recently been placed under a Water Resources Management Authority 

(WRMA), which uses the river basin as its focus, and which is charged with the responsibility of integrating 

the management of such basins, and including stakeholder groups in the management structure. This is 

a relatively new initiative, and is likely to facing teething problems with respect to including stakeholders 

in the management structure, and difficulty integrating the various sectors of basins’ administration. 

Such a ‘sectoral’ approach to management is, therefore, present on both sides of the border, and refers to situations 

where departments are involved with the management of forests, water, irrigation, wildlife and other resources. 

This may ensure that management objectives and approaches run parallel to one another, and complicates the 

possibilities for integrated approaches to the Basin’s management. The PBWB, however, has representation from 

the various departments to at least ensure that they communicate with one another, the Board is mandated by 

the new Water Resources Management Act (WRM Act) to formulate the Pangani Integrated Water resources 

Management plan by mobilizing all players all resources users and managers in the basin. 

This Situation Analysis summarises the above problems and difficulties by identifying a series of issues 

that, it suggests, warrant significant managerial attention. Arguably, environmental problems are social 

ones. For convenience, and for the sake of highlighting the state of the PRB environment, these are 

divided between environmental and social issues as follows: 

Environmental issues: 

• Deforestation – causing water retention problems, increases runoff and hence promoting erosion, 

flooding and increased silt loads. 

• Demands for land – many forests are located in prime agricultural areas that receive high levels of 

rainfall. This is a significant threat to the Basin’s forest reserves 

• Farming practises: many of the basin’s farming techniques were developed at a time when 

populations were far smaller, and access to resources much better. As populations have increased, 

however, these same techniques may seriously threaten the Basin’s environmental integrity. The 

systems are not water efficient, and repeated irrigation may prompt salinity and/or sodicity. 

x

• Livestock increases: these are unknown, but are suspected to be considerable. With farming 

on the increase in the Basin’s lowland areas, pastoralist land has been taken out of production, 

exacerbating the potential for over-stocking. 

• Development: unmanaged development in the Basin is a concern given the potential for pollution 

and inadequate waste disposal that it represents. 

• Water quality: this is threatened by pollution, but also damaged by localised geological characteristics 

that may give rise to fluoride contamination. 

• Over-fishing: fishing pressures on the NYM appear to be excessive. Fishing is also threatened by the 

growth of waterweed on rivers and lakes, itself prompted by the increased nutrient loads of the Basin. 

• Mining: uncontrolled mining activities in the Basin threaten its landscape and the future productivity 

of its land. It also has serious pollution potential. Sand mining along rivers undermines the stability 

of riverbanks. 

• Lack of environmental awareness amongst the Basin’s inhabitants. 

Socio-economic and political issues 

• Poverty: because secondary and tertiary forms of employment are typically unavailable in the 

Basin’s commercial and industrial sectors, many of its inhabitants seek livelihoods in primary 

activities such as agriculture, the harvest of forest products, fishing etc. 

• Conflict: because so many are involved in primary activities, the potential for conflict arises between 

small-scale users, and between small and large-scale users. 

• Political expediency: politicians, eager to obtain votes from their constituents may sometimes 

encourage the wholesale exploitation of vulnerable resources. 

Issues of management and administration 

• Inadequate policies: policies that appear perfectly reasonable and carefully developed may be 

rendered impotent because their implementation cannot be monitored, and offenders are not 

sanctioned. 

• Funding problems: these arise at virtually every point of the Basin’s administration and range from 

difficulties in providing adequate remuneration to the purchase of technology to assist with Basin 

monitoring. 

• Lack of management integration: the divisions between regional and national level administration 

coupled with ‘sectoral’ management approaches, ensures that much of the Natural Resources 

Management (NRM) in the Basin is not integrated, with one sector or level of administration 

pursuing objectives and management styles different to the other levels or sectors of the Basin. This 

difficulty also occurs across international frontiers: no mechanism exists for Kenya and Tanzania to 

co-ordinate their management of the Pangani River Basin. 

• Problems with community administration: this relates, firstly, to the poor contributions communities 

make to the design, implementation and enforcement of the NRM systems that they are 

encumbered with. Second, many of these approaches, imposed from outside the community, seek 

the establishment of NRM committees of various types, resulting in a confusing plethora of locallevel 

organisations and prompting the sectoral difficulties described above, conflicts of authority 

and limited managerial success. 

On the basis of the issues defined above, the Situation Analysis identifies a series of priority areas for 

action. These are: 

xi

The development of integrated management strategies for the PRB along with attendant forums. There 

appears to be little doubt that the Pangani River Basin (PRB) urgently needs integrated management 

strategies that can cope with its diverse and complicated issues. Possible options that could be considered 

include the development of water demand strategies, assessing downstream water requirements for 

people and the environment, water incremental approaches to management, streamlining management 

and increasing the role played by communities in the design and implementation of integrated NRM. 

The development of effective strategies to facilitate dialogue amongst and between resource users 

and managers of different types and involved in different sectors with a view to improving awareness 

at all levels of management. Mechanisms are needed to ensure that dialogue opportunities between 

and amongst stakeholders and managers are maximised, so as to ensure that two-way exchanges of 

information may occur, dissemination improved and the knowledge of how stakeholders all play a part 

in the well-being of the Basin delivered. It is necessary that awareness is created about all aspects of 

the condition and management of the Basin and its stakeholders at all levels of management and its 

co-ordination. Additional components of this priority area are the development of forums capable of 

assuming this task, as well as serving as a mechanism to remedy conflict, and to bridge gaps between 

different levels of administration 

The identification and development of an adequate data collection and monitoring system. This action 

area is not restricted to the development of data collection systems for hydrological data. A satellite 

and GIS assessment of land use, exploitation rates and geographical change is a pre-requisite for the 

development of land-use planning and monitoring. The development of methodologies to assess and 

gauge the underlying social and economic causes of environmental degradation and resource overexploitation 

also needs to be identified. Such systems should also be capable of identifying water 

demands within the Basin. The data and monitoring systems recommended must match local funding 

and maintenance capabilities. 

xii

A Introduction to the Pangani River Basin 

Situation Analysis 

A.1 An overview of the Pangani River Basin 

The Pangani basin is one of 9-river basins gazetted in Tanzania according to the Water Utilization 

(Control and Regulation) Act No. 42 as amended in 1981 (Amendment No. 10) (repealed by Water 

Resources Management Act 2009) to devolve the responsibility for water management to the basin 

level. The Pangani Basin covers an area of about 58,800 km 2,1 administratively and includes the main 

Pangani River Basin and the smaller river basins of Umba, Msangazi, Zigi 2 , and Coastal Rivers, including 

Mukulumuzi. This Situation Analysis concentrates on the main Pangani River Basin. However, details of 

the smaller river basins governed by Pangani Basin Water Office are provided in Annex 1. 

The Pangani River Basin covers an area of 43,650 km 2,1 , out of which 3,914 km 2,1 lies in Kenya (Figure 1). 

In Tanzania, the Basin in distributed amongst the Kilimanjaro, Manyara, Arusha, and Tanga administrative 

regions of. The Kenyan portion of the Basin falls almost entirely within the district of Taita – Taveta. 

The Pangani River itself has two main tributaries, both of which rise in the basin’s northernmost portions. 

The first of these, the Kikuletwa, rises on the slopes of Mount Meru and the southern slopes of Mount 

Kilimanjaro, while the second, the Ruvu, rises on the eastern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro and Lake Jipe. 

These rivers join at Nyumba ya Mungu, a reservoir of some 140 km 2 (Røhr and Killingtveit, 2002). The 

Pangani River 3 drains the reservoir, flowing for 432 km before emptying into the Indian Ocean. 

Generally, the basin comprises a low elevation slope that drops gently south and southeastwards towards 

the Indian Ocean. On average, this landscape of ‘Maasai steppe’ lies at 800 m, and much of it receives 

little more than 500 mm of rain a year. In stark contrast, rising up out of the plain are a series of mountains 

whose altitude more than compensates for the difficult conditions of the plains. Up here, 2,000 mm of 

rain may fall per year. In effect, these mountains represent islands: while the plains around them display 

an unremarkable biodiversity and difficult livelihood conditions, the mountains are islands of spectacular 

biodiversity and biotic endemism. Humans have not failed to observe the qualities of these mountains, 

and even before the advent of Tanzania’s colonial administration, the mountains of the Pangani River 

Basin (PRB) were the most densely populated areas on the plain. 

As the Pangani River curves eastwards, and descends onto Tanzania’s coastal plain, it yet again 

encounters enigmatic climatological and environmental conditions. Unlike the climates of the north, 

which have changed substantially over millennia from ice age to ice age, the climate generated out of 

the Indian Ocean has remained remarkably stable. The entire coastal plain of East Africa exhibits forest 

1 

Many previous studies cite the catchment area of the administrative Pangani Basin in Tanzania as 56,300 km 2 , 

and the area of the main Pangani River Basin in Tanzania and Kenya as 42,200 km 2 based on planimeter estimates 

made by S. Kamugisha (1992). Subsequently two different institutions (TANRIC at University of Dar es Salaam 

and the River Basin Management Project in the Ministry of Water & Livestock Development) have estimated these 

areas using GIS. These recent estimates are larger than the previous planimeter estimates. These discrepancies 

are probably a result of different interpretations of the basin boundaries, especially on the west side and differences 

between planimeter and GIS methods (Kamugisha & Mwakalinga pers. com., 2003). 

2 

Some authors use ‘Sigi’ spelling, ‘Zigi’ is the preferred spelling of the catchment’s residents (pers. comm., 2003) 

3 

Some maps and studies refer to the effluent of Nyumba ya Mungu reservoir as the Ruvu River until it joins with the 

Mkomazi River, at which point it becomes the Pangani River. This study will refer to the entire stretch, from Nyumba 

ya Mungu to the estuary, as the Pangani River. 

1

patches of great antiquity, and its 

climate has ensured that these 

forests have been preserved in 

climatological stability. Climate 

change elsewhere on the African 

continent completely altered 

environmental conditions, forcing 

wholesale extinctions and the 

recommencement of evolutionary 

processes, so that Tanzania’s 

coastal forests little resemble 

forest elsewhere on the continent. 

Like the mountains of the PRB, 

these forests display staggering 

biodiversity and endemism. 

Today, there live an estimated 3.7 

million people in the Tanzanian 

portion of the Basin, while in Kenya 

the Taita – Taveta’s population 

is around 40,900. Settlement 

patterns within the Basin reflect the 

uneven environmental conditions 

of the Basin. In Tanzania, 90% 

of the Basin’s population live in 

its highlands, and 80% of them 

depend, directly or indirectly, 

on agriculture for a livelihood 

Figure 1: The Pangani River Basin, spanning Tanzania and Kenya 

(Source: River Basin Management Project) 

(Mwamfupe, 2002). This settlement concentration yields population densities of up to 300 people per 

km 2 . In 1988, Tanzania’s coastal regions had a population density of 28.4 people per km 2 (excluding Dar 

es Salaam), up from just 18 per km 2 in 1967. On the West Usambara Mountains, populations have grown 

23-fold since 1900, while in the highland areas of Mt. Kilimanjaro, population densities are as high as 900 

people per km 2 (Gillingham, 1999). In contrast, lowland areas exhibited substantially lower densities of 

around 65 people per km 2 

Historically, the Basin’s occupants have practised economies that have reflected the divergent environmental 

conditions of the Basin. The lowlands supported pastoralists, while the highlands have supported 

agriculturalists. With the advent of European colonialists, great swathes of farming land were ‘alienated’ 

for plantation farming. In Kenya’s Taita – Taveta District, virtually all land was set aside for sisal cultivation. 

This ensured that farming intensities magnified. Johnston (1946) claims that, in 1943, landholdings in the 

Kilimanjaro highlands were, on average, 1.2 ha apiece. In 1946, they were just 2.5 m 2 . 

Average holding sizes in the Kilimanjaro highlands have, apparently, grown since then, and Lein (2002) 

claims holding sizes to be an average of 0.6 ha per household. Lowland households farm an average 

area of 10.4 ha. 

The latter average is likely to decline. As plot sizes in the highlands become smaller and smaller, plots 

less able to provide a livelihood, and soils exhausted from excessive cropping and irrigation, people have 

been forced to seek land in the lowland areas. Naturally, population has concentrated along the Pangani 

River Basin’s (PRB’s) rivers, and irrigation is extremely widespread. As a result, the biodiverse islands 

that pepper the Basin floor are under unrelenting pressure. 

2

Figure 2: The Pangani River Basin 

see also Plate 1, page 43 


3

At its core, therefore, the problems of the PRB relate to population density and the two key farming and 

pastoralist ingredients: land and water. The interaction of these variables, and the claims that people 

make on the Basin’s resources, has yielded a series of different conflict types: 

Conflicts of scale 

The relationship between water users of different sizes in the Pangani River Basin is often described 

in dichotomous terms. Hence, large-scale plantations using hundreds of litres of water a second and 

employing highly efficient irrigation systems differ starkly from small-scale users using far lower water 

volumes and employing very inefficient irrigation systems. These scale differences are not restricted to 

technologies, but to land. Large-scale users nearly always use more land than small-scale users. One 

important exception is hydropower interests along the river. The land actually occupied by these interests 

is (relatively) not that large, but their water demands are very high. This water, of course, is returned 

to the river, so that, arguably, power generation interests leave in as much water as they use. Their 

interests, however, are national in scope. The PRB generates up to 17% of Tanzania’s electricity, and 

many of its hydropower units are designed with very specific water flows in mind. If water abstractions 

between the water source and the hydropower plant are excessive, the plants have to operate at less 

than optimal capacity. The conflict here brings to bear national interests against small-scale concerns. 

Conflicts of tenure 

This document refers to tenure as the right to manage a resource. Like in most parts of the world, the notion of 

community-based management in Tanzania and Kenya is new. In countries where state-based management 

systems have, after more than half a century of operation, yielded lacklustre results, and the gravity of the 

countries’ environmental problems increases, community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) 

can seem a remarkably attractive management option. Hence, in Tanzania, there are a plethora of such 

community-based management institutions. Community-based NRM remains very nascent in Kenya. The 

contention with these systems relates to the manner of their application and design. Here, communities may 

not be involved in the design of the management system, its implementation or even its justice systems. 

Conflicts of location 

The location of up-stream water users favours their resource exploitation over the location of downstream 

users. At its most basic, these problems can be seen along irrigation furrows where users close to the 

water source are able to grow crops with very high water demands (such as irrigated rice) and those 

located at the end of the furrow obliged to plant low water demand crops. The serious problems faced by 

downstream hydropower plants are another example. 

Two main institutions administer the water resources of the Pangani River Basin. In Tanzania, it is the Pangani 

Basin Water Office (PBWO), while in Kenya it is the Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA). Under 

recent Tanzanian legislation, all of Tanzania’s basins have (or will be) placed under similar offices. However, some 

Basins are too small to merit the creation of an independent office to manage them. Four such basins surround 

the PRB (the Umba, the Zigi, the Msangazi and a collection of tiny catchments referred to as the ‘Coastal River 

Catchment’). These fall within the administrative jurisdiction of the PBWO, and are not considered in the main body 

of this document. Summary information about these basins is, however, assigned to Appendix 1. 

The PRB faces a number of serious management problems. In view of the extremely disparate natural 

resources of the Basin, along with its multitude of different interests and hopes, the need for an integrated 

approach to its management cannot be underestimated. In the past, the very ‘sectoral’ approach to the 

PRB’s management meant that wildlife resources were managed in isolation of forestry concerns, in turn 

largely ignorant of water management priorities. The problem is also articulated in terms of priorities, 

with the water sector arguing that water is the strand that links all of the Basin’s resources, but foresters 

complaining that most of the Basin’s waters issue from forests in their jurisdiction. 

4

A.2 Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) 

In many respects, river basins are extremely convenient Natural Resources Management (NRM) units. 

River basins comprise all the sources and processes that ultimately ensure that water is delivered to a 

river’s terminus. Hence, a river basin will include a river’s primary channel, secondary streams and its 

drainage basin. It will also include any delta associated with the river, and sub-surface water, wetlands 

and any impoundments. 

The combination of processes that ensure that water is delivered from a river’s source to its terminus 

is complicated and multidimensional. Additional resources, such as forests and wetlands, play integral 

roles in this process. The amount of water that ultimately emerges at a river’s terminus will also depend 

on the number of abstractions that occur along its course, as well as evapotranspiration rates in wetlands 

and from aquatic and riparian vegetation. Finally, the quality of the water at a river’s terminus will also 

reflect processes within the basin, such as farming techniques that increase or reduce erosion, industrial 

and urban development etc. 

River Basin Management (RBM) recognises that a river’s management cannot be implemented in isolation 

of the multifarious processes and conditions that impinge on the river’s flow and the quality of its water. 

RBM considers the river basin as the management unit and involves consideration of the utilisation and 

conservation of (a) sub-ecosystems (sub-catchments, forests, wetlands, montane areas, drylands, etc.); 

and (b) human use systems within the watershed (agriculture, irrigation, fisheries, transport, mining, 

industry, etc.). RBM is usually based on the principle that water connects the ecosystems within the river 

basin (Howard, 2002). 

Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) attempts to balance the interests of all river basin users, 

while optimising the use of resources and promoting the sustainability of the water upon which the 

systems depend (Howard, 2002). It may be defined as follows: 

“…a process that promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related 

resources in order to maximise the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without 

compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems” (GWP, 2002: 1). 

IRBM deals with resources in the widest possible manner. It has to look at water resources in the context 

of the entire social, economic and ecological systems of a region or country. Operationally, this means 

that policies and programmes in other resource areas have to be carefully analysed to see how they 

influence the demands placed upon the water sector (GWP, 2002). IRBM regards environmental interests 

as equally important as peoples’ needs for water resources. IRBM should work towards the objectives 

agreed upon by a majority of river basin stakeholders and include the principles of water resources 

management, ecosystem management, biodiversity conservation, sustainable natural resources 

management and ecosystem restoration (Howard, 2002). 

An important part of integrated river basin management (IRBM) is land-use planning. Because so much 

of what happens to water concerns developments on land, it is important that land use is managed in 

such a way that water supply can be assured and that hydrological processes are not interrupted. Urban 

growth, for example, often has a serious impact on water resources through the massive increases in 

waste effluent that it represents. In the same way, forestry and agriculture can have repercussions for 

both the quantity and quality of water supplies. 

Examples of land use management options include (a) zoning – here, specified areas are identified 

in which certain types of land use are prohibited. For example, drinking water zones, or areas where 

construction is banned because of flooding fears. (b) Soil protection and erosion control measures, such 

as ploughing parallel to contour lines, or the prescribed planting of trees. (c) Waste disposal regulations, 

such as where to locate waste disposal sites (Source: GWP, 2002). 

5

Box 1: Water Demand Management 

Water Demand Management (WDM) has developed from the recognition that (a) demand for 

water is increasing without any concomitant increase to water supplies; (b) as a result, the cost 

of increasing water supplies escalates as new sources become more difficult to abstract. Costs 

associated with the development of new abstraction technologies or methods may be prohibitive. 

WDM, then, seeks to save water abstracted from present water supplies, yielding both economic 

and environmental advantages. WDM may be defined as a strategy to improve the efficiency 

and sustainable use of water resources taking into account economic, social and environmental 

considerations (Wegelin-Schuringa, 1998). The main objective of WDM is to contribute to more 

efficient and equitable provision of water and sanitation services. IUCN believes that this may be 

attained via the application of selective, economic incentives, to promote efficient and equitable 

use of water as well as a number of water conservation measures aimed at raising awareness on 

the scarcity and finite nature of the resource. WDM embraces a wide range of measures leading 

to sustainable management. These include: 

• the protection of water quality 

• the reduction of wastage 

• the improved allocation of water amongst competing users 

• appropriate pricing mechanisms 

• water conservation measures 

A.3 The Water and Nature Initiative (WANI) 

IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our 

most pressing environment and development challenges. IUCN supports scientific research; manages field 

projects all over the world; and brings governments, non-government organizations, United Nations agencies, 

companies and local communities together to develop and implement policy, laws and best practice. 

IUCN is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network. It is a democratic membership union 

with more than 1,000 government and Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) member organizations, 

and some 10,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries. IUCN’s work is supported by 1,100 

professional staff in 62 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the 

world. The headquarters are located in Gland, near Geneva, in Switzerland (IUCN, 2008). 

IUCN launched the Water and Nature Initiative (WANI) in 2001. WANI is an action based programme that 

has worked with more than 80 partners in more than 30 countries to mainstream environmental and social 

issues into water resources planning and management. The initiative uses ecosystem management as 

a strategy for integrated management of land, water, biodiversity and communities. WANI helps to solve 

the dilemma between fulfilling development options and conserving aquatic resources by resolving water 

conflicts, reviving rivers and spurring local economic development. 

WANI develops and demonstrates practical approaches to the implementation of IWRM. It supports and 

catalyses national water reforms and builds needed capacities in local communities. The first phase of WANI 

worked in 12 river basins and in over 30 countries worldwide from 2001 to 2008, with funding exceeding $40m. 

Core funding was provided by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS). WANI demonstration projects showed 

how to improve the well-being of both people and ecosystems using sustainable river basin management. WANI 

projects are partnerships of local communities, IUCN members, civil society and governments. 

6

WANI helps to catalyse change, by integrating into practice development priorities, ecosystem services, 

good water governance, stakeholder participation, sustainable financing, learning and leadership. 

The first edition of this situation analysis was conducted at the beginning of work in the Pangani and 

laid a foundation for subsequent projects. The first phase of WANI went on to work extensively in the 

Pangani River Basin and based on this work the PBWO secured significant co-funding from the European 

Commission through a grant from the EU-ACP (European Union - Water Facility, and the Global 

Environment Facility through UNDP to form the Pangani River Basin Management Project (PRBMP). 

A.4 Situation Analysis: objectives and outputs 

A Situation Analysis (SA) comprises an integral part of the IUCN’s project cycle. It is ‘an analysis of the 

status, conditions, trends and key issues affecting ecosystems, people and institutions in a given geographic 

context at any level (local, national, regional, international)’ (IUCN, 1999: 1). The purpose of an SA is to 

provide an assessment sufficiently adequate for priority themes or areas for action to be developed. 

Within this remit, this SA’s objectives are as follows: 

• To identify the resources that occupy the Pangani River Basin (PRB) and the processes and events 

that affect them. The SA will highlight those specific areas that require remedial interventions, 

based on evidence to suggest that the balance between obtaining adequate livelihoods for the 

Basin’s inhabitants and the sustainability of the Basin’s resources has been disrupted. 

• To identify a series of broad action areas wherein interventions may feasibly be delivered. The 

SA recognises that many of these interventions may not be within the IUCN’s expertise. It will 

therefore seek to identify other organisations, interests or institutions with which the IUCN may 

develop partnerships as it seeks to develop the WANI initiative in the PRB. 

A.5. Data sources 

This Situation Analysis (SA) is based on data derived from two main sources: 

• Published information. Of particular importance are outputs from the research on Water Resources 

Management in the Pangani River Basin, a collaborative effort between the University of Dar 

es Salaam and the Norwegian University of Technology and Science. In addition, the SA also 

draws on the Report on a workshop called the ‘The Pangani River Basin: Options for Integrated 

Management’, and held at the Kilimanjaro Crane Hotel, Moshi, Tanzania, 8 – 10 May, 2002. 

• Semi-structured interviews carried out by the author with PRB stakeholders. These included 

water administrators, forestry interests, farming communities, wildlife and conservation 

interests and private water users. Interviews were held in Arusha, Moshi, Hale, Tanga and 

Dar es Salaam between November 12 and 22, 2002. The interviews, respondents and their 

institutional affiliation are provided as part of this document’s references. 

This Situation Analysis has been reviewed by a large number of the Pangani River Basin’s stakeholders. 

During a workshop held in Moshi, Tanzania, between the 10th and 12th March, 2003, the Situation 

Analysis was presented to stakeholders for review and comment. In May, 2003, additional comments 

were received from the Pangani Basin Water Office (PBWO) and the Coast Development Authority (CDA 

– Kenya). Suggested amendments have subsequently been noted and incorporated. 

7

A.6 Situation Analysis Structure 

This Situation Analysis commences with an overview of the Basin’s resources and the difficulties facing 

them. It then considers the activities of the Basin’s human resources, their economies, problems and 

resource access constraints. The SA then goes on to consider the problems and issues that various 

stakeholders perceive to exist in the Basin as a basis upon which to discuss the Natural Resource 

Management (NRM) structure of the Basin. In most chapters, the SA summarises relevant points that 

the reader should be aware of and which s/he should bear in mind as s/he proceeds to subsequent 

sections of the analysis. These summaries are brought together in the document’s conclusion, where 

the discussion will return to its objectives, and consider how the problems that have been identified, the 

management initiatives that have been embarked upon and the options that have been considered in the 

text may all serve as a viable basis for WANI intervention and collaboration. 

8

B 

The Pangani River Basin’s 

natural resources 

B.1 Introduction 

The introduction to this Situation Analysis (SA) has already provided some insight into the diversity of 

resources contained within the Pangani River Basin (PRB). In this Chapter, we commence by taking a 

look at the PRB’s forests, the role they play in the basin and the conservation threats that challenge them. 

Much the same format is then used to consider additional resources within the Basin, including water and 

wetlands, protected areas and biodiversity. The chapter concludes with a summary of important points. 

This chapter is concerned primarily with the Basin’s water and biotic resources. Attention is not given to 

the PRB’s mineral deposits for lack of data. 

B.2 Basin forests 

The distribution of forest, types and legal status in Tanzania is as follows: 

Table 1: Tanzanian forest types, uses and legal status. 

1,000 ha % 

Forest type 

Forests (other than mangrove forests) 1,141 3.4 

Mangrove forests 115 0.3 

Woodlands 32,299 96.3 

Total 33,555 100.0 

Use of forest land 

Production forest area 23,810 71.0 

Protection forest area (mostly catchment areas) 9,745 29.0 

Total 33,555 100.0 

Legal status 

Forest reserves 12,517 37.3 

Forest/woodlands in national parks, etc. 2,000 6.0 

Non-reserved forest land 19,038 56.7 

Total 33,555 100 

(Source: Lambrechts et al., 2002). 

The forests of the Pangani River Basin (PRB) are represented by five broad types: (a) Afromontane 

forests (b) Mangrove forests (c) Coastal forests (d) Miombo woodland and (e) Riverine forest. The 

forests may be reserves, production forests or forests without any kind of designation. The Coastal and 

Afromontane forests, because of their unique biodiversity features, gain the most consideration here. 

International biodiversity interest in these forests also ensures that there tends to be more data on them 

than there are on other forest types. This is reflected in the text. 

9

Box 2: Pangani River Basin forest basics 

The Pangani River Basin’s (PRB) forests are crucial to its hydrology because: 

• they regulate run-off, prevent soil erosion, store water and improve water quality; 

• they contribute to the maintenance and conservation of the gene pool; 

• they yield timber and medicinal products to local communities. 

There are five main types of forest within the basin: 

• Mangrove forests: these play a crucial role in the protection of coastlines. They protect soft 

sediment shorelines from erosion, trap sediments and recycle nutrients. The trees themselves 

and the mud around their roots are important habitats to a variety of aquatic and avian life. 

• East African coastal forests: these are unique to East Africa and contain remarkable 

biodiversity and endemism. They lie in the coastal plain between the mangrove forests and 

the Eastern Arc Mountains. 

• Afromontane forests: those of the Eastern Arc Mountains share the same high levels of 

endemism and bio-diversity as coastal forests. On Mounts Kilimanjaro and Meru, the forests 

do not display similar diversity, but play vital hydrological functions. 

• Riverine forests: these fortify riverbanks, and as the Pangani descends down through the 

semi-arid and arid lowlands, represent a unique oasis for both humans and wildlife. 

• Miombo woodland: this comprises extensive stands of tall Brachystegia, Isoberlinia and 

Julbernadia trees Unlike rainforest, Miombo woodland are not so densely packed together 

that they prevent light from reaching the forest floor. As a result, grass covers much of the 

forest floor, and, during the rainy season, this may grow to a metre in height. 

A large part of the Pangani River Basin’s (PRB) ability to deliver water has to do with its forests. On Mt. 

Kilimanjaro, for example, an estimated 96% of the water flowing from the mountain originates from the forest 

belt alone (Lambrechts et al., 1992), and Mount Kilimanjaro is estimated to provide 60% of the inflow to the 

Nyumba ya Mungu (NYM) Reservoir, and 55% of the PRB’s surface water (Røhr and Killingtveit, 2002) 

Catchment forests perform three important functions (Akitanda, 2002): 

• Forests contribute to water conservation by regulating run-off, preventing soil erosion, storing 

water and improving water quality. 

• Gene-pool conservation: forests, such as tropical moist forests, display very high levels of 

biodiversity, and contribute to the maintenance of the global gene pool. 

• Forests yield products for local communities such as timber and medicinal plants. 

Mangrove forests 

Mangrove forests play a crucial role in the protection of coastlines. They protect soft sediment shorelines 

from erosion, trap sediments and recycle nutrients. The trees themselves and the mud around their roots are 

important habitats to a variety of aquatic and avian life. At high tide, hundreds of fish species move into the 

mangrove forests to feed or breed. Many fish and prawns rely on mangroves as nursery grounds for their 

young. Mangrove wood is very dense, and can therefore resist termites and fungi. They are used for a variety 

of purposes. The trunks of Rhizophora, Ceriops and Bruguiera are long and straight, and are therefore used 

almost exclusively as building poles, although they are also used as masts, in the construction of fish traps 

10

and in furniture construction. In recent years, mangroves are also being used to make charcoal and collected 

as fuelwood. Mangrove forest close to urban areas is heavily exploited for these purposes. Mangroves can be 

coppiced to increase branch growth, and replanting is relatively straightforward. Neither activity is commonly 

practised along the Tanzanian coast, however (Richmond, 1997). 

Virtually all of Tanzania’s coastline is fringed by mangrove forest. In the PRB, they are restricted 

to the Tanga Region, where almost 11% of Tanzania’s mangroves are to be found (Bwathondi and 

Mwamsojo, 1993). This includes the 753 ha of mangrove forest clustered around the mouth of the 

Pangani River (Kijazi, 2002). 

East African Coastal Forests 

East African coastal forests are found on the coastal plain between the Eastern Arc Mountains and the 

mangroves of the coast. The forests are extremely scattered, and forest patches are separated by stretches 

of semi-arid ecosystems. They range from between 500 and 1,000 m ASL. An important characteristic of 

coastal forest (which they share with the Eastern Arc Mountain forests) is their dependence on the Indian 

Ocean’s climate and the historical stability this has provided. Restricted to the East African coastal plain, 

the forests’ isolation from other African forest systems has resulted in high levels of species endemism 

(see below) (Burgess et al., 1996). There are believed to be 76 coastal forests in Tanzania (Burgess et 

al., 1996). They are very numerous in the swathe of coastal plain between the Pangani River’s mouth 

and the foothills of the Usambara Mountains (see Baker and Baker, 2001). 

Afromontane forests 

The Eastern Arc Mountains range from Tanzania’s 

border with Zambia through to the Taita- Hills 

in Kenya. They comprise ancient crystalline 

mountains located in eastern Tanzania and 

southeastern Kenya under the direct climatic 

influence of the Indian Ocean. Within the PRB, they 

comprise the North and South Pare Mountains, 

the East and West Usambara Mountains and the 

Taita Hills. The mountains are of great age, and 

the most recent period of tectonic uplift to affect 

them occurred 7 million years ago. In comparison, 

the oldest lavas on Mt. Kilimanjaro are just 1 

million years old. (Burgess et al., 1996). 

The proximity of these mountains to the sea has 

also ensured that their climate has remained 

remarkably stable. During the last ice age, sea 

surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean did not 

change. Thus, while the ice age may have altered 

climate in other parts of Africa, it did not do so 

for the Eastern Arc Mountains. The mountains 

have, therefore, enjoyed very long periods of 

environmental stability, and have also been 

isolated from other forests and, indeed, from one 

another (Burgess et al., 1996). 

Box 3: The Taita Hills 

The Taita Hills are the only Kenyan 

representatives of the Eastern Arc Mountains. 

The hills and their forests harbour over 2,000 

species of flora and fauna, of which 13 taxa are 

known to be endemic. 67 known indigenous 

plants, including wild coffee (Coffea fadenii), 

grow on the hills. The Taita Hills are an Important 

Bird Area (IBA), and contain three endemic 

species: the Taita Apalis, the Taita Thrush 

and the Taita White-eye. The hills’ forests are 

also rich in amphibian, insect and other life. 

Just 6 km 2 of forest remain in the Taita Hills, 

divided into 13 forest patches. Newmark (1998) 

estimates that this remnant forest represents 

just 2% of the forests’ extent 2,000 years ago. 

The Taita Hills have lost more forest than any 

other Eastern Arc mountain. 

The result of this evolution is that the biotic characteristics of the mountains are remarkably diverse and 

characterised by high levels of endemism or near endemism (see below). It is probable that the somewhat 

lower level of species diversity and endemism on Mount Kilimanjaro is a result of its relative youth. 

11

Mt. Kilimanjaro’s forest is classified into a series of vegetation types: the savannah zone, the densely 

populated agro-forest area, the forest belt, the sub-alpine and alpine vegetation zones. In terms of 

ecosystems and biodiversity, the forest belt is the most important on the mountain, and contains almost 

half of the mountains vegetation species (Lambrechts et al., 2002). 

Riverine forest 

Riverine forest around the Kirua Swamp may be divided into seven groups as follows (IVO – 

NORPLAN, 1997): 

• Riparian vegetation: this comprises vegetation extending to about 50 m to either side of the river channel. 

On the eastern side, dominant species comprise Cyperaceae (e.g. Cyperus alticulatus, C. laevigatus), 

Gramineae (e.g. Phragmites mauritianus, Echnochloa colonum) and Typhaceae (e.g. Typha domingensis). 

Where the riverbank is deep, Ficus sur and Acacia zanzibarica are common. The western bank is dominated 

by Ficus sur, Trichilia emitica, Elaeis guineense, Albizia graberrima, Antidesma venosum and A. zanzibarica. 

The riparian shrub layer is dominated by species such as Sesbania sesbans and Phyllanthus muellerianus. 

• Cyperus and Sesbania marshland: in areas that are permanently waterlogged, species such as 

Cyperus axaltatus and Typha domingensis predomiate. In those areas that are seasonally flooded, 

Sesbania sesbands, Cyperus laevigatus and Acacia xanthophloea are the only tree species 

associated with this type of vegetation. This is the most common vegetation category within the 

Kirua Swamps, although it is more common on the eastern bank of the river than on the western. 

On the eastern side, it may extend up to 3 km away from the river, while at its widest point it is just 

700 m from the river on the western side of the river. 

• Sporobolus pyramidalis and Cynodon dactylon grassland: Poaceae family members dominate 

here, with a few scattered trees and shrubs. In the Kirua Swamps, this vegetation type covers the 

largest area. It may occur in patches or continuous swaths. 

• Acacia xanthophloea woodland: this vegetation type sees these Acacia species dominating, rising 

up to 18 m, and with a canopy cover of over 20% of the ground area. This vegetation type has high 

social and economic values to the wetland’s human inhabitants. 

• Desert with clumps of Suaeda monoica: a self-explanatory vegetation type, typically found fairly far 

from the river beyond the grassland vegetation sections. 

• Commiphora africana bushland: an extended zone of bushland dominated by C. africana that is 

found at the foot of the Martin Escarpment. Typically, individual bushes are less than 6 m in height, 

and their canopy will cover more than 20% of ground area. 

• Cultivated land: in 1997, cultivation within the Kirua Swamps was restricted to a fairly small area, and 

dominated by crops with high water demand such as bananas and sugar cane, but also maize. 

Miombo woodland 

Miombo woodland covers some 50 per cent of Tanzania and is East Africa’s largest single vegetation type. East 

Africa’s miombo woodlands are an impoverished form of the more extensive and species rich miombo woodlands 

of Central Africa (Rogers, 1996). They may be described as follows: ‘A deciduous unarmed (having few tree species 

with spines or thorns) woodland occurring in the unimodal rainfall areas on geologically old, acid, sandy soils. It 

is characterized by trees in the sub-family Caesalpinoideae, especially species in the genera Brachystegia and 

Julbenardia. The shrub layer is variable in density, percent cover and species composition. It is often dominated by 

Diplorhynchus and Combretum spp. The ground cover varies from a dense course grass growth to a sparse cover 

of herbs and small grasses. The structure and species composition is largely maintained by periodic season fires’ 

(Rogers, 1996: 301). Some 3 million km 2 of Africa are covered in miombo woodland. In the Pangani River Basin 

(PRB) it is confined mainly to coastal areas, both to the immediate north and south of the Pangani River’s mouth. 

12

Conservation threats and status 

On Mt. Kilimanjaro, the forest is increasingly threatened by encroaching agriculture, itself arising from 

increasing population densities. Additional threats are timber extraction, the development of softwood 

plantations, fire, illegal and excessive timber harvesting, poaching and illegal honey harvesting (Yanda 

and Shishira, 2001). On all but its northern slopes, ‘heavy’ illegal logging occurs in forest areas below 

2,500 m, concentrating on camphor, cedar and other indigenous trees (Lambrechts et al., 2002). 

Additional threats comprise the establishment of ‘forest villages’ (of which there are 18 covering some 

215 ha) within the forest reserve. ‘Shamba’ farms are also increasingly common within the reserve. In 

August 2001, there were 125 charcoal kilns observed on the mountains southeastern slopes (Lambrechts 

et al., 2002). Grazing occurs up to 8 km into the forest, and in August 2001, 814 livestock animals were 

counted, concentrated on the mountains northern slopes (Lambrechts et al., 2002). 

Between 1952 and 1982, Kilimanjaro’s natural forest area declined by 41 km 2 . The areas where natural forest 

once stood have been replaced by cultivation or degraded vegetation. Worst affected are the edges of the 

forest reserve (Yanda and Shishira, 2001), particularly in the so-called ‘half mile strip’. In 1941, the Tanzanian 

colonial government designated an area of Kilimanjaro’s forest reserve as an agroforestry area. The strip 

stretches between the Kikuletwa and Sanya Rivers, and for half a mile uphill from the edge of the reserve. The 

‘half mile strip’ was intended for the cultivation of fast growing trees for use by the Chagga communities below 

the reserve, where land scarcity precluded the planting of forests (Baldwin, 1946). Today, about 66% of areas 

allocated to forest plantation are under agriculture or have been cleared (Lambrechts et al., 2002). 

In the PRB, the Eastern Arc Mountains occupy some of the most densely populated areas of the Basin. On 

the West Usambara Mountains, for example, populations have grown 23-fold since 1900 (Newmark, 1998). 

In a social environment characterised by poverty, the importance of land to farm is disproportionately high. 

The pressure that this represents on the Basin’s remaining forest reserves is formidable. If it is assumed that 

the Eastern Arc Mountains were, prehistorically, more or less continuously covered by forest, 77% of this 

has been lost to human disturbance and/or fire over the past 2,000 years (Newmark, 1998). An additional 

concern is that many of these processes have created forest patches, and animal species are often unwilling 

to cross over forest gaps. This means that in individual patches, the gene pool shrinks and species survival is 

threatened by in-breeding. In the Pangani River Basin, this loss is as presented in Table 2. 

Table 2: Eastern Arc Mountain forest cover loss in the Pangani River Basin 

Forest Natural forest No. forest Closed forest Loss of original 

(km 2 ) patches (km 2 ) forest cover (%) 

North Pare 151 2 28 50 

South Pare 333 5 120 73 

West Usambara 328 17 245 84 

East Usambara 413 8 221 57 

Taita 6 13 4 98 

Source: Newmark, 1998:4) 

The designation of a forest as a ‘forest reserve’ appears not to have had much impact on levels of 

deforestation. In the Nilo Forest Reserve (5,872.1 ha) in the Usambara Mountains, there are 33.8 ha of 

‘cultivation under forest’, 372.3 ha of ‘peasant cultivation’, 37.2 ha of barren land and 1.9 ha of human 

settlement (Cordeiro, 1998). The Tongwe-Muheza Coastal Forests used to cover 1,202 ha, but just 300 

ha of forest cover remain, while Gombero Forest Reserve has been completely cleared for agriculture 

(Baker and Baker, 2002). 

13

On Mt. Meru, the problems facing the forests are similar to those threatening Mt. Kilimanjaro, and are as 

follows (Bwoyo, pers. comm.): 

• Illegal cutting – the mountain’s forests are usually exploited for commercially attractive juniper 

and Olea capensis trees. 

• Grazing – in the dry season, adjacent communities graze their livestock inside the forest. 

• Land scarcity – on the eastern side of the mountain, encroachment is an increasingly serious 

problem. 

• Lack of support – in some villages, the Catchment Forest Project (CFP – described below) gets little 

support from village leaders, some of whom are personally involved in harvesting the forest. 

• Fire – this was a particularly serious problem between 1998 and 1999. 

• Funding – the CFP obtains virtually no money for its operational activities from the government. 

Bwoyo (pers. comm.) argues that because of the vital role played by forests in the PRB, funds 

should be invested in the CFP by power generating interests or the Pangani Basin Water Office 

(PBWO) (see also Evans, 1997). 

Box 4: Threats to the PRB’s forests 

• Demand for land: as population densities rise and rural economies remain poor, the demand 

for agricultural land increases and, hence, forests are felled to make way for these. 

• Demand for timber: many of the remaining forests within the PRB contain economically 

valuable timber species, which, as they become scarcer, attract higher prices. Timber is also 

felled for firewood and for charcoal manufacture. 

• Demand for pasture: livestock populations within the Basin appear to be on the increase. 

As agricultural land increases in area, grazing land decreases, and herders mount forest 

incursions to seek pasture. 

• Forest settlement: as communities seek to extend their agricultural and grazing land, so too 

they settle within forest boundaries. 

• Weak regulation: despite the reserve status of many of the Basins forests, the authorities 

cannot implement the restrictions that this implies because of low staffing levels, poor pay 

and corruption. In addition, the Forestry and Bee Keeping Division’s Catchment Forest Project 

is funded almost entirely by donors, giving rise to questions about its sustainability. Finally, 

community involvement in the management of the basin’s forests is nascent and, at present, 

largely ineffective. 

• Forestry development: the development of plantation forest at the expense of indigenous forest 

gives rise to conservation concerns. 

• Forest fragmentation: as pressure mounts on the Basin’s forests they often become fragmented. 

Many forest species are unwilling to cross over forest gaps, giving rise to biodiversity 

conservation concerns. 

• Fire: typically started by humans either deliberately (so as to destroy forest regarded as unfairly 

protected and closed to human exploitation) or, more typically, accidentally (from, for example, 

accidents during charcoal burning or ‘smoking-out’ bees from hives. 

14

B.3 Water and wetlands 

The Pangani River has two main tributaries: the Ruvu, which rises on the eastern slopes of Mt. 

Kilimanjaro; and the Kikuletwa, which rises on Mt. Meru and the southern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. 

At the confluence of the Ruvu and Kikuletwa Rivers lies the Nyumba ya Mungu Dam, whose reservoir 

covers some 140 km 2 (Røhr and Killingtveit, 2002). The flow into the reservoir is thought to be 43.37 

m 3 /s (TANESCO, 1994). As the river leaves the reservoir, it becomes the Pangani, and thereafter 

flows for 432 km before emptying into the Indian Ocean, where it discharges some 0.85 km 2 of water 

annually (Vanden Bossche and Beracsek, 1990). 

Within the Pangani River Basin (PRB), Mt. Kilimanjaro is the single most important hydrological feature 

(Lambrechts et al., 2002). As mentioned earlier, rainfall on the mountain is estimated to provide 60% of 

the inflow to the Nyumba ya Mungu (NYM) Reservoir, and 55% of the PRB’s surface water (Røhr and 

Killingtveit, 2002). 

The PRB’s water supply is mainly derived from rainfall, which is very unevenly distributed within the Basin. On 

average, the Basin receives 34,773.4 m 3 annually, and its average yearly potential evapotranspiration is 1,410 

mm. Based on rainfall differences within the Basin, the PRB may be divided into two hydrological regimes. 

The highland area is considered to be that land lying ca. 900 m, such as the slopes of Mounts Meru 

and Kilimanjaro, as well as areas in the Usambara and Pare Mountains, which receive between 1,200 

and 2,000 mm of rainfall annually. Rainfall is bi-modal in these areas, peaking between March and May, 

with a smaller peak between October and November. Rainfall in the former season may exceed 600 

mm a month, and 300 mm in the latter. Above the Nymuba ya Mungu (NYM) Dam, rainfall has generally 

declined since record taking began in the early 1930s. Present rainfall patterns typically vary around 10% 

from the mean (Mkhandi and Ngana, 2001). 

Land below 900 m receives the least rainfall in the Basin, declining to as little as 500 mm a year (Mkhandi 

and Ngana, 2001). Indeed, 50% of the PRB is considered arid or semi-arid (Røhr and Killingtveit, 2002). 

An additional source of water in the Basin are springs. Some of the Basin’s larger springs contribute 

as much as 20 m 3 /s to the NYM’s inflow, a proportion that becomes vital during the dry season when 

rainfall contributions diminish (Røhr et al. n.d.). A major part of the Basin’s spring yield is concentrated 

in three areas of Kilimanjaro Region: Kambi ya Choka, Rundugai and Chemka (Røhr et al., 2002). The 

origin of the waters in the latter spring are unknown, and water output remains remarkably constant 

Box 5: Pangani River Basin water and wetland basics 

• The highland areas of the Pangani River Basin (PRB) receive markedly more rainfall than do 

the lowlands. Hence, agriculture is concentrated in the highlands, while the lowlands are better 

suited for pastoralism. 

• Most of the Pangani River’s water is derived from rainfall and glacial melt. 

• Most of the water to flow into the Nyumba ya Mungu (NYM) reservoir is derived from Mt. 

Kilimanjaro. Virtually all of the rest is derived from Mt. Meru and the North Pare Mountains. 

• The greatest use of water in the Basin is for irrigation. Electricity generation and fishing are 

important additional uses, as are urban and industrial demands. 

• The PRB has large wetland resources, including Lakes Jipe and Chala and the NYM reservoir. 

All of these support fisheries. The Basin contains considerable swamp resources, although 

little is known about their biodiversity or their hydrological contributions 

15

throughout the year - rainfall 

patterns on Mt. Kilimanjaro, which 

lies immediately to the north of the 

spring, appear to have no bearing 

on its output (Røhr et al., 2002). In 

Kenya, the Lumi River drains the 

southern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, 

and is the main source of water to 

Lake Jipe. Almost all of the river’s 

discharge into the lake is derived 

from springs (Musyoki, 2003). 

About 5% of all the water used in the 

PRB is derived from groundwater 

sources. Boreholes yielding more 

than 100 cubic metres per hour have 

been drilled in the Kahe Plains while 

boreholes yielding between 10 to 50 

m3/h have been sunk in the Sanya 

plains and Karoo Rocks of Tanga. 

Groundwater recharge is mainly from 

rainfall and rivers (Makule, n.d.). 

As the Pangani leaves the Nyumba 

ya Mungu Reservoir, the following 

demands are placed upon it 

(Mujwahuzi, 2001): 

Box 6: Threats to the PRB’s water 

and wetland resources 

• By 2015, water demand within the Basin is expected 

to double, while, at the same time, evidence of water 

stress has been present since the 1940s. 

• Principal areas for concern are increasing irrigation 

and urban demands. In the case of irrigation, water 

losses can be as high as 85%. 

• As the number of water users increase, along with the 

competition between them, the likelihood of conflict 

between water users will also augment. 

• The fisheries of the Nyumba ya Mungu (NYM) 

Reservoir are said to be under considerable stress 

due to over-fishing. 

• Large portions of the largest wetland in the Basin – the 

Kirua Swamp – have dried up as a result of the regulation 

of water flows issuing from the NYM dam. 

• Large nutrient inflows into Lake Jipe have encouraged 

excessive papyrus and Typha growth that threatens 

to overwhelm to lake. 

Firm flow for power production..................................................24 m 3 /s 

Irrigation.......................................................................................7m 3 /s 

Domestic uses........................................................................1–2 m 3 /s 

Total....................................................................................32–33 m 3 /s 

Sarmett (pers. comm.) states, however, that the NYM is rarely able to release more than 22 m 3 /s. 

The NYM Reservoir is the largest water body in the Basin. There are three others: Lake Ambussel, and, 

lying on Tanzania’s border with Kenya, Lakes Chala and Jipe. These lakes feature prominently in the 

irrigation and hydrological planning of Kenya’s Taita-Taveta District, in which they lie. Lake Jipe’s water 

level and surface area vary substantially with rainfall. Thus, its surface area varies from 18 km 2 (1954) 

to 28 km 2 (1947), while the amount of water contained within it varies from 20 to 60 MCM (Musyoki and 

Mwandotto, 1999). Within the Kenyan portion of Lake Jipe’s catchment lies part of Tsavo West National 

Park, 48.5 km 2 of swamp, 435 km 2 of sisal estates and 196.5 km 2 of what is described as ‘public land’ 

set aside for the Lake Jipe Settlement Scheme (Musyoki and Mwandotto, 1999). An estimated 300,000 

tonnes of silt are washed into the lake annually (Musyoki, 2003). 

Lake Chala lies in a small volcanic crater on Mt. Kilimanjaro’s southern slopes. It is between 85 and 90 m. 

deep, and covers a surface area of about 3.15 km 2 . It contains between 300 - 350 MCM of water (Musyoki 

and Mwandotto, 1999). Its water quality is very good, and for this reason is being considered a source for 

Kenya’s growing coastal urban areas. Projected future abstraction rates are for 7 MCM annually (Musyoki, 

2003). Its elevated situation means that water may be conveyed by gravity to its destination. 

16

The PRB is thought to have about 90,000 ha of swamp, most of which comprises the Kirua Swamps, lying to 

the south of the Nyumba ya Mungu (NYM) Dam. These have already been severely affected by the Dam’s 

control of the river’s flow, and large areas of the swamp have dried up. Nevertheless, they are still thought 

to retain large amounts of the Pangani River’s water. If the river were ‘trained’ and a canal built through the 

swamp, an additional 42.4 million m 3 would reach downstream dams annually (IVO – NORPLAN, 1997). 

The vegetation of these swamplands is described above as examples of riverine forest. 

Other swamplands are the Ruvu Swamp (approx. 35 km 2 ) that lies at the point where the Ruvu River 

exits from Lake Jipe, and a swamp lying in the confluence of the Ruvu and Kikuletwa Rivers where they 

join the NYM. The latter swamp area is said to cover some 40 km 2 (Baker and Baker, 2001). 


In the Tanzanian portion of the Basin, estimated and anticipated water demand in 1995 and 2015 are 

presented in Table 3. In the Taita-Taveta District, lying in the Kenyan part of the Basin, water demand 

was calculated to be 5,625 m 3 per day. By 2005, this is projected to increase to 8,844 m 3 per day, and to 

12,521 m 3 a day by 2015 (Taita – Taveta District Water Plan 1995, cited in Musyoki, 2003). With water 

demand set to double by 2015, the pressure on the PRB’s water resources may be considered to be 

very high. The Basin is already considered to be facing water stress, and in the absence of any emphatic 

regulation to date, it seems unlikely that this threat will dissipate. 

Table 3: Estimated water demand in 1995 and anticipated water demand in 2015 

Water demand (m 3 /day) 

Use 1995 2015 

Urban 71,200 163,600 

Rural 52,000 83,500 

Livestock 30,500 36,400 

Sisal 1,300 1,300 

Total 155,000 284,700 

(Source: IVO- NORPLAN, 1997) 

Evidence of water stress is ample. Mujwahuzi (2001) reveals that at station 1DC1 on the Ruvu River, 

mean monthly flows have declined from 14.2 m 3 /s between 1958 – 65 to 11.45 m 3 /s between 1987 – 97. 

Many of the streams in the highland areas of the Basin no longer flow during the dry season (September to 

February) because of the intensity of irrigation abstractions. After abstractions for irrigation, the Rau River 

runs completely dry (Mujwahuzi, 2001). Water demand from the Kikafu and Weru Rivers ranges from 90 – 

125%, substantially exceeding the rivers’ 80% assured discharge (Mwamfupe, 2002). As water is released 

from the NYM Reservoir, a series of abstractions occur before it reaches Pangani Falls. Often – and 

especially during the dry season – the water arriving is inadequate to run the turbines of the hydropower 

station based there (Lugeiyamu, pers. comm.). Perhaps the most compelling evidence of water stress are 

the escalating numbers of water-related conflicts in the Basin. These are considered fully below. 

Between 1912 and 1989, the area of Kilimanjaro’s ice cap reduced by 75%, from 12.5 km 2 to 2.6 km 2 . 

Between 1989 and 2000, nearly a quarter of the remaining ice was lost. The cause of this sudden and 

rapid change has been blamed on human influences, although this is by no means clear (Hastenrath 

and Greischar, 1997). If this decline is maintained, the Pangani River Basin’s (PRB’s) will soon receive 

no more water from glacial melt. 

17

Lake Jipe’s Typha growth is said to be sufficiently out of control that the water weed almost completely 

covers the lake. This trend has apparently arisen as a result of nutrients and silt washed down off Mt. 

Kilimanjaro and the North Pare Mountains. Silt has decreased the lake’s depth, and occasioned a small 

water level rise. Nutrient inflows to the lake are thought to have prompted rises in alkalinity and/or 

sodicty, causing its lilies to disappear. Silting also affects the NYM reservoir, but this is apparently not yet 

a problem given the reservoir’s very large ‘dead storage’ area. 

As discussed earlier, the regulation of the Pangani River has reduced flooding in the Kirua Swamps, and 

hence large areas of the swamp have dried out. At a water release rate of 25 m 3 /s from NYM, the swamp 

floods, but farmers encroaching upon it then voice serious complaint (Ngula, pers. comm.). 

The NYM reservoir supports a substantial fishery that is heavily exploited, as will be discussed 

further below. 

B.4 Protected areas 

In Tanzania, the Pangani River Basin (PRB) contains one wildlife reserve (Mkomazi - 3,276 km 2 ), while 

parts of the Kilimanjaro (756 km 2 ) and Arusha (137 km 2 ) National Parks also lie within the Basin. Part 

of Kenya’s Tsavo West National Park (9,065 km 2 ) also falls within the Basin, and is contiguous with the 

Mkomazi Game Reserve. The Sadani National Park partially falls within the Basin, but will not be dealt 

with here. Arguably, forest reserves are also protected areas, but these are not dealt with here (see 

above). All of these make valuable contributions to Tanzania’s economy by attracting tourists. Kilimanjaro 

in particular draws some 67,000 visitors annually (WCMC, 1987). 

Mt. Kilimanjaro is the world’s highest freestanding mountain and Africa’s tallest. It rises 5,000 metres 

above an open undulating plain that averages 800 m ASL (Lambrechts et al., 2002). The park is the 

oldest protected area in Africa, having gained this status in the early part of the 20 th Century. In 1921, the 

park was gazetted as a forest reserve, and then, in 1973, the area above the 2,700 metre contour was 

reclassified as a national park. At present, the park covers 75,353 ha and is surrounded by a 107,828 

ha forest reserve (Lambrechts et al., 2002). In 1987, the Kilimanjaro National Park was inscribed on the 

World Heritage Site list, the seventh Tanzanian World Heritage Site (Lambrechts et al., 2002). 

The Mkomazi Wildlife Reserve is an extension of Kenya’s Tsavo West National Park. Like Tsavo and 

Arusha National Parks, Mkomazi lies within the Somali – Maasai Regional Centre of Endemism (RCE). 

It stretches from the Tanzania – Kenya border to the foothills of the Pare and the West Usambaras. The 

reserve is characterised by savannah woodland, and, until 1988, pastoralists of various ethnic origins were 

allowed to exploit its pasture. Homewood and Brockington (1999) argue that although the reserve has 

some biodiversity interest to Tanzania, it is far over-shadowed by other regional centres of considerable 

biodiversity interest, not least the Pare and Usambara Mountains. Keith Eltringham et al., (1999) identified 

102 mammal species as present within Mkomazi, including the recently re-introduced Black rhino. 

The Arusha National Park lies in the foothills of Mt. Meru (4,565 m.), and was established in 1967. The 

park contains a very wide array of environments, including fine examples of montane forest on Mt. Meru, 

the Momel Crater Lakes and lowland savannah and miombo woodland. The park’s bird list comprises 

some 400 species, and it is one of the few Tanzanian parks where black and white colobus monkeys are 

commonly seen. Contiguous to the park is the 300 km 2 Mt Meru Game Reserve. Arusha National Park is 

said to contain the highest giraffe densities in the world. 

The Nairobi - Mombasa Highway, separates Tsavo West National Park from Tsavo East. Together, these 

parks, created in 1948, form Kenya’s largest national park, and one of the world’s largest protected 

areas. In 1983, Tsavo West’s northwestern boundary was extended to include the Chyulu Hills, the main 

source of water to the park’s famous Mzima Springs. 225 million litres of water emerge from these springs 

daily, which supply Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city. In excess of 150,000 people visit Tsavo 

West annually. The park’s rugged scenery has been shaped by ancient volcanic activities, leaving in its 

18

wake lava flows, cinder fields and small volcanic cones. The park contains Kenya’s largest population of 

elephants. The park area of Ngulia has become one of Kenya’s most important rhino sanctuaries. The 

cliffs at Ngulia are an important stop-off point for migratory birds from the Northern Hemisphere, many 

of which are very rare. 


In the late 1980s, the Tanzanian Wildlife 

Division judged the Mkomazi to be in a florally 

and faunally degraded state. Amongst the 

problems facing the park was the extinction 

of its rhinos. In the mid-1960s, there were 

at least 150 rhinoceros in the reserve, but 

the species was extirpated, mainly through 

poaching. In 1997, rhinos were re-introduced 

to the reserve (Keith Eltringham et al., 1999), 

along with wild dogs. The reserve’s close 

proximity to the Kenyan border poses a 

poaching threat. 

Kilimanjaro does not appear to face any similar 

poaching threat. Here, threats appear to be 

restricted mainly to the park and the forest 

reserve’s edges, where logging, farming, 

fuelwood collection and charcoal burning are concentrated. An additional problem in this national park is 

its high number of visitors, who leave behind them large amounts of waste that cannot decompose in the 

mountain’s freezing and rarefied air. 

The areas surrounding Arusha National Park are heavily populated, and the park is said to be threatened 

by encroachment and widespread poaching (WCMC, 1985). 

Tsavo West National Park faces significant poaching difficulties. The slaughter of the park’s elephants in 

the past has often been dramatically portrayed in the media. In addition, the park lies in a climatic zone 

prone to drought and variable climate, leaving it vulnerable to bush fires. Fires are also a problem on Mt. 

Kilimanjaro, as discussed above. 

Other wildlife resources also occur throughout the Basin, including much of the wildlife to be found in the 

Eastern Arc and Coastal forests. The threats to the latter are very serious (see below). In the Maasai steppe 

of the lowlands of the Basin, ungulates are common, while the river and other wetlands also harbour wildlife. 

B.5 Biodiversity and conservation 

Box 7: Pangani River Basin 

Protected Area threats 

• Most of the parks within the Pangani River 

Basin are threatened by poaching. 

• The threats confronting Kilimanjaro National 

Park relate more to encroachment on its forest 

reserves and the exploitation of their timber. 

• Large tourist numbers on Mt. Kilimanjaro 

cause serious waste disposal problems, in 

large measure because waste freezes and 

does not decompose. 

The biodiversity resources of Kenya and Tanzania are substantial. In terms of number of species per unit 

of area, Kenya has the third highest mammalian diversity in Africa, the second highest bird diversity and 

the third highest reptile diversity. 

Tanzania has the second highest reptile, amphibian and plant biodiversity on the African continent (Rodgers 

et al., 2001). The Eastern Arc and Coastal Forests are one of just 25 global biodiversity ‘hotspots’. The 

biodiversity and associated species endemism in the mountains is virtually unparalleled in the world. As 

much as 30% of the 2,000 or so plant species and more than 80% of their spider and millipede groups are 

endemic to the mountains. Famed African Saintpaulia violets are only found naturally in the Eastern Arc 

19

and Coastal forests. At least four mammal 

species, five bird species, four amphibian 

species, twenty seven reptiles, forty 

butterflies, twenty millipedes, four hundred 

plants and an unknown number of flies, 

beetles and other invertebrates are endemic 

to East African coastal forests (Burgess 

et al., 1996). This level of endemism has 

arisen because of the forests’ isolation from 

other African forests, their old age and the 

fact that the Indian Ocean’s climate has 

remained more or less stable over very long 

periods of time. 

As a result, the threats that many of these 

species face relate to the preservation 

of their environment. Because so much 

of the Eastern Arc and Coastal Forest is 

threatened, many of their animal species 

are considered endangered (see box 9). 

On Mt. Kilimanjaro, 2,500 species of plants 

have been recorded, including 130 tree species 

from 100 genera and 50 families. 170 

shrub species have been identified from the 

mountain’s forests, and these belong to over 

100 genera and 40 families (Lambrechts et 

al. 2002). Some 140 mammal species are 

recorded from the mountain, including the 

world’s largest known population of Abbot’s 

duiker, a globally threatened species (Lambrechts 

et al., 2002). The park contains an 

endemic shrew, four endemic species and 

subspecies of butterfly, six endemic plants, 

twelve endemic mosses and liverworts 

(Baker and Baker, 2001). 

Box 8: Biodiversity hotspots 

Biodiversity hotspots are designated by the American 

conservation organisation, Conservation International. 

They are regions of the globe that harbour a great 

diversity of species but which, at the same time, have 

been significantly impacted and altered by human 

activities. Plant diversity is the basis for hotspot 

designation, because plants are the foundation for 

diversity in other taxonomic groups. In order to qualify, 

a site must contain at least 1,500 endemic plant 

species, fully 0.5% of the global total of known plants. 

In addition, 70% or more of the site’s original habitat 

must have been destroyed or altered. 

Between them, the world’s 25 biodiversity hotspots 

cover just 1.4% of the globe’s area, but contain 44% 

of the world’s known plants, and 35% of all known 

terrestrial vertebrates. 

Such hotspots are often ‘islands’ of biodiversity 

surrounded by areas of relatively poor biodiversity. 

As is the case with the Eastern Arc Mountains, these 

areas have typically obtained their biodiversity as 

a result of environmental conditions that have not 

changed over great lengths of time. 

Besides the Eastern Arc and Coastal Forests 

Biodiversity Hotspots, there are four other hotspots 

in Africa: the Madagascar and the Indian Ocean 

Islands, the Guinean Forests of West Africa, the 

Cape Floristic Region and the Succulent Karoo 

along Africa’s south-western coast. 

Source: www.biodiversityhotspots.org. 

A rare and endangered bull shark 

(Carcharrhinus leucas) occasionally swims 

up the Pangani River from its delta, and has been seen as far up its course as Jambe (TANESCO, 

1994). Besides the shark, however, none of the river’s 41 species of fish are thought to be endangered. 

It does contain several endemics, comprising two cyprinids (Barbus paegnstecheri and Labeo coubie), 

one characin (Rhabdalestes leleupi) and three cichlids (Ctenochromis pectoralis, Oreochromis korogwe 

and O. pangani) (TANESCO, 1994). 

The tilapia genus, Oreochromis, derives its name from the Latin for ‘mountain chromis’, which Gunther 

gave it in 1889 after discovering Oreochromis hunterti in Lake Chala, on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro 

(Dadzie et al., 1988). In Lake Jipe, an additional two endemic tilapia are to be found: Tilapia jipe and 

T. girigan. Oreochromis esculentus, a Lake Victoria endemic 4 , has been introduced to the basin and 

comprises a substantial part of the catch in Nyumba ya Mungu Reservoir. An additional exotic, T. rendalii, 

has been collected from Lake Chala. 

I4 

n a curious twist of fate, this species is now extinct from Lake Victoria. 

20

Box 9: Category 1 Globally threatened bird species of the Usambara Mountains 

Critically endangered 

• Long-billed Tailorbird (Orthotomus moreaui): not described until 1931 and still a little known species. 

Vulnerable 

• Sokoke Scops Owl (Otus ireneae): only discovered in 1965 in Kenya’s coastal Arabuko-Sokoke 

forest, where it was considered an endemic species until another population was discovered in 

the Usambaras in 1995. 

• Usambara Eagle Owl (Bubo vosseleri): discovered amongst the Usambara’s lowland forests in 

1992, after having been thought of as a low density high-altitude bird previously. 

• Swynnerton’s Robin (Swynnertonia swynnertoni): only discovered in the Usambaras in 1990. 

• East Coast Akalat (Shepperdia gunningi): discovered in the Usambaras in 1992. 

• Dappled Mountain Robin (Modulatrix orostruthus): rarity in the East Usambaras probably as a 

result of forest fragmentation. 

• Amani Sunbird (Hedydipna pallidigaster): first described by Sclater and famed ornithologist, 

Moreau, in 1935, this tiny sunbird is known from just three localities in East Africa. In the 

Usambaras, just 320 km 2 of suitable habitat remain (Cheke et al., 2001). 

• Banded Sunbird (Anthreptes rubritorques): known from only four localities in Tanzania. Its 

largest habitat area is the Udzungwa Mountains. 

• Usambara Weaver (Ploceus nicolli): weaver endemic to the Usambaras where, Zimmerman et al. 

(1996) estimate, less than 100 remain. 

Near-threatened 

• Southern-banded Snake Eagle (Circaetus fasciolatus): previously thought a fairly common 

resident of coastal forests stretching from northeastern Kenya to northeastern South Africa. 

Now considered threatened by human population density and excessive exploitation of forests, 

its main habitat. An estimated one pair per 100 km 2 remain within its range (Ferguson-Lees 

and Christie, 2001). 

• Fischer’s Turaco (Tauraco fischeri): locally common throughout the forest. Threatened by the 

international trade in wild birds. 

• Plain-backed Sunbird (Anthreptes reichenowi): the race reichenowi an Eastern Arc endemic. 

Threatened by deforestation. 


The primary threats facing the biodiversity of the Pangani River Basin (PRB) relate to habitat destruction. 

The very high levels of endemism typically equate with the high levels of unique and diverse habitat types 

in the Basin, particularly its Afromontane and coastal forests. For example, virtually all of the Basin’s 

endemic bird species are also considered restricted range species, making them extremely vulnerable to 

habitat destruction and fragmentation. 

Fears for the destruction of these valuable forest habitats have ensured that Tanzania’s coastal forests 

and Eastern Arc Mountains have received international attention. Virtually all of them hold Important Bird 

Area (IBA) status (Baker and Baker, 2001), serving to focus international conservation attention on these 

delicate and very vulnerable ecosystems. Nevertheless, very few of the PRB’s Eastern Arc or Coastal 

forests are anything but forest reserves. 

21

B. 6 Fisheries 

Fisheries are often a vital source of animal protein to rural African communities, In 1970, the NYM fishery 

supported 3,161 fishers, who landed 28,509 tonnes of fish between them. By 1983, there were 1,342 

fishers, who managed to land just 2,430 tonnes of fish (Vanden Bossche and Bernacsek, 1999). 

Typha and papyrus cover almost half of Lake Jipe’s surface, and has almost halted fishing activities on 

the Tanzanian side of the lake (Sarmett and Kamugisha, 2002). On the Kenyan side of Lake Jipe, some 

200 villagers in three villages are said to rely on the lake’s fisheries. Besides problems associated with 

water weed, the siltation of the lake is also a threat to the fishery (Musyoki, 2003). 

Villagers around the Kirua Swamp downstream of the NYM dam complain of fish declines due to the 

regulation of water flow from the dam (Sarmett and Kamugisha, 2002). 

B.7 Soils 

Most of the Pangani River Basin comprises a crystalline and limestone geological series, along with patches 

of lacustrine deposits. Closer to the coast, the geology is one of fluvial and estuarine deposits. Areas close 

to Mt. Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro are typically highly fertile alkaline volcanics (Geological Survey, 1960). This 

combination of soils of lacustrine and volcanic origin, as well as areas of high average annual rainfall mean 

that parts of the Pangani River Basin have come to be seen as the ‘breadbasket’ of Tanzania. 

The principal concerns regarding the soils of the Pangani River Basin (PRB) are reduction to soil fertility, 

and soil loss to erosion. Stoorvogel and Smaling (1990) estimated that arable Tanzania soils lost 27 kg 

of N, 9 kg of P 2 

O 2 

and 21 kg of K 2 

O per hectare per annum in 1983. They predicted that, by 2000, these 

rates of loss would increase to 32 kg of N, 12 kg of P 2 

O 2 

and 25 kg of K 2 

O per hectare per annum if 

the nutrient losses observed in 1983 were not reversed. For nitrogen and phosphorous, these rates of 

loss are equivalent to 251,448 tonnes and 115,112 tonnes per annum respectively. Losses, Stoorvogel 

and Smaling claimed, were due to three factors: first, the normal harvest of the crop, through which 

most nutrients are lost. Second, through the removal of crop residues. For example, when beans are 

harvested in Arumeru District in the Arusha region, the whole plant is removed from the ground. Third, 

through erosion, particularly as a result of cultivation of steep slopes (Kaihura et al., 2001). It should be 

noted that not all agriculture within the Pangani River Basin is deleterious (Kaihura et al., 2001). 

B.8 Summary of points 

The resources of the Pangani River Basin (PRB) are all heavily exploited. In this section, we first briefly 

summarise the important contributions that these resources make to the PRB and, in the second part, 

summarise the threats to them. 

PRB resources 

• Forests play a crucial role in the PRB’s hydrology, serving to regulate water run off, minimise erosion, 

store and purify water. In the PRB, they also make a vital contribution to global biodiversity. In the PRB’s 

forests some of the world’s highest levels of species endemism and biodiversity are to be found. 

• Water in the PRB is integral to the Basin’s agricultural economy, its power generation, its urban, 

industrial and domestic demands and to livestock. Swamps are also common in the Basin and 

play a vital role in water retention and regulation. 

• The Basin contains four Protected Areas (PAs). Kilimanjaro, in particular, plays an important role 

in the nation’s tourism economy, and also harbours a wide array of plant and animal species. 

22

• The Basin’s biodiversity is almost unparalleled globally, and the centre of a great deal of 

international interest and conservation concerns. 

• The PRB’s fisheries make important nutritional and economic contributions to the Basin’s rural 

communities. 

• Soils are at the heart of the Basin’s agricultural economy. The area’s history of volcanic activity 

and patches of fertile lacustrine deposits, contribute to the Pangani River Basin’s reputation of 

being the breadbasket of Tanzania. 

Threats to the PRB’s resources 

• The Basin’s forests are threatened by logging, encroachment along their peripheries, demands for 

land, charcoal manufacture and fuelwood collection. 

• The Basin’s water supplies are threatened by extremely high demands that have ensured that its 

water resources are considered ‘stressed’. The main sources of demand are inefficient furrowbased 

irrigation systems. The Basin’s swamps are threatened by the regulation of water by 

damming. 

• The Basin’s PAs are threatened, on the one hand, by poaching, and, on the other hand, by threats 

similar to those faced by forest resources. 

• Most of the Basin’s biodiversity has been gained as a result of its unique array of forest habitat 

types. Threats to biodiversity, as a result, arise because of threats to habitat. 

• The fisheries of the PRB are threatened by excessive fishing pressure, and weed growth 

occasioned by high nutrient loads. 

• Low levels of nutrient return and inputs, as well as high rates of erosion, threaten the Basin’s 

soils. 

23

C The socio-economy of the 

Pangani River Basin 

C.1 Overview 

There are an estimated 3.7 million people in the PRB, 80% of whom rely, either directly or indirectly, 

on agriculture for their livelihoods. 90% of the Basin’s population live in its upper parts. This settlement 

concentration yields population densities of up to 300 people per km 2 . In the highland areas of Kilimanjaro 

there are some 900 people per km 2 with average farm holdings of just 0.2 ha per household. In lowland 

areas at the same time, there were only 65 people per km 2 , and each household farmed an average area 

of 10.4 ha. (Lein, 2002). 

The Basin’s urban and industrial economies are not sufficiently large to absorb this labour force. As a 

result, its burgeoning population seeks livelihoods in agriculture, a large part of which is irrigated. As the 

number of claims on water increase, so too do the number of conflicts. Demands for access to water are 

symptomatic of wider demands for access to a whole variety of resources, including land, forest products, 

pasture, mineral deposits and, ultimately, livelihoods. A livelihood may be described as follows: 

“...a means of securing a living...Encompassed in a livelihood is the totality of resources, activities 

and products which go to securing a living. It relies on ownership of, or access to products or 

income-generating activities. A livelihood is measurable in terms of both stocks – that is the 

reserves and assets – and the flows of food and cash” (Conway and Barbier, 1990: 117). 

The notion of access to resources is the most important factor in determining whether or not the pursuit 

of a livelihood is successful (cf. Ellis, 2000). It follows, then, that where a resource on which a community 

relies becomes scarce, then access to it is curtailed. As resources become ever more scarce, then the 

measures that people will adopt to try and procure resources may become increasingly more desperate, 

and more difficult for the resource concerned to sustain. This trend may then reach a point where the 

pursuit of livelihoods actually starts to undermine the ability of a resource to regenerate itself. 

A factor that serves to amplify the problems associated with livelihood claims is if the resources 

involved are Common Property Resources (CPRs). These are resources that share two fundamental 

characteristics: (a) they are ‘subtractable’. The subtraction of a unit of water upstream yields a unit less 

of water downstream. Equally, a fisherman landing 100 kg of fish ensures that there is 100 kg less fish for 

others to catch. (b) It is difficult or impossible to ‘fence off’ CPRs. ‘Fencing off’ metaphorically refers to the 

serious problems of policing CPRs. Due to their nature, CPRs (such as oceans, the atmosphere or river 

courses) cannot be fenced off. They are also remarkably difficult to monitor and police. CPRs, therefore, 

are best managed in common, with inputs by all users. If such a communal style of management is 

absent, CPRs are very vulnerable to becoming ‘open-access’, in which patterns of exploitation are 

characterised as ‘free-for-all’, with resources users taking more than is necessary today for fear that 

they may gain nothing tomorrow. Such patterns of exploitation are characterised with very high levels 

of competition between users, and any intrinsic worth associated with resource conservation is typically 

disregarded. When resources are exploited in such a fashion, the ‘tragedy of the commons’ is often said 

to have occurred, and the demise of the resource is fairly certain. 

To varying degrees, and depending on resource type, many of the PRB’s resources display open-access 

traits and serious livelihood difficulties. The relationships that characterise the exploitation of the Basin’s 

resources are often characterised as conflicting. To simplify and clarify these difficulties, this chapter 

considers the interests of the Basin’s various economic interests, starting with its industrial interests that 

include electricity generation, and then going on to consider the largest part of the Basin’s economy, its 

agriculture. Other interests are also considered in turn, and the Chapter culminates with an assessment 

of the conflicts that characterise exploitation in this Basin. 

24

Table 4: Tanzanian and Kenyan socio-economic basics 

2001 unless otherwise indicated 

Kenya 

Tanzania 

Population 29m 32m 

Population annual growth rate in 2000 2.6 2.8 

Infant mortality rate/1000 live births 75.0 91.0 

Under-5 mortality rate/1000 live births 117.0 142.0 

Probability of dying, male < 5 yrs (per 1000) 100.0 157.0 

Probability of dying, female < 5 yrs (per 1000) 99.0 48.0 

Life expectancy at birth (males) 47.3 44.4 

Life expectancy at birth (females) 48.1 45.6 

% access to safe drinking water 44.0 66.0 

% access to adequate sanitation 85.0 86.0 

% infants with low birth weight 1 16.0 14.0 

% stunted children (moderate and severe) 2 33.0 42.0 

% wasted children (moderate and severe) 3 6.0 6.0 

Average per capita daily calorie intake (1999) 4 1,886.0 1,940.0 

GNP (US$) per capita 340.0 210.0 

Notes 

1 

Low birth weight is often an indication of maternal stress while the foetus is carried, such as illhealth (including 

malnutrition). 

2 

Stunting is a chronic form of malnutrition derived from not obtaining sufficient, quality, nutrients over the long 

term. 

3 

Wasting is a dangerous, acute, form of malnutrition derived from not obtaining sufficient, quality, nutrients in the 

short term. 

4 

The FAO sets the minimum daily energy requirement for humans at 2,600 kilocalories (kcal) a day. 

Sources: UNICEF, 2001; FAO, 2001; WHO, 2001 

25

C.2 Industrial interests 

Probably the largest industrial interest in the Pangani River Basin (PRB) is power generation. The main 

supplier in this regard is the state-owned Tanzania Electric Supply Co. [sic.] (TANESCO), which owns 

four hydropower facilities on the Pangani River. These are Nyumba ya Mungu (NYM) (with an 8 MW 

capacity), Hale (21 MW), and New Pangani Falls (68 MW. All the power plants are connected to the 

national grid and they contribute about 17% to the total hydropower production of the country (Ngula, 

2002). The firm discharge through the power plants is about 24 m 3 /s, whereas the maximum designed 

discharge is 45 m 3 /s. Old Pangani (17.5 MW) operates only occasionally, crippled by lack of adequate 

water (Lugeiyamu, pers. comm.). 

In the dry season, water shortages may cause power generation within the basin to drop to as low as 32 

MW (Sarmett and Kamugisha, 2002). 

There are extensive mining interests in the Pangani River Basin. These include tin mining in Korogwe, 

tanzanite and phosphate mines in the Arusha Region, and limestone mines in the Tanga Region (Mkuula, 

1993). Genstones are also an important quest, and 80% of the world’s known tanzanite reserves are to 

be found at Merelani, 100 km northeast of Arusha. Sand mining for building purposes is common along 

riverbanks, and in Kenyan parts of the Basin, ruby mining is carried out. 

Other industry within the basin is that associated with farming, such as sugar refineries and sisal 

processing plants. In Kenya’s Taita – Taveta District, sisal production is the main agricultural activity. 

C. 3 Farming interests 

The Chagga peoples have lived on Mt. Kilimanjaro’s slopes for between 300 – 450 years. Their farmland 

is divided into two types of tenure. The first is ‘shamba’, and is typically restricted to the lower slopes of 

the mountain where rainfall is much less reliable, and irrigation commensurately more important. The 

use of shamba land was overseen by Chagga chiefs, who would allocate parcels of land to farmers on 

a seasonal basis. While a farmer might exploit the land for a long period of time, it was never his to own 

(Johnston, 1946). The second type of Chagga land tenure is the ‘kihamba’, which was set aside for the 

private use of Chagga denizens. Kihamba was – and still is – farmed with remarkable intensity. Even 

in the 1940s, at the time of Johnston’s (1942) writing, there was very little kihamba land left that could 

be used as pasture, and most livestock was stall-fed. In those areas where farming intensities became 

too high, and no additional kihamba land was available, Chagga chiefs were obliged to convert shamba 

land to kihamba. In effect, this gesture served to siphon off excess farming from the upper slopes to the 

lower slopes of the mountain. The Chagga could not expand up the mountain because this was already 

set aside as forest reserve, and they could not expand into the middle slope areas because this was 

‘alienated’ land for European settlers (Lein, 2002). 

Against this background of high farming intensity, the Chagga devised furrow systems to deliver water 

from natural watercourses to their crops. This system is said to be one of the oldest (thought to have 

started in the 18 th Century (Gillingham, 1999)) and most extensive furrowbased irrigation systems in 

Africa (Røhr et al. n.d.). To obtain such furrow water, a Chagga had to be a member of a furrow board, 

which was governed by furrow elders whose instructions farmers had to follow on pain of fines or 

prohibition from using furrow water (Johnston, 1946). Furrow board members were also expected to play 

a part in the maintenance of the furrows. Furrow members who abstracted water from furrows owned by 

individuals or claims had to pay fees to do so. 

Despite the apparent farming intensity and population pressure on kihamba land, traditional institutions of 

governance and conflict prevention appear to have been effective. Johnston (1942) commented that “…it is 

remarkable that, with a big and complicated furrow system in the kihamba land, so well are matters run by the 

furrow elders, that the number of cases arising out of disputes over water rights are relatively few” (p. 4). 

26

Further to the south, farming intensities in the Usambaras were also proving problematic to colonial 

observers. “The necessity for the natives to cultivate perpetually on hillsides makes soil erosion an acute 

problem, and large tracts of land…are badly eroded” (Dobson, 1940: 3). The Sambaa faced similar 

problems to the Chagga. The middle-slope areas of the mountains possessed a climate pleasing to early 

German farmers, who alienated large tracts of land for sisal farming. 

Water amongst the Sambaa was considered communal property, and a person who had a natural water 

source upon his land could not prevent outsiders from using it. Landowners could impose fines if livestock 

damaged their crops, or if the water was fouled. 

Water from furrows, which were in common usage in the early 1940s, belonged to those who had 

constructed the furrow (Dobson, 1940). “When the furrow is dug the shamba owners decide amongst 

themselves who shall have the water and on which days” (p. 22). Again, despite apparently heavy farming 

intensities and population density, water use right disputes appeared to be minimal. “There appear to 

be surprisingly few disputes”, wrote Dobson (1940), “…but in the case of very long furrows, the elders 

generally put in a reliable man to supervise and see that everyone gets their fair share of water and that 

none is wasted…” (p. 22). 

Unlike the Chagga, the Sambaa were very reluctant to descend down the mountain slopes to find 

alternative sources of farmland. The absence of water user rights disputes and the fact that moving into 

lowland areas was still a matter of choice, suggests that farming intensities were not, in 1940, anywhere 

near as pronounced as they are today. 

The Pangani River Basin (PRB) was, during Tanzania’s colonial period, a core development area, with 

large-scale coffee, sisal, wheat and sugar interests becoming established within the Basin. The demand 

for labour therefore grew, attracting migrants from all over the country and even as far afield as Rwanda, 

Burundi and Mozambique (Mbonile, 2002). 

It is not clear how much of the Pangani River 

Basin (PRB) is irrigated today. In the part of 

the Basin that lies in Tanzania, Mujwahuzi 

(2001) estimates that 40,000 ha of land are 

under irrigation, Røhr et al. (n.d.) claim that 

29,000 ha are effectively irrigated, while Ngula 

(2002) estimates that 31,075 ha of the PRB 

are irrigated (Ngula, 2002). 

In the Kenyan portion of the PRB, the single 

biggest demand on Lake Jipe’s waters is 

irrigation. Within the lake’s Kenyan watershed, 

there are 10 irrigation schemes covering 

a combined area of 1,717 ha. This area is 

expected to increase. The Lake Jipe Irrigation 

Scheme will lie along the lake’s shoreline, and 

will cover 77.2 ha. and will require 308 m 3 

of water per hour (Musyoki and Mwandotto, 

1999). At present, most water is abstracted 

from that portion of the Lumi River that flows 

through Kenya, along which there are 21 

water supply schemes. Total abstraction 

within the Kenyan portion of the lake’s basin 

is 77,274 m 3 per day. An additional 54,681 m 3 

are abstracted during flood periods (Musyoki 

and Mwandotto, 1999). 

Box 10: Traditional furrow design flaws 

According to Mwamfupe (2001), the problems 

with traditional furrow design in the PRB are as 

follows: 

• much water is lost at the point of abstraction 

because of the materials (banana logs) used 

to divert water into the irrigation furrows; 

• the design of plots is poor – they are not 

typically levelled, causing water to pool, 

prompting salinisation and low crop yields; 

• furrows are poorly constructed with weak 

banks, causing water to break out. 

Additional problems are that farmers often relate 

their abstraction size to the amount of land that 

they have to irrigate, and not to the amount of water 

that is available. Water abstracted is retained, and 

in many cases allowed to pool. It is not typical for 

farmers to construct return furrows to the water 

source. “Tanzanian irrigation systems are just a 

waste of water” (Nasari, pers. comm.). 

27

According to Ngula (2002) current water demand within the Tanzanian part of the Basin is 807.99 million m 3 

for 20% irrigation efficiency. Irrigation in the PRB uses between 400 and 480 Million Cubic Metres (MCM) 

of water annually (Mujwahuzi, 2001). Distribution of this usage appears to be uneven – with half of the 

Basin’s water consumption concentrated around Mt. Kilimanjaro. Here, 500 traditional irrigation furrows, 

that, combined, stretch for 1,800 km, draw an estimated 200 MCM annually from the mountain’s rivers 

(Gillingham, 1999). Røhr et al. (n.d.) refer to work that indicates that, between 1997 and 2007, for every 

1.5% increment to the Basin’s population, low season river flow is reduced by 8 m 3 /s. In the Kilimanjaro 

Region, 80% of water abstraction is for irrigation (Ngana, 2001). Areas of Hai and Moshi Rural Districts 

(around Mt. Kilimanjaro) display the highest traditional furrow densities in Africa (Tagseth, 2002). As a 

result, erosion rates from Mt. Kilimanjaro are high (Mtalo and Ndomba, 2002). 24 tonnes of soil per hectare 

of catchment flows into the Nyumba ya Mungu reservoir every year (Mtalo and Ndomba, 2002). 

All of this irrigation is assured by the PRB’s 2,000 traditional furrows (Mujwahuzi, 2001), which corresponds, 

Mwamfupe (2001) says, to 80% of the Basin’s irrigated area. This may not be an indication of farming 

intensity, however. Tagseth (2002), drawing on data for his study area comprising three locations in 

southern Moshi Rural District, argues that the amount of water abstracted actually declined between 

1940 and 1993, as did the number of furrows. 

The reasons for irrigation are twofold. In the highland areas, average plot sizes are between 0.1 and 0.2 

ha. Up here, population densities are in the region of 700 – 1,000 people per km 2 (Mwamfupe, 2001). 

To compensate for small farm sizes and ensure that such land as is available will be as productive as 

possible, irrigation is practised. Lower down in the basin, in the traditional ‘shamba’ areas, plot sizes tend 

to be larger (0.8 – 1.5 ha), and farming less intense (Mwamfupe, 2001). Down here, however, rainfall 

patterns tend to be irregular, and irrigation is practised to mitigate climatic vagaries. 

It is clear that with such levels of irrigation, upstream water users are more favourably placed than are 

downstream users. Water shortages are very common within the basin. Mwamfupe’s (2001) study is 

drawn from two locations: Makuyuni, on Kilimanjaro’s slopes, and Kahe, lower down in the mountain’s 

foothills. His respondents said that they did not receive enough water for irrigation. The largest proportion 

of respondents – most of whom were from Kahe – blamed this on prolonged drought; followed by those 

– mainly from Makuyuni – who blamed increased water uses and demand. Just 7.3% blamed their water 

supply problems on inefficient furrow design. 

It is important to recognise that a large part of the reason why these traditional irrigation systems have 

not changed, despite their inefficiencies, is because of the costs involved in obtaining efficient, lowmaintenance 

and durable irrigation alternatives. It is also important to note that furrow design may yield 

social and economic benefits that outweigh the losses incurred from inefficient water conveyance. 

The amount of vegetation cover in the Basin has declined, contributing towards reduced dry season 

discharges, and threatening livelihoods. Farmers have responded to water shortages in a number of 

ways. They have reduced the amount of cotton that they grow, preferring to cultivate tomatoes, which 

have a short growing period and a good market. Mwamfupe (2001) also claims that coffee is being 

abandoned because of fluctuating prices 5 . Farming households have also, increasingly, sought to 

diversify their livelihood bases by seeking off-farm incomes. Interestingly, the type of alternative income 

pursued appears to vary on the farming area from which the farmer comes. Alternatives obtained by 

highland households included tailoring, radio and TV repair, watch repair and shoe-making. In the 

lowlands, alternatives included selling cattle fodder, stone-crushing, charcoal-making and casual labour. 

Mwamfupe (2002) suggests that this is because the highland zone is better developed and contains 

more urban areas than lowland areas, so opportunities to enter the service sector are better. 

5 

It should be noted that fluctuations in the global coffee market, as well as markets for other agricultural goods, 

and variable trends in Tanzania’s tourist economy, all contribute towards altering the stability of the Basin’s own 

economy and influence the ability of its inhabitants to secure adequate livelihoods. 

28

Box 11: Sodicity and salinity 

Sodicity is the presence of excess ‘exchangeable sodium’ (sodium salts capable of alkaline hydrolysis) and 

results in poor soil permeability and tilth. Salinity is common in arid/semi-arid areas because there is not 

enough water to flush accumulated salts from the crop root zone. Salinisation may occur when the supply of 

salts exceeds their removal by flooding or leaching. Amongst many problems associated with salinisation is 

its impact on soil absorption and moisture retention. The breakdown of the soil’s physical properties causes 

its top layer to compact, ensuring that water infiltration from the surface layers to the root zone is restricted. 

In the Pangani River Basin, the problem of salinity has been reported in some irrigation schemes, including 

Musa Mwijanga, Kikafu Chini (both in Hai District) and Mawala (Moshi Rural District) (Misana and Makoi, 

2001), as well as on some of the Basin’s large private irrigation schemes (Sahib, 2002). 

Amongst the difficulties arising from high levels of irrigation intensity are sodicity and salinity. At Misana 

and Makoi’s (2001) three survey sites (all in Moshi Rural District), irrigation water has not been the cause 

of salinity, although there has been a ‘slight to severe’ restriction in infiltration rate in the topsoil at all 

study sites. At two sites, irrigation did contribute to sodicity. ‘Good quality’ water, they say, is needed to 

address this problem. Irrigation was not found to have negatively affected the fertility of the soil except 

at one site. Misana and Makoi (2001) recommend the use of low levels of various fertilisers to address 

problems of less than satisfactory soil fertility. They suggest that salts may well be leached by irrigation, 

but where the water stands, then the problem is not solved because it causes structural change to topsoil 

layers, affecting water transfer from top soil to the crop root zone. 

The largest farms in the Basin are the Tanzania Planting Company (TPC) (17,000 ha), the Kilimanjaro 

Agricultural Development Programme (KADP – 6,320 ha), and the Burka Coffee Estate in Arusha. 

TPC lies just south of Moshi, and was first established by Danish investors in the early 1930’s. It was 

nationalized in 1980, and re-privatised in 2000 through Mauritian (Deep River Bean Champ Sugar 

Estate, Mauritius) and French investors (Group Quartier Francais Reunion Island). The estate covers 

some 17,000 ha of which some 5,750 ha are presently under sugar cane. It is planned to increase this to 

some 7,500 ha in the near future (Sahib, 2002). 

Benefiting from only some 450mm rainfall a year, irrigation is a pre-requisite for sugar cane cultivation. 

The effective crop water deficit has been estimated at a minimum of 1,200 mm/year thus requiring 

irrigation applications varying between 1,500–1,900 mm per year depending on the irrigation system and 

methodology. Roughly half the estate is overhead irrigated, while the remainder is surface furrow irrigated. 

Rivers lying on the western boundary of the estate provide part of the irrigation water, the rest being 

pumped from an underlying aquifer through high delivery flow boreholes (500 m 3 /hr) (Sahib, 2002). 

In Tanzania, water may only be legally abstracted if users are in possession of a water right, which, for 

Pangani Basin, is issued by the Pangani Basin Water Board (PBWB), and priced depending on the use 

to which the water is to be put. The PBWB has encountered serious problems implementing the water 

rights system because most small-scale users believe that water is a ‘gift from God’. While they wish to 

abstract water legally, they typically do not believe that they should have to pay to do so. Most large-scale 

users do, however, pay for water rights (Sarmett, pers. comm.). 

C. 4 Pastoralist interests 

Between 1994 and 1995, livestock contributed some 30% to Tanzania’s GDP. The country has an 

estimated 60 million hectares of land suitable for livestock grazing, and believes it can support some 20 

million livestock units. The country has an estimated 16 million livestock units at present. 

29

There are few data on the pastoralists of the Pangani River Basin. In 1995, livestock within the Basin was 

estimated to need 30,500 m 3 of water a day, while they are expected to require 36,400 m 3 /day in 2015 

(IVO – NORPLAN, 1997). Current livestock numbers in the Basin are not known. The most recent figures 

available to this survey come from 2002, and are derived from scattered districts and municipalities 

throughout the Basin (Table 4). 

Table 5: Livestock population in selected areas of the Pangani River Basin (2002) 

Region Cattle Shoats* Donkeys 

Simanjiro District, Manyara Region 305,075 133,000 11,000 

Arusha Municipality & Arumeru District, 470,000 461,450 21,991 

Arusha Region. 

Kilimanjaro Region 568,689 534,420 12,380 

Tanga Region 421,261 378,442 Not counted 

Taita – Taveta District (Kenya) 37,800 40,277 Not counted 

Total 1,765,025 902,972 

Source: Various sources. *‘Shoats’ are goats and sheep combined. 

C. 5 Urban interests 

The Pangani River Basin (PRB) contains two main urban areas. In the north, and located relatively close to 

one another, are Moshi and Arusha. In 1995, urban water use from the Basin was estimated to be 71,200 

m 3 /day, and was expected to grow to 163,600 m 3 /day in 2015 (IVO – NORPLAN, 1997). The volumes of 

water used at present, Sarmett and Kamugisha (2002) estimate are low, and no more than 1.1 m 3 /s. 

Arusha municipality has a population of between 250,000 and 350,000 (depending on authority). 

Although most of the water coming off Mt. Meru is used for irrigation and domestic purposes, the biggest 

commercial water user is the Arusha Urban Water and Sanitation Authority (AUWSA). It has 15 boreholes 

and an average annual capacity of 7.4 million m 3 (Schechambo, 2002). The Authority also taps water 

from two springs with an average combined annual yield of almost 6.4 million m 3 (Schechambo, 2002). 

The rivers are also used to dispose of urban waste. Moshi Municipality, Ngana (2001) says disposes 

sewerage directly into rivers, while Mkuula (1993) claims that the rivers Themi (near Arusha), Karanga, 

Njoro and Rau (near Moshi) are all polluted by urban-based industrial waste. 

C.6 Interventions by NGOs and international organisations in 

the PRB 

There are large numbers of NGOs operating in the Pangani River Basin (PRB), and far fewer 

international organisations. In this section, it is understood that these interests do not typically make 

demands upon the PRB’s natural resources, but that their interests are often focussed upon Natural 

Resource Management (NRM), conservation and the development and sustenance of livelihoods. 

There are far more NGO and international donor interventions than those considered. Those discussed 

below may form the basis for collaborative integrated management activities in the Basin, as will be 

discussed in the conclusion. 

30

Non-governmental organisations 

PAMOJA is a Tanzanian-based NGO that believes that dialogue is necessary in a conflict situation. It 

argues that ‘if the voices of the unofficial and marginalised community groups are heard and listened to 

by policy and decision makers, local actors can effectively contribute to the protection and rehabilitation 

of water catchments, while also increasing the efficiency of economic production and use of water’ 

(PAMOJA, 2002: 3). Mutual agreement, they say, works better than law. Of late, PAMOJA has increasingly 

come under the scrutiny of the Pangani Basin Water Office (PBWO) as a possible route through which 

dialogue and mutual understanding between the PBWO and the Basin’s water users can be developed. 

Launched in 1992, the Tanzania Forestry Action Plan (TFAP) Project in the North Pare Mountains 

was concerned with a number of serious problems, including high population density, small plot sizes, 

exhausted soils and alarming levels of forest encroachment. Using an approach that sought to draw 

up site-specific management plans in collaboration with the project area’s communities, it was able to 

improve soil fertility, reduce surface run-off and stabilise river banks. TFAP also sought to utilise irrigation 

systems developed by the Wapare and used by them for centuries. Plot sizes, however, remain small, 

and the only cash crop cultivated in the area was coffee, leading Mndeme (n.d.) to suggest that the 

development of off-farm income-making opportunities and the diversification of the cash crop base would 

be necessary for the future success of the project (source: Mndeme, n.d.). 

The Traditional Irrigation and Environmental Development Organisation (TIP) has been registered in 

Tanzania since 1999. The organisation inherited the assets and took over the functions of a former 

13-year old donor-funded project called the Traditional Irrigation Programme. As it was with the latter 

programme, the main focus of TIP is to assist in poverty alleviation and sustaining food security for the 

small-scale traditional irrigation community in selected areas of Tanzania by improving traditional irrigation 

practices. TIP emphasises land use planning as a basis for basin management, and argues that, as an 

initial starting point, the Basin should be divided into sub-catchments. In each of these, there should be 

a sub-catchment board comprising representatives sent by each village within the sub-catchment. Each 

sub-catchment board will send representatives to a Basin water board (Mjata, pers. comm.). 

TIP works through Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with four Tanzanian districts: Same and Mwanga 

in Kilimanjaro Region, Lushoto in Tanga Region and Arumeru in Arusha Region. It reaches other clients 

and/or interested partners elsewhere through contracts and assignments upon request (Mjata, 2002). 

The Tanga Coastal Zone Conservation and Development Programme (TCZCDP) has partnerships with 

the District Councils of Pangani and Muheza, the Tanga Municipal Council, the Tanga Regional Authority, 

Irish Aid (donors), and the IUCN (The Word Conservation Union) for technical and managerial advice. 

The overall objective of the TCZCDP is the sustainable use of coastal resources. The programme aims to 

enhance the well-being of coastal communities in the region by improving the health of the environment 

that they depend upon and diversifying the options for using the coastal environment. The TCZDP started 

its work in 1987 and its activities are ongoing (Mgongo, 2002). 

The Tanzania Coastal Management Partnership (TCMP) is a joint initiative between the National 

Environmental Management Council (NEMC), the Coastal Resources Center/University of Rhode Island 

and USAID. The partnership was initiated in 1997 to develop and apply a national coastal management 

framework. This latter framework is based on a series of strategies that aim to develop an integrated 

management plan for Tanzania’s coastline and to develop sustainable and environmentally friendly 

economic activities in the area (Luhikula, 2002). 

The Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG) was established in 1985, and promotes the conservation 

of forests with high biodiversity in Tanzania. The group counts amongst its successes lobbying for the 

creation of the Udzungwa National Park, Tanzania’s first rainforest park; the purchase of the Mazumbai 

Forest in the West Usambaras for research purposes by the University of Dar es Salaam; and lobbying 

for the EU – IUCN/Ministry of Livestock and Agriculture funded East Usambara Conservation and 

31

Development Project. Amongst its present activities within the PRB is the development of a Joint Forest 

Management (JFM) framework for the Ambangulu Forest (West Usambaras) between local communities, 

local government and a nearby tea estate. Through its work with communities adjacent to the Kambai 

Forest (West Usambaras), the TFCG has managed to have 600,000 trees planted. At Ngulwi (West 

Usambaras), the TFCG is trying to afforest denuded slopes and establish an ecotourism programme. 

International interventions 

Probably the largest intervention in the Pangani River Basin (PRB) has been the River Basin Management 

and Smallholder Irrigation Improvement Project (RBMSIIP). This is a twocomponent project being 

implemented by the Ministry of Water and Livestock Development (MoWLD) through its Water Resources 

Department; and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS) through its Irrigation Department. 

RBMSIIP was originally designed as a six year programme (1996/97-2001/02) funded with IDA credit 

and government counterpart funding. Following a mid-term review in 2001, the project’s new completion 

date was extended by a year to June 2003 to finalise planned activities. 

The primary objectives of the project are to strengthen the government’s capacity to manage its water 

resources in an integrated and comprehensive manner that ensures the equitable, efficient and sustainable 

development of the resource and to address water-related environmental concerns at the national level 

and in the Rufiji and Pangani River Basins; and, to improve irrigation efficiencies of selected smallholder 

traditional irrigation schemes in the two target basins. Its major achievement to date has been a review of 

the national water policy and the drafting of a new water policy. The latter was approved by the Tanzanian 

Parliament in July 2002. 

The UNDP-GEF East Africa Cross-border Biodiversity Project (EACBP) is a regional project funded 

by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the UNDP, and, in Tanzania, is implemented by the 

National Environmental Management Council (NEMC). The project works through existing administrative 

structures in the region, with a strong community involvement as a backbone. The project’s major 

objective is to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss at selected cross-border sites in East Africa. It has 

two immediate objectives. The first is to create an enabling environment in which government agencies 

and communities can jointly regulate resource use; the second is to balance the supply and demand 

factors that impact upon biodiversity conservation and wise use. In the Basin area, the EACBP has been 

working in the Shegena Forest Reserve, the largest forest block in the North Pare Mountains, where it 

has sought to establish a JFM framework with local communities. 

The Pangani River Basin Management Project (PRBMP) is generating technical information and developing 

participatory forums to strengthen Integrated Water Resources Management in the Pangani Basin, including 

mainstreaming climate change, to support the equitable provision and wise governance of freshwater 

for livelihoods and environment for current and future generations. The Pangani Basin Water Office is 

implementing the project with technical assistance from IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), 

the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) and the local NGO PAMOJA. The project is financially 

supported by the IUCN Water & Nature Initiative, the Government of Tanzania, the European Commission 

through a grant from the EU-ACP Water Facility, and the Global Environment Facility through UNDP. 

C.7 Conflict 

As mentioned above, water users are legally obliged to hold water rights issued by the Pangani Basin 

Water Office. The cost of a water right depends on the end to which the water is to be put. Small-scale 

users are often reluctant to apply and pay for water rights, arguing that water is a ‘gift from God’. According 

to Mujwahuzi (2001) there are 1,028 water rights in the Basin with a capacity to abstract 30.7 m 3 /s. There 

are, however, an additional 2,094 abstractions with a capacity to abstract about 40 m 3 /s. “The present and 

potential water use conflicts [in the Basin] are the result of past uncoordinated and increased development 

of the water resources of the Pangani especially above Nyumba ya Mungu Dam” (Mujwahuzi, 2001: 131). 

32

Plate 1: The Pangani River Basin 


33

34 

Plate 2: The Administrative Pangani Basin 

(Source: River Basin Management Project)

Plate 3: Kilimanjaro’s famous snowcap in 1993 (at the top) and in 2000 

(Source: Bergkamp et al. 2003) 

35

Plate 4: The River Karanga at 

Moshi (Kim Geheb, 2002). 

Plate 5: Mount Kilimanjaro 

(Kim Geheb, 2002). 

36

Plate 6: An irrigation furrow in Moshi 

Rural District. The upper image shows 

it close to its source, while the lower 

near its terminus. (Kim Geheb, 2002). 

37

Plate 7: The capped spring at Shiri – Njoro. The spillway in the foreground directs 

water into the village’s furrows, while the control gate mounted on a concrete 

structure in the background directs water to Moshi. 


Plate 8: Forested slopes on Mt. Meru 


38

Conflict within the Pangani River Basin (PRB) is not, however, restricted to water users alone. In the 

examples provided below, it will become clear that many of the conflicts facing the water sector are 

replicated in other resource use sectors, and between different types and claims over resource use. 

The types of conflict identified here are a simplification of the highly complex and contentious nature 

of conflict development. This Situation Analysis groups conflict into three broad categories designed to 

provide an overview of the various types and scales of conflict present within the PRB. The categories 

are not mutually exclusive, given that it is in the nature of natural resources conflict and livelihood claims 

that the problems that affect resource access overlap, and often feed off one another. Hence, conflicts of 

scale may exacerbate conflicts of tenure and vice versa. The categories are: conflicts of scale, conflicts 

of tenure and conflicts of location. 

Conflicts of scale 

The relationship between water users of different sizes and power in the Pangani River Basin is often 

described in dichotomous terms. Hence, large-scale plantations using hundreds of litres of water a 

second and employing highly efficient irrigation systems, differ starkly from small-scale users using far 

less water and employing very inefficient irrigation systems. It should be noted that similar conflicts may 

also occur within communities, between vested power interests (such as village governments) and other 

community members. The extremes involved in these regards are fertile grounds for conflict to erupt. 

Examples of these kinds of conflict are as follows: 

The Shiri – Njoro Village and the Moshi Municipal Water and Sewage Authority 

Shiri – Njoro lies along the Moshi – Arusha Road, close to Moshi Town. Moshi is a rapidly growing urban 

area supported, in the main, by agriculture. As the town grows, so too has its demand for water. In 2000, 

engineers from the municipal water authority arrived in Shiri – Njoro and capped the community’s main 

spring. The spring yields 218 L/s, and the Moshi Municipal Water and Sewage Company (MMWSA) 

obtained a water right to abstract 116 L/s. The village had three furrows originating from the spring that 

abstracted about 30 L/s each. Urban Water abstraction, therefore, should have left the community with 

sufficient water to fill its furrows. 

The MMWSA, however, abstracts around 24 L/s more than it is entitled to. The Shiri – Njoro Village Council 

claims that it can no longer operate the three furrows from the spring, and that their community – and its 

agricultural economy - has been hit very hard. It is their intention to take the MMWSA to court and ‘we will 

sell our goats and dogs to raise the money’ to do so (Source: pers comm., Shiri – Njoro Village Council). 

Afgem and the small-scale miners of Merelani 

Tanzanite is a semiprecious bluish-purple gemstone found only in Tanzania. Tanzanite-bearing soils are said 

to cover an area of just 20 km 2 at Merelani. The area is divided into a series of blocks, A, B, C and D. The 8 

km 2 Block C is said to contain the richest deposit, an estimated 2.2 million tonnes of tanzanite. Tanzanite was 

discovered in the area in 1967, and Merelani town now has 75,000 inhabitants (Majtenyi and Muindi, 2001). It 

is ‘a boisterous, lawless settlement reminiscent of a California gold rush town’ (Lovgren, 2001: 1). 

In 1999, a South African multinational, African Gem Resources Ltd (Afgem), sought, and obtained, a 13- 

year mining concession for Block C. By 2001, Afgem had invested US$ 8 million in the concession, and 

another $12 million will follow once the company starts full-scale operations (Majtenyi and Muindi, 2001). 

Afgem, however, are not the only miners in Merelani. In fact, the industry is dominated by 10,000 smallscale 

miners, who oppose Afgem’s activities for the following reasons (Majtenyi and Muindi, 2001): 

• They accuse Afgem of trying to monopolise tanzanite mining in the area, and of attempting to 

drive small-scale miners away. Afgem retorts that 70 percent of its concession is mined illegally. 

In the second of the mine’s two shafts, workers discovered a tunnel that lead all the way to the 

small-scale mining plots in Block B (Lovgren, 2001). 

39

• Soon after obtaining its concession, Afgem started fencing off Block C. Local miners claim, 

however, the boundaries between the blocks are indistinct and that Afgem has no right to fence 

off the area. 

• It is claimed that Afgem has sought to laser-brand its gems as a mark of quality and authenticity. 

Local miners argue that this is, in fact, a ruse to ensure that their own gems are perceived as fake, 

forcing them to sell their gems only to Afgem’s agents. 

In 2000, soon after Afgem sought to fence off its concession, local miners invaded. Afgem’s security 

guards opened fire, killing seven and injuring many more. In April, 2001, another invasion was mounted, 

and a teenager killed. The following May, dozens of miners were injured when 400 of them invaded Block 

C, demanding Afgem’s expulsion (Majtenyi and Muindi, 2001). 

The miners have since sued the company, alleging that Afgem’s security guards tortured six of them. In the 

court papers, they also claim that Afgem’s mining licence is invalid, that company officials conduct illegal 

searches on pedestrians and have buried 30 small-scale miners in an abandoned mine. Against this backdrop 

of violence, the Tanzanian Minister for Energy and Mines, declared Merelani a controlled area, and police 

patrol the roadblock linking the town to the main road at the Kilimanjaro International Airport, 14 km away. The 

government has also formed two committees to probe the clashes (Majtenyi and Muindi, 2001). 

Afgem is supported by the Tanzanian Government, which argues that expelling the company would run 

contrary to the policy supporting the 1998 Mining Act. The Regional Commissioner, furthermore, argues 

that Afgem’s expulsion would be tantamount to giving in to lawlessness (Majtenyi and Muindi, 2001). 

Conflicts of tenure 

This document defines tenure as the right to manage a resource. Throughout Tanzania (and rather 

less so in Kenya), Community-based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) has been seen as an 

attractive option with which to increase the efficiency of the nation’s Natural Resources Management 

(NRM) systems. Hence, Beach Management Units in fisheries, Village Natural Resource Committees 

in forests and Water Users Associations along river courses have all been created. The contention with 

these systems relates to the manner of their application and design. Here, communities may not be 

involved in the design of the management system, its implementation or even its justice systems. This 

may ensure that these institutions do not fulfil the management tasks that they were created to perform. 

In addition, such styles of implementation may ensure that newly formed local resource management 

institutions may come into conflict with pre-existing community institutions. What will also be clear from 

the examples provided below is that tenure relates to the right of choosing the use to which a resource is 

put, and the power to prevent others from putting it to different uses. Hence, conflicts of tenure will also 

include conflicts between different types of resource users. 

The Duru – Haitemba Forest management conflict 

The Duru – Haitemba Forest is a miombo woodland covering 40,000 ha. Along the forest’s edge lie 

eight, long-established villages, whose inhabitants had maintained control over the forest – albeit loosely. 

Charcoal-burning, in-forest cultivation and habitation, and the setting of fires, were all strictly prohibited. 

In 1983, reacting to a government policy directive, these villages had started the process of applying for 

ownership of village lands, including adjacent forested ridges. In 1985, however, the Duru – Haitemba 

Forest was ear-marked for reservation so as to guarantee its future productivity, assure its conservation 

and, novely (at the time) to make the forest pay for its own management via, for example, the imposition 

of exploitation permits or fines. The mainstay of the forest’s protection was to be delivered via large 

numbers of forest guards. Village representatives clearly indicated to government foresters that while 

they supported the conservation of the forest, they resented the need for them to lose their forest in order 

for this to be achieved. Once the Forest Guards were established, all semblance of community concern 

for the forest was discarded. Fields were cleared well into the forest, charcoal burning commenced, 

40

felling started and outsiders, perceiving that government control of the forest equated with a free-forall, 

started bring their cattle into the forest to graze. “By eliminating the local sense of proprietorship, 

no matter how weakly local rights were backed up in statutory law or implemented on the ground, the 

government also eliminated local guardianship, or recognition in the wider community that the forests 

were not public property…” (Wiley, 1999: 53 – 54). (Source: Wiley, 1999). 

Conflicts between resource users of different types 

As land becomes increasingly scarce in upstream areas of the PRB, farmers seek additional land and 

irrigation opportunities downstream. As early as 1946, Johnston noted that “…as the Chagga extend 

their kihamba land lower down the slopes of Kilimanjaro, they will begin to resent the aliens there whom 

chiefs in the past allowed to settle” (p. 4). This friction between people of different ethnic origins is 

accentuated when the demands of both are for land and water. Different resource demands, however, 

may not necessarily cancel out a basis for conflict. Much of the land in the lowland areas of the Basin 

has traditionally been utilised by pastoralist Maasai. The Maasai consider migration into their traditional 

lands as an invasion of their territory, and the transformation of productive pastoral land into other uses. 

Simanjiro District lies to the south of Arusha town, and contains within it the mining town of Merelani. 

In 1995, 85% of its 65,000 inhabitants were Maasai pastoralists. Pastoralism is often considered 

the most appropriate form of land use in Africa’s arid and semi-arid lands (cf. Warren, 1995). These 

systems, however, assume a certain degree of resource permanence. Pastoralist resource management 

institutions, associated lifestyles and social patterns are often built upon the premise that the area covered 

by their pasture will not be altered. This has not been the case in Simanjiro. 

The traditional pastureland of the Simanjiro Maasai has been threatened from three directions: 

• Commercial farming: by 1994, 50,000 hectares of Simanjiro land had been set aside for use by 

large-scale farms of between 90 and 13,000 ha size. The farms produced mainly seed beans for 

export to Holland. ‘To discourage and prevent pastoralists from grazing their cattle on these farms, 

all biomass residues are burnt immediately after harvest’ (ole Sikar, 1996: 1). Land owners also 

confiscated cattle, fined trespassers and, ole Sikar claims, shot livestock and their herders. 

• Mining activities - of both small and large-scale varieties, have assumed control over large tracts of 

Simanjiro land that are then either so badly damaged that they yield no useful grazing product, or 

else are closed to grazing completely. 

• Tourism: As has been the case for pastoralists in and around Mkomazi Game Reserve, land in 

Simanjiro has been alienated for the purposes of protecting wildlife. The district’s Maasai argue that 

this is unnecessary, given that they have co-existed with wildlife for centuries. ‘Households have 

been forced to stop grazing their animals in these areas. At the same time the wild animals have 

been allowed to graze with domestic animals in traditional grazing areas such as the Simanjiro 

Plains’ (ole Sikar, 1996: 2). In addition, the Maasai complain, wildlife transmits disease to Maasai 

livestock. The Simanjiro Maasai have been compensated neither for lost pasture nor for livestock 

lost to wildlife diseases. 

These trends have occurred against a background of official government policy seeking, in particular, 

large-scale farming and industrial investment aimed at satisfying national needs over and above localised 

pastoralist interests. Hence, strategies aimed at meeting national goals may result in difficult-to-solve local 

management problems, and intractable resource exploitation difficulties giving rise to over-exploitation and 

localised conflict. In this sense, the conflicts of the Simanjiro and other Maasai are also conflicts of scale, 

and provide a graphic example of how scale conflicts may also be tenurial conflicts at the same time. 

Kenya’s Taita – Taveta District is not immune from these conflicts. Two thirds of the district’s land is 

owned by just two land owners and the county council. As a result, many of Taita–Taveta’s indigenous 

population are squatters. As a result, serious conflict exists between the landless and land-owners. 

Such conflict complicates the management of the district’s natural resources considerably, a problem 

41

that extends into the water sector. Squatters seeking to till the land in this semi-arid area are wholly 

dependent on irrigation (Musyoki, pers. comm.). They do not, however, possess water rights, as they 

are obliged to do, and much of the water is in any case abstracted upstream by the district’s large-scale 

sisal interests. Partly in an effort to address the conflict in the area, the government has purchased some 

9,700 ha in an effort to find land on which to settle small-scale farming interests. 

Conflicts between differing water management perspectives: an example from Mt. Kilimanjaro 

Tagseth (2002) argues that the failure of formal administrative systems within the Basin to recognise 

customary rights to water and its administration has been a cause of conflict between such customary 

interests and the formal administration of the Pangani River Basin (PRB). One method employed by 

formal administrative sources within the Basin has been the use of water control gates. It is said that 

because small-scale irrigating communities were not consulted first, they viewed the control gates as 

a gross violation of their right to water. In many cases, the gates have been vandalised or completely 

destroyed (Figure 4). In other areas, villagers have simply cut new inflow points in the riverbank, bypassing 

control gates (Shishira, 2002). 

PAMOJA (2002) argues that communities within the PRB perceive access to water as being one of their basic 

rights, and take a dim view of government attempts to impose tariffs on water use and rules on its exploitation. 

Part of communities’ reluctance with the PRB’s administration stems from their perception that large-scale 

commercial interests are favoured over their own, smaller claims for water. The ‘top-down’ approaches so 

far adopted by the government, PAMOJA argues, are characterised by an absence of dialogue, and yields 

difficult-to-solve conflicts. Dialogue-based approaches, they feel, are more likely to ‘forge a way forward that 

meets the needs and interests of policy makers, legislators and communities alike’ (PAMOJA, 2002: 2). 

On Mt. Kilimanjaro, a furrow committee chairman has traditionally managed irrigation furrows. Chairmen 

are always male, and are drawn from the lineage of the person who originally dug the furrow. The furrow 

passes through or along the land of various potential water users, many of whom wish to use the water 

for irrigation purposes. To qualify for an allocation, users must contribute towards maintenance crews 

who regularly patrol the furrow looking for damage. Various additional rules regulate water use, such as 

times between which abstraction may occur, how water use is to be rotated amongst users and so on. 

These rules are not set in stone. This is useful, because some people alongside furrows may need less 

water than others, while some need considerably more. Gillingham (1999) describes five ways in which 

people who need more water than their allocation permits may obtain additional water: the first is to 

‘borrow’ water – someone who needs more water than their allocation will borrow water from someone 

they know who needs less. This is the most common method of obtaining water additional to a person’s 

allocation. The second is to obtain additional water from another nearby furrow. The third is to buy water 

– here, someone who has used less water than he needs offers to sell the remainder of his allocation to 

someone he knows who needs more than his allocation. Because water is considered a ‘gift from God’, 

then it is illegal to buy it directly. Sellers get around this by selling their labour to the buyer, and then, if 

questioned, saying that the buyer is borrowing the remainder of their water allocation. The fourth way of 

obtaining water is to irrigate at night when there are no water allocations. Finally, the fifth way of gaining 

additional water is to steal it by, for example, irrigating while it is someone else’s allocation day, although 

this is very unusual (Gillingham, 1999). 

This flexibility in the rules, Gillingham (1999) argues, ‘…is crucial to the allocative efficiency and sustainability 

of the irrigation system…If all furrow users were restricted to the use of their formal allocation only, the 

furrow irrigation system would meet the irrigation water needs of only a few furrow users’. Gillingham 

argues that this system is reliable, because stealing is permitted neither under the formal allocation system 

nor under the working rules – if the system were unreliable, people would not contribute to the furrow’s 

maintenance. This complementary relationship between formal and working rules takes a great deal of time 

to develop – the first furrows on Mt. Kilimanjaro were dug in the 18 th century. In the lowland areas, where 

settlement is more recent, the climate drier, the population more scattered and social diversity much higher, 

then the cohesion between formal and working rules is not so great. 

42

These rules emphasise social equity and conflict minimisation. They sit uneasily alongside new, externally 

imposed, rules that demand efficient water use. In addition, these new rules seek the establishment of Water 

Users’ Associations (WUAs), which are not the same as Furrow Committees. WUAs are expected to collect fees 

from water users that then contribute towards the payment of a water right, obtainable from the Pangani Basin 

Water Office. In a culture where water is perceived to be a ‘gift from God’, the notion that it must be paid for is 

simply illogical. In addition, Gillingham worries, externally imposed sets of rules are far less likely to succeed than 

internally generated ones that have been altered and moulded to local cultural and environmental peculiarities 

over long periods of time. Gillingham believes that the mismatch between the management process at the local 

level and that at the external level may endanger the success of externally sourced management initiatives. 

Conflicts of location 

Users located in upstream areas are placed more favourably vis-à-vis water abstraction than are downstream 

users. At its most basic, these problems can be seen along irrigation furrows where users close to the water 

source are able to grow crops with very high water demands. Irrigated rice, for example, requires 3,000 litres 

of water to produce a kilo of harvest. Users located at the end of a furrow, however, are obliged to plant low 

water demand crops. The serious problems faced by downstream hydropower plants are another example. 

The Lower Moshi Irrigation Scheme 

Before the Lower Moshi Irrigation Scheme (LMIS) was developed in 1987, there was very little irrigated 

rice paddy in the area, and farmers could expect to harvest about 2 tonnes of rice per hectare. Following 

completion of the scheme, yields increased to 8 tonnes per hectare, prompting farmers outside the project 

to try to replicate the Scheme’s farming techniques. As a result, water demands increased substantially, 

causing a constant water shortage supply problem downstream of the project. The Scheme itself has 

suffered from water shortages on account of intense abstractions upstream, and has been forced to 

reduce the hectarage under irrigation from 2,300 to 647 in 1994. Farmers involved in the Scheme were 

very unhappy. They explained that their water allocations followed a well-planned programme. Upstream 

users had no such programme, so causing the water scarcity at the Scheme. In addition, farmers claimed, 

upstream users had influence within the government and Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) (Tanzania’s 

ruling party) circles, so they could not be challenged (Mujwahuzi, 2001: 134 and 136). 

The case of small-scale irrigators and the Tanzania Electric Supply Co. 

TANESCO claims that it needs at least 40 m 3 /s to run the New Pangani Falls (NPF) Hydropower facility. 

After the Nyumba ya Mungu Dam (NYM) has released water into the Pangani, additional water joins it 

via a few tributaries. By the time the water arrives at NPF, however, it is often insufficient to drive the 

turbines. “Sometimes we have so little water that we have to close down the station and allow the water 

to pool overnight, so that we can open again in the morning” (Lugeiyamu pers. comm.). 

As land becomes more and more scarce upstream of the NYM, farming downstream of the dam has also 

increased. Because conditions down here are much warmer and rainfall much lower, the need to irrigate 

is commensurately greater. The NPF’s manager, therefore, blames unregulated water abstractions for 

the inadequate amounts of water that he receives. He points out that while water to his plant has declined, 

the area under irrigation has not. “Small-scale irrigators do not use electricity, so they do not understand 

these problems” (Lugeiyama, pers. comm.). 

At the same time, control over abstractions has declined. When the NPF facility was constructed, money 

was also available to construct water control gates along the river’s main abstraction points, and to 

monitor these. As funding has declined, monitoring has become more infrequent, the control gates have 

been destroyed and/or new abstraction points cut into the riverbank. 

As a result, electricity generation has declined. In April 1999, the NPF facility generated 45 million 

kWh. In April, 2002, it generated 25 million kWh. This, of course, has a direct impact on the investment 

attractiveness of the plant. TANESCO is, at present, seeking to privatise itself. “If the NYM power plant 

has an 8 MW capacity and we can deliver only 3, who will invest in us?” (Lugeiyamu, pers. comm.). 

43

C.8 Summary of points 

At its core, the problems that face resource use in the Pangani River Basin (PRB) relate to an increasing 

population against a background of high levels of poverty. Poverty and environmental degradation are 

often perceived to be interlinked (cf. WCED, 1987). The problems of managing Common Property 

Resources (CPRs) are often thought to increase when there are large numbers of people involved, 

particularly when their cultural homogeneity may be weak (cf. Ostrom, 1990). The structure and function 

of rural livelihoods may become imperilled when the ability of rural people to control and secure adequate 

sources of livelihood are threatened. 

This chapter has reviewed these difficulties by first identifying a series of major ‘interests’ within the 

Basin. It has then gone on to consider the various conflicts that exist between them. The main points to 

be derived from this discussion are as follows: 

• The major interests within the Basin comprise industrial interests (electricity, mining and 

farming), farming (large and small scale farming, both associated with a considerable reliance 

on irrigation), pastoralist interests (particularly in lowland areas), and growing urban interests. 

This chapter has focussed primarily on the water usage of these interests. Operating between 

these diverse interests and the multiplicity of natural resources within the Basin are NGOs 

and international donor agencies. The mandate of these is primarily conservation and/or the 

development and enhancement of rural livelihoods. 

• It is important to note that the population of the Basin is high, that for many of them, livelihoods are 

derived from farming, and that there is much to suggest that they are economically vulnerable. In 

addition, the diversity and richness of the Basin’s resources mean that large(er)-scale interests 

are attracted to the Basin, and substantial investments have been made. There exists, between 

these large-scale interests and small-scale livelihood security, room for conflict. 

• This Chapter divided conflicts into three broad, inter-related, categories. The first related to 

conflicts of scale, in which it was argued that small-scale users often had to compete against 

much larger claims for the same resource. The second conflict area related to conflicts of tenure. 

‘Tenure’ here refers to the right to manage one’s resources, and conflict arises between different 

management sources and priorities. The third class of conflict is related to location. Here, the 

way in which the location of a group of resource users can bring them into conflict with users 

elsewhere, was considered. The classic example of such ‘location’ conflict arising between 

upstream and downstream users was provided. 

• It is clear, therefore, that the diversity of resources in the Pangani River Basin (PRB) brings with 

it an equal diversity of conflict types. What concerns the PRB is the extent to which management 

is able to deal with conflict of all degrees of intensity and the natural resource allocation problems 

that underlie them. 

44

D 

Natural Resource Management 

in the Pangani River Basin 

D.1 Introduction 

This Chapter considers the Natural Resources Management (NRM) of the Pangani River Basin (PRB). In 

the first section, the ‘formal’ administration of the Basin is considered. Many arms of government administer 

the basin. This is, in and of itself, problematic because it can mean that the initiative of one branch may 

undermine the activities of others. For example, water conservation initiatives may be undermined by 

irrigation development activities. In addition, it may also mean that Central Government may seek to 

implement national policies within the Basin without reference to local conditions, demands and resource 

difficulties. Finally, it also means that a highly ‘sectoral’ approach to management occurs, with forestry 

departments unaware of, for example, wildlife development initiatives. While the latter initiatives may not 

directly concern forests, they do concern the overall management of the Basin, of which both sectors are 

an integral part. The first section of this Chapter considers the activities of two important sectors within the 

Basin: water and forestry, and assesses these in the light of management delivery. 

The second section assesses the activities of management at the community level, while the third considers 

cross-border management of the Basin. The fourth section addresses the difficulties of monitoring and 

data collection in the Basin. The final section will summarise the findings of this Chapter. 

D. 2 Government management, Legislation and policy 

Water administration, legislation and policy 

The principal legislation governing water resources in Tanzania is the Water Resources Management 

Act 2009 (WRM Act) that provides for implementation of the National Water Policy 2002. The WRM Act 

repeals the Water Utilization Act No. 42 of 1974 and its Amendment Act No.10 of 1981; and Written 

Laws (Miscellaneous) Act No.17 of 1989 and General (Regulations) Amendment. Particularly Act No. 10 

of 1981 introduced the concept of allocating water based on hydrological boundaries. Accordingly nine 

river/lake basins were gazetted, although it was not until 10-years later that administrative authorities 

(Basin Water Offices) to manage water resources started to be established. The Pangani River Basin 

was firstly appointed in 1991 followed by the Rufiji Basin in (1993), by 2004 all 9-Basin Water Offices 

were established. The establishment of PBWO in 1991 was a product of donor concerns that there would 

be inadequate water to run the New Pangani Falls Hydroelectric Plant, at the same time serious water 

use conflicts were emerging and escalating in both the Pangani and Rufiji basins. 

The WRM Act provides for the legal and institutional framework for river basin management as envisaged 

by the policy and provides for three levels of basin management: national, basin, and catchment. Local 

government authorities and community based organizations or water associations are key players in 

some of these institutions and the minister may delegate some functions to these entities. All water is 

public water and is vested in the President as the trustee for the benefit of the citizens; thus at the national 

level the Minister responsible for water resources is in-charge of all water resources affairs and is the 

appellate authority. The Minister is responsible for National Policy and strategy formulation, appoints 

members of the National Water Board, the Director for water resources, Basin Water Officers of the Basin 

Water Boards (BWB). The Minister establishes BWBs and catchment or sub-catchment committees and 

facilitates sectoral coordination and planning. The Minister is assisted by the Director of Water Resources, 

and advised by the National Water Board on matters related to multi-sectoral coordination in integrated 

water resources planning and management. The Director is the chief advisor to the Government on all 

matters of water resources, supervises and coordinates activities of the Basin Water Boards, prepares 

45

the National Water Resources Plan an implementation strategy, coordinates preparation of basin plans 

and generally ensures coordinated water resources development, management and protection. 

The new BWBs are fully responsible for all matters related to allocation, management and protection of 

water resources and formulation of policies and programmes aiming at management and development 

of water resources and control of water pollution. The BWBs have legal powers and functions to prepare 

basin water resources management plans in which sectoral and district plans are integrated. They 

coordinate inter-sectoral water management and serve as a channel of communication for the sectors at 

the basin level. They approve issuance of water permits and effluent discharge permits, monitor, evaluate 

and approve construction of hydraulic structures, and generally monitor the health of rivers, aquifers, lakes, 

wetlands and enforce the law. The new Basin Water Board advises the Director and coordinates activities 

of the catchment committees. The Basin Water Officer is the principal officer of the BWB responsible for the 

management of the affairs of the Board and serves as the ex-officio Secretary. The Pangani Water Board 

is expected to function in accordance with the institutional set-up prescribed by the WRM Act 

The PBWO encourages the formation of Water User’s Associations (WUAs) and, typically small scale 

farmers using one source and the same water infrastructure are formed into a WUA which applies for 

a water permit on behalf of its members. It is said that the WUAs make administration easier, because 

then the PBWO deals with the WUA alone and not multiple individuals. WUAs are also supposed to 

collect fees from water users that will ultimately be used to pay for their water permit. 

In the early 1990s, water rights in the PRB consumed a total of 33.4 m 3 /s, but an inspection carried out 

by the PBWO in 1992/93 suggested that actual abstraction came to 48 m 3 /s (Mujwahuzi, 2002). There 

are 567 approved water rights in the four Tanzanian Regions sharing the Pangani River Basin, while an 

additional 300 have provisionally been granted. There are, however, almost twice as many abstractions 

carried out without any water right (Table 5). About 46% of final and provisional water right grants come 

from the Kilimanjaro Region. Almost 66% of the Basin’s illegal abstractions occur in this Region. 

Clearly, therefore, there exist serious difficulties in monitoring abstractions and in implementing the tenets 

of Tanzania’s water legislation. Amongst the problems confronting the PBWO are the following; 

• Although there are many monitoring stations throughout the PRB, their operation is erratic, and 

data series often interrupted because the stations fail. Manual monitoring can also be carried 

out, but data collectors are often insufficiently enumerated and may lack any incentive to collect 

these. As a result, water rights are issued without really knowing how much water can, in fact, 

be allocated. Additional important data, such as environmental flow data, is unavailable, and the 

PBWO does not know how much water must be retained within the basin to supply its ecosystems 

(Sarmett, pers. comm.). 

• Because so many abstractions are illegal, it is not possible for the PBWO to know how much 

water is being abstracted. 

• The PRB and all other basins in the country are not institutionally and financially strong enough 

to manage and monitor and control all water use in the basin. Thus control gates built at the 

junctions of furrows and rivers by PBWO in 1994 have largely been destroyed by communities 

unable to see their utility and reluctant to pay water users’ fees. There is no way that this could 

have been prevented unless the affected saw the need and value of the gates, and unless the 

local authorities were involved in their planning in the first place. 

• The PBWO is supposed to be administratively and financially independent. However, many 

water users believe that water is a ‘gift from God’, and refuse to pay for their water rights, even 

though the rates are very low. The PBWO therefore faces serious funding difficulties. The law is 

silent on how to deal with debtors. As a result, almost 60% of annual water rights bills fail to be 

settled (Sarmett and Kamugisha, 2002). 

46

Table 6: Water rights (WR) in the Pangani River Basin (Tanzania), May, 2003 

Region Final Provisional Application Without Dormant Total 

Grant Grant WR. WR. WR. 

Arusha 184 135 57 141 144 661 

Manyara 3 3 2 10 0 18 

Kilimanjaro 264 138 118 1224 203 1947 

Tanga 116 24 25 488 118 771 

Total 567 300 202 1863 465 3397 

Notes 

Final grant: a water right granted and operational. 

Provisional grant: a water right granted, but for which the applicant has yet to complete the construction of 

water conveyance systems to the satisfaction of the PBWO. Normally, s/he has a year to do so, after which an 

extension must be sought. 

Application WR: water rights applied for. The PBWO processes such applications following existing procedures 

before submission to the PBWB meeting for approval and issuing the right. 

Without WR: these refer to illegal abstractions (i.e. abstractions without a water right). Half of these are thought 

to abstract around 10 litres per second; this estimate needs to be verified. 

Dormant WR: these are water rights granted, but whose owners are currently not utilising them. If the right is 

not used for three years, the permit will be withdrawn. A water right and water use survey is needed to verify the 

number of dormant rights in the Basin, and to determine whether or not any should be withdrawn. 

Source: Pangani Basin Water Office. 

• The WRM Act does not provide a direct link between the PBWB and Local Government Authorities 

(LGAs) or other lower levels of administration save for representations in the basin board and 

catchment committees. However the Minister may delegate the performance of any function 

stipulated in the act to a local government authority. The BWOs are not part of the LGAs and 

do not have the same responsibilities in the basin, but necessarily must work together under the 

principles of common but differentiated responsibilities. Working with the LGAs and a multitude of 

other stakeholders and sectoral interests is a challenge for the basin water officers who must be 

resourceful in this matter. The BWB are required, by the WRM Act to integrate District plans into the 

basin water resources management plan which will be legally binding to every player in the basin. 

• The administrative jurisdiction of the PBWO is the PRB, which does not follow formal administrative 

boundaries. In the PRB, the PBWO must work with a multitude of local government authorities. 

• River basins comprise large numbers of resources that are inter-connected with one another 

and changes to one resource may have repercussions for the other basin resources. In the PRB, 

planning is fragmented, sectoral and regionally or district oriented. The WRM Act mandates 

BWBs to prepare Integrated Water Resources Management Plans in their respective basins that 

will be legally binding to all water developments, management and protection. 

Water administration in Kenya is governed by the Water Act of 2002 (RoK, 2002). Insofar as basin-wide 

management is concerned (provision for which is contained within the Water Act), the National Water 

Resources Management Strategy (RoK, 2003) is highly relevant. The Water Act established a Water 

Resources Management Authority (WRMA) charged with the management and administration of most 

aspects of Kenya’s water resources. There are numerous organisations arranged beneath the WRMA, 

which are described in the Box to the right. Here, the incorporation of stakeholders into the management 

and administration of the Act is considered. 

47

The management unit that the WRMA is expected focus upon is water catchment areas, which it is 

charged with defining. Each catchment is supposed to have a Catchment Area Advisory Committee 

(CAAC) of 15 members, appointed by the WRMA, and comprising representatives from a wide array of 

private and public stakeholder sectors. Under the Water Act, the CAAC is charged to ‘advise officers of 

the Authority [WRMA] at the appropriate regional office concerning: 

48 

Box 12: Kenyan Water Administration 

• The Minister for Water: exercises control over all water resources in accordance with the 2002 

Water Act. 

• Director of Water: assists the Minister with the discharge of his/her duties. 

• Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA): undertakes water resources management 

functions. 

• Catchment Area Advisory Committee (CAAC): advises officers of the WRMA on matters of water 

management relevant to the catchment area under its jurisdiction. 

• National Water Conservation and Pipeline Corporation (NWC&PC); on behalf of the Minister, 

carries out the development of state schemes that provide bulk water for use by licensees and 

other water services providers. 

• Water Appeal Board (WAB): hears and determines any suit of any person having a right or 

proprietary interest which is directly affected by the decision of order of the Authority. 

• Water resources users associations: assist the authority in water resources protection at the 

grassroots level. 

(a) water resources conservation, use and apportionment; 

(b) the grant, adjustment, cancellation or variation of any [water] permit; and 

(c) any other matters pertinent to the proper management of water resources’ (RoK, 2000: 953). 

Actual power for the administration of the Water Act (including powers of arrest, prosecution and issuing water 

permits) rests with the WRMA. The latter is also charged with the development of a national water strategy, 

which was published in 2003 (RoK, 2003). The Strategy explains stakeholder involvement in Kenya’s water 

management and administration as follows: ‘The National Water Policy (NWP) foresees a situation whereby 

NGOs and communities will play a greater role in the water sector including water resources management. 

This would require that the new actors undergo capacity building…’ (RoK, 2003: 73). 

The Strategy emphasises environmental protection in whole catchments, and provides the following 

policy guideline: 

‘To ensure environmentally sustainable development, geared towards the integrating and 

strengthening of environmental values and considerations into water resources planning, 

management and development and increasing awareness on [sic.] their impact on human health, 

development and other natural resources. Focus will primarily be concentrated on clarifying, 

improving and streamlining the institutions and processes responsible for the integration of 

environmental aspects in overall water resources management’ (RoK, 2003: 23). 

In addition, the Strategy places considerable emphasis on catchment protection, particularly on the 

conservation of Kenya’s rapidly declining forest reserves: 

‘Water catchment areas need…to be identified and delineated and water catchment 

preservation and protection programmes instituted with the relevant ministry in-charge of 

forestry. In addition, groundwater conservation zones need to be identified to avoid depletion 

of this resource to promote integrated catchment management. All stakeholders will be 

encouraged to pool their resources to protect the country’s catchments’ (RoK, 2003: 33).

In this respect, Kenya’s Water Policy provides a basis upon which the trans-boundary management of 

the Pangani River Basin’s resources may be managed, given that it is deforestation on Mt. Kilimanjaro’s 

slopes (in Tanzania) that directly affect Lake Jipe’s water level and quality (in Kenya). 

Forestry administration, legislation and policy 

The management of Tanzania’s forests is 

divided between two main authorities. The main 

custodian of the nation’s forests is the Forestry 

and Beekeeping Division (FBD), which falls under 

the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. 

The President’s Office is also a managerial 

player in Tanzania’s forests through roles played 

by regional governments and local government. 

A third managerial interest is Tanzania National 

Parks (TANAPA), which administers those 

forests that fall within national park boundaries 

(Lambrechts et al., 2002). 

Central 

Government 

FBD 

Local 

Government 

District 

Executive 

Officer 

Like the present water administration, the forestry 

administration is also dualist. At the regional level, 

a Regional Natural Resources Officer (RNRO) 

sits on the Regional Secretariat, representing 

forestry. Reporting to the RNRO are District 

Executive Officers, below whom are District 

Natural Resources Officers. 

The regional administration does not have 

jurisdiction over Catchment Forests. The 

Catchment Forestry Project (CFP) was launched 

in 1976 by the Forest and Beekeeping Division 

(FBD). In the Arusha Region, 118,921 ha of forest 

are covered by the project. In Kilimanjaro Region, 

it is 138,785, while in Tanga it is 107,499 (Kijazi, 

2002). Catchment forests are considered ‘core 

protected areas’, and are administered from the 

CFP office in the FBD Headquarters, which reports 

to central government. Reporting to the CFP office 

are Regional Catchment Forest Managers – one 

in each region. Reporting to these are District 

Catchment Forest Managers. These managers 

receive funds straight from the CFP office, and 

must have a management plan for each of the 

RNRO 

FCFO 

Catchment 

forests in 

Regional 

Districts 

Production 

Forest 

DNRO 

DFO 

Forests 

Local 

Forest 

Reserves 

Figure 3: Forestry administration in 

Tanzania 

forests within their jurisdiction. These two separate hierarchies are presented in Figure 3. At the district 

level, District Forestry Officers (DFOs) implement FBD activities, including revenue collection. Most of 

the time, local and production forests fall under the district administration, but catchment forests may also 

fall within their remit. Because DFOs collect revenues on behalf of the FBD, then all of those holding a 

diploma or better are paid by the FBD (Kijazi and Nashanda, pers. comm.). 

The 1998 Forest Policy encourages community participation in the management of natural resources 

and this includes those communities adjacent to mangrove forest reserves. The Management Strategy 

requires that efforts be made to include local communities in different activities, from planning to 

implementation. Such activities include control of harvesting, planting mangroves in depleted areas, 

protection activities like patrols, and awareness creation (Kijazi, 2002). 

49

In Kenya, forests are remarkably under-regulated, a fact borne out by the crippling rates of deforestation that 

have ensured that just 2–3% of the country is covered by forest. Urgent remedial measures carried out by the 

government, including significant reform of the Forestry Department and the introduction of a new Forestry 

Bill, have yet to bear fruit. Within Kenya’s portion of the PRB, very few forest reserves remain, except for small 

patches of forest in the Taita Hills, Kenya’s only representative of the Eastern Arc Mountains. Most of the 

difficulties associated with deforestation arising in Kenya relate to tree cutting across the border in Tanzania, 

providing an excellent example of the need for an adequate cross-border management strategy for the Basin. 

D.3 Community-level administration 

Ideas concerning the joint management of resources have, of late, become a much-vaunted option 

in the management of natural resources. Typically (but not always) the ‘stakeholders’ involved in the 

management scheme are the state and resource using communities. At this broad level of discussion, 

the concept of joint management is extremely ambiguous, in part, because of the need to develop Natural 

Resources Management (NRM) systems that are site and society-specific. 

Typically, at these levels of managerial intervention, management seeks institutions as their building blocks. 

Institutions are “...the rules of the game in a society or, more formally...the humanly devised constraints that shape 

human interaction” (North, 1993: 3). In this sense, institutions form the limits within which daily lives are conducted. 

Care should be taken to understand that institutions are not static end products, but dynamic processes that alter to 

respond to external pressures, internal changes and conflict and other pressures. A society’s institutions may play 

an important role in shaping how it develops its economies and, indeed, how it responds to external economies. 

Institutions are not organisations, the success and operation of which will often depend on institutions. 

In much of the literature on common property resource management, it is traditional institutions that are 

recommended as the basis for co-managerial development (see examples in Berkes, 1989 and MacKay 

and Acheson, 1983). Typically, these are heralded as evidence that communities are capable of managing 

Box 13: The development of community-based forestry management in 

the Duru – Haitemba Forest, Arusha Region 

Above, the conflict that erupted between community members living alongside the Duru–Haitemba 

Forest and the Tanzanian government when the forest was turned into a reserve was described. 

Once it was clear that the forest was not benefiting from state management, and given that local 

government had few remaining resources with which to support forestry staff, it was decided to 

give the forest communities the opportunity to run the forest for themselves. The only condition 

stipulated was success: that the Duru – Haitemba became and remained uninhabited, that its 

degraded condition be reversed and that its products be exploited sustainably. 

Early steps taken by the communities commenced with the demarcation of the forest into zones 

for which each peripheral community would assume responsibility. A very simple management plan 

was then produced for each zone. These plans stipulated (a) who could or could not use the forest 

(b) the forest uses that the communities allowed themselves to undertake (c) what uses could 

be effected only on a village-managed quota and permit system; and (d) what forest uses were 

wholly forbidden. Encroachers were promptly evicted, charcoal burning, ring-barking and forest 

clearing were banned, and non-local loggers ‘encouraged’ to leave. Damaged areas were closed 

off to community exploitation, while an increasingly nuanced range of regulations served to ensure 

that what exploitation did occur was sustainable. Sophisticated ‘closed’ and ‘open’ seasons were 

developed, allowing certain types of exploitation to occur in certain places at certain times of the 

year (such as grazing). Finally, young men from the communities were taken on to patrol the forest, 

and rewarded with a share of the fines they managed to collect (Source: Wily, 1997). 

50

their resources. However, institutions are contextual and temporal, and are developed in response to 

particular social and economic needs set within particular times and places (North, 1993; Ostrom, 1990; 

Crean and Geheb, 2001). Hence, traditional institutions designed to manage forests may have worked 

well under conditions where user rights were in place, markets were restricted and populations low. Under 

opposite conditions, these institutions may have little managerial value. Nevertheless, they retain attractions 

because they may be socially and culturally more attractive than novel, externally-derived institutions. 

A second batch of institutions of potential managerial value are government implemented structures and 

organisations that have been in place for a sufficiently long time that communities view them as ‘normal’ within 

the remit of their daily lives. In this sense, such structures have become institutionalised to a host society. 

As discussed earlier, Tanzania has been keen to establish Community-based Natural Resource 

Management (CBNRM) institutions in virtually all of its resource areas. In the Pangani River Basin (PRB), 

amongst the most important are Water Users Associations (WUAs) and Village Natural Resources 

Committees (VNRCs). Attention is given to both of these in this section. 

Tagseth (2002) identified two types of village-level furrow organisation. The first of these is centred on unnamed 

and informal groups of users described above, lead by a chairman who organises users into work groups 

to maintain the furrow in return for an allocation of water. Chairmen have typically owned their furrows for 

generations. This historical claim of the organisation over the furrow and its water means that the organisation 

perceives seeking permission to use the furrow’s water from, for example, the PBWO, as completely alien. 

The second type of furrow organisation identified by Tagseth (2002) is much more formal. Its leader is 

either elected or appointed. There are more rules governing, for example, contributions towards the 

scheme and water allocation. Access to water is regulated with the use of membership fees, fines for 

violations and possibly bribery. 

It is clear that the first of these two types of institutions is the least formal, which may render it unappealing to 

government administrative systems keen to develop bureaucratic structures and clarity. It is, however, also 

based on traditional social structures and ideologies which probably mean that (a) it is better able to deal with 

very localised difficulties and conflicts; and (b) it is more compatible with local perceptions and ways of thinking. 

In this sense, the first, informal, institution is better able to deal with the high levels of social, resource and cultural 

heterogeneity present in the PRB, while the second may not be able to deal with these kinds of vagaries. 

Earlier, thoughts criticising the establishment and implementation of WUAs were discussed. It was 

claimed that irrespective of the community emphasis contained in this approach, WUAs still represented 

impositions on communities which they had little respect for (PAMOJA, 2002). It should be stressed, 

however, that such institutions, despite being imposed upon communities, may still become ‘socialised’, 

in the sense that they may be warped to meet communities’ needs and so as not to endanger community 

livelihood claims. This may not mean that the institution then delivers a desired managerial outcome, 

however. In order for this to occur, management objectives must also, in some way, curb communities’ 

fears and, to some extent, ensure that it contributes to meeting their aspirations. In order for this to occur, 

communities must play an important role in the design and implementation of management systems, in 

particular associated sanctioning (punishment) systems. 

The Catchment Forestry Project (CFP) in Tanzania manages forests jointly with local communities 

adjacent to 23 catchment forests on a pilot basis. 36.5% of the forest in the three Tanzanian regions 

sharing the Pangani River Basin (PRB) is under Joint Forest Management (JFM: Table 6). The main 

community component of this initiative are the Village Natural Resource Committees (VNRC). Each 

VNRC has between 8 to 15 members who are democratically elected. At least two members must be 

female. About 129 (70%) of the VNRCs participate in planning and decision-making, as well as sensitising 

and mobilising villagers in JFM. Draft management plans for nine priority Community Forest Reserves 

(CFRs) have been produced, including Mt. Kilimanjaro, Chome and Kindoroko CFRs in Kilimanjaro 

region and Kwani/Tongwe and Mafi Hill forest reserves in Tanga region. 

51

The Tanzanian Forestry and Beekeeping Division has also implemented the Mangrove Management 

Project (MMP), which it launched in 1988. This started with the preparation of a management plan for the 

mangrove ecosystems of Tanzania’s mainland. The management strategy devised required that efforts 

were made to include local communities in different activities, from planning to implementation. Such 

activities included control of harvesting, planting mangroves in depleted areas, protection activities like 

patrols, and awareness creation. 

The MMP has involved 100 out of 130 villages adjacent to the mangrove forests in their management. 

Furthermore, the project has been improving the mangrove stock through climber cutting in 430 ha, and 

promoting alternative income-generating activities for local communities, such as seaweed farming and 

beekeeping activities (Kijazi, 2002). 

The MMP has rehabilitated 1,300 ha of mangrove forest out of a planned 2000 ha, of which 100 ha were 

rehabilitated voluntarily by villagers and environmental NGOs. The performance of newly planted stock 

varies from 80% to 40%. It is especially poor in areas where paddy farming is practiced, such as the Rufiji 

Delta, due to the reluctance of some plot owners to allow mangrove regeneration. 

VNRCs co-operate with project management by observing harvesting procedures. Through this 

supervision, revenue realised by Central Government has increased from Tshs. 12 million in 1999/2000 

to 17 million in 2001 from pole sales and management fees from saltpans (Kijazi, 2002). 

Insofar as creating alternative income-generating activities, the MMP has introduced 830 traditional and 28 

transitional beehives to the mangrove forests in 2001. In addition, seaweed farming is practised along the coast. 

Table 7: Forest area under Joint Forest Management by region 

Region Area (ha) # villages involved 

Arusha* 7,0248 70 

Kilimanjaro 122,996 63 

Morogoro 58,579 33 

Tanga 15,233 19 

Total 267,056 185 

(Source: Kijazi, 2002). *includes Manyara Region. 

In the process of awareness creation, a mangrove ecology teaching programme was held in 47 primary 

schools in the Northern and Southern Zones. Village meetings, radio programmes and interactive video 

shows were also employed. 

52

Box 14: An example of a Water Users’ Association 

Tegemeo WUA, Kawaya Village, Hai District 

Tegemeo was formed in 1999 by the PBWO to solve the problems of water distribution in five villages 

in Hai District. 5,000 people use the water that Tegemeo abstracts, but only 300 are registered with 

the WUA. People, it says, need to be educated about the benefits of membership. These are (a) that 

they will learn about water policy and law (b) that they can get water rights more easily (c) that they 

can attract donor and NGO interest (d) they can rehabilitate their water infrastructure more easily as a 

group; and (e) they can try to solve their problems as a group. Their main water sources are a series of 

springs. The water is fed into traditional furrows, often named after the people who initially dug them. 

Some are very long – the longest is 14 km. Tegemeo presently has three water rights totalling 720 L/s, 

and has applied for additions. The WUA collects users’ fees from the plots that line the channels, and 

every user will have to pay irrespective of whether or not they are members of the Association. 

Users at the beginning of the furrow tend to benefit far more than those at the end of it. The Association 

has byelaws limiting the amount of water that users at the source end of the furrow can take, but people 

cheat. Another problem that they face is that it is very flat in the area. In the absence of a gradient, their 

water often pools and does not flow. Additional problems that they faced are, amongst others: 

• Conflict between upstream and downstream water users. 

• Cultivation in water source areas and tree felling. 

• Paddy farmers often do not release unused water back into the furrows. 

• Salinity. 

• Pastoralists bring their livestock to water off the furrows and damage their banks. 

• The WUA’s jurisdiction is very large and it is often difficult for WUA members to get to problem spots. 

• Their water is not clean. During the rains, the water table rises, flooding latrines. Some people 

do not boil the water that they collect and so get sick. 

• Irrigation for long periods of time reduces soil fertility. 

Source: Tegemeo Water Users’ Association and Kawaya Village Government 

D.4 Transboundary basin management 

Facilities to manage the resources of the Pangani River Basin (PRB) between its benefactor states 

of Kenya and Tanzania are limited. Efforts to remedy this difficulty have largely been based around 

IUCN - EARO initiatives to conserve Lake Jipe. In Kenya, the Coast Development Authority (CDA) has 

the mandate to co-ordinate and plan developments in the Kenyan portion of the PRB. In 1993, it was 

determined that the CDA should work towards a comprehensive management and development plan 

for those parts of the Basin located in Kenya, as well as looking into ways of dealing with the specific 

problems of Lake Jipe. The CDA felt that they should co-operate with similarly mandated counterparts in 

Tanzania (Howard, 1999). 

In 1994, the CDA and the Pangani Basin Water Office (PBWO) met in Mombasa, Kenya to discuss 

common interests and possible ways of working together to develop a coordinated management 

system for the Basin, wetlands and the open waters of Lake Jipe. In 1996, the PBWO and the CDA 

finalised their assessments of the needs of the Lake Jipe catchment and its wetlands. In 1999, the 

CDA, PBWB and other stakeholders participated in a workshop to develop mechanisms to manage 

Lake Jipe (Howard, 1999). 

53

The PBWO has now taken the matter of waterweed on Lake Jipe to the legislative assembly of the East African 

Community for Action. Since then, the momentum has slowed, and the need to develop some mechanism by 

which to co-ordinate management between the two countries remains as important as ever. This is particularly 

true in the light of recent Kenyan developments that have seen the creation of Water Resources Management 

authorities. What their creation means for the Pangani River Basin and how they will liase with their Tanzanian 

counterparts is still not known. 

D.5 Data collection and monitoring 

A persistently raised cause for concern amongst the professionals interviewed for this Situation Analysis 

and in the literature on the Pangani River Basin (PRB) relates to the absence of adequate data on the 

Basin. Typically, these concerns focus on the absence of hydrological data, and the worry is that a 

regulatory system based on the issuance of water rights must be able to know the size of the water stock. 

There exist, on the PRB’s rivers, many hydrological stations. For a variety of reasons – such as poor 

maintenance and batteries running out – many of these have not operated for a statistically adequate 

length of time. In some cases, stations have stopped running after just two years of operation, and 

nothing has been done to return them to service. 

It is possible to carry out manual measurements, but the incentive for the technician to do so had, informants 

claimed, to be balanced against his/her inadequate remuneration. Respondents typically seemed preoccupied 

with the development of an automated hydrological network against which manual measurements could be 

compared, and which could serve as the backbone of a substantial monitoring system. 

Monitoring, of course, does not only comprise the collection of data. The translation of such data into a 

regulatory system is worthwhile only insofar as some sort of regulatory back-up is available to ensure 

that these data play a managerially significant task. Hence, knowing how much fish is available to the 

Nyumba ya Mungu Dam has no relevance if that information cannot translate into a managerial output. 

In much the same way, the development of an automated hydrological data collection system makes no 

sense if illegal water abstractions cannot be prevented. 

It is also important to emphasise that data on the technical dimensions of resource change (such as reduced 

flows, or variations in forest area) only yield information on the outcomes of trends and processes occurring 

elsewhere, typically in social and economic arenas (although not always e.g. climate change). If the causes 

of environmental and natural resource change have social and economic origins, it is necessary to develop 

dynamic systems of monitoring socio-economic variation, the underlying causes of these and the development 

of conflict. Such systems should also be capable of determining water demand within the Basin. 

D.6 Summary of points 

The administration of the Pangani River Basin’s (PRB) natural resources is sectoral. The activities of 

forestry departments are not necessarily synchronised to some wider and over-riding PRB management 

plan, but the outcome of forestry policies, in much the same way that the activities of institutions 

responsible for water management react to the nation’s water policy. This sectoralism permeates down 

into local-level administrative strategies. Hence, Village Natural Resources Committees utilised in Joint 

Forestry Management are not the same as Water Users’ Associations. Communities located close to 

fisheries and protected areas, may also be obliged to create Beach Management Units and wildlife 

protection committees as per the policies of the Wildlife Division and the Fisheries Division. The plethora 

of village-based organisations in Tanzania overlay previously created ones like Village Governments. In 

many respects, the tasks that each group is charged with are not dissimilar to the tasks other groups are 

charged with. Ultimately, all of these organisations have to deal with the fair division of resources within 

a community, their sustainable exploitation and their conservation. 

54

From the above discussion, the following points are emphasised: 

• The WRM Act gives executive powers to the Pangani Basin Water Board to prepare basin water 

management plans and upon which to base water allocations. The new water legislation has put 

in place a streamlined administrative hierarchy and a clear institutional set-up with the necessary 

powers to implement the policy and legislation. Kenya’s water resources are distributed over six 

catchment areas of five drainage basins namely the Lake Victoria which comprises a North 

catchment and a South catchment; Rift Valley; Athi; Tana; and Ewaso Ng’iro. The portion of the 

Pangani Basin that lies in Kenya is within the Athi Catchment. The 2002 Water Act shaped a 

new institutional framework for the management and protection of Kenya’s water resources at 

national, catchment and sub-catchment levels. 

• The Forestry and Beekeeping Division appears not to have any similar plans for restructuring, 

and forestry administration within the Basin remains dualised between national and regional 

level administrations, and between the two countries that share the PRB. 

• Both the water and forestry policies in the Basin increasingly emphasise the use of communitybased 

organisations in their implementation. Concerns have been raised as to the extent to 

which these organisations have been imposed upon communities. If communities have not 

been involved in the design and implementation of these organisations, there may be negative 

repercussions on management outputs. An understanding of this problem may yield important 

lessons for Kenya as it seeks to include users in the management of the nation’s resources. 

• The transboundary management of the Basin is nascent. There exist, however, authorities with a 

mandate to manage and develop it on both sides of the Tanzania-Kenya border, and discussions 

geared towards identifying management solutions to the Basin’s problems have commenced. 

• The data collection and monitoring network within the Basin appears to be poor, irrespective of 

the resource sector. This Chapter has cautioned that emphasising data collection as integral to a 

management system makes no sense if the data cannot generate a managerial follow-through. 

It also emphasises the need to develop methods of monitoring social and economic change, and 

of establishing what the Basin’s water demands are, in addition to the technical parameters of 

resource change. 

The next Chapter sets out to summarise the ‘issues’ that confront the Pangani River Basin. It commences 

with a summary of the issues gained from the proceedings of a recent Pangani River Basin workshop, 

along with those raised during interviews conducted for this Situation Analysis. The Chapter evaluates 

these issues as a basis for establishing priority areas for action, and suggestions in this respect are 

provided in its final section. 

55

E 

Pangani River Basin 

problems and issues 

E.1 Introduction 

This Chapter is based on two sources of in formation. The first is the proceedings of a workshop on 

the Pangani River Basin, held in May 2002 in Moshi. The second is the interviews conducted for the 

purposes of this Situation Analysis. This Chapter is an attempt to assemble the perspectives of various 

stakeholders on the Pangani River Basin (PRB) as a potential basis upon which to identify priority areas 

for future action. The PRB’s issues are divided between environmental issues, socio-economic and 

political issues, issues of management and administration, areas for research and, finally, the thoughts 

of respondents on what the management priorities of the Basin should be. On the basis of these issues, 

the concluding section lays out a number of priority areas for action. 

In almost every case, the issues considered below occur against a background of rapid and high population 

growth and attendant increasing population densities. The finite nature of the Basin’s resources ensures 

that population increases and slow developmental growth within the PRB may create the problems and 

issues considered here, or else exacerbate them. 

E.2 Problems and issues of the PRB 

Environmental issues 

Amongst the Basin’s most serious difficulties is deforestation, which directly affects its water retention 

capabilities, increases runoff and hence causes erosion within the Basin. Downstream, such processes 

ensure that flooding may occur and that the silt load of the Basin’s watercourses is considerable. 

In some measure, deforestation has been wrought by high demands for forest products. Many of the 

Basin’s remaining forests contain highly valuable timber, which, in the absence of any effective monitoring 

and sanctioning system, is logged fairly easily. Forests are also exploited for charcoal production, as well 

as for fuelwood to meet domestic demand. In addition, the Basin’s forests often occupy prime agricultural 

areas. The Eastern Arc forests, for example, are located in high altitude areas where rainfall is good. As 

populations within the Basin increase, the amount of human settlement along forest edges has grown, 

escalating the risk of forest fires. Fire is also used to clear land for agriculture. 

In many cases, the farming practises employed have been developed at times when resources were 

considerably more abundant than they are now, and may not be compatible with conditions of resource 

scarcity. Hence, much of the traditional irrigation within the Basin is highly inefficient and was developed 

against a background of ample per capita water supplies. As water abstractions have increased with 

population densities, these farming systems can have serious impacts on the Basin’s environment. 

These pressures have prompted farming along riverbanks, in stream-valley bottoms and spring sources. 

Increased siltation has repercussions for the river course (it may prompt meandering), as well as for 

down-stream industry, particularly hydropower water retention facilities. 

The high farming intensities in the Basin have ensured that soils are increasingly exhausted as crop 

rotation systems are replaced by perennial agriculture. Because land is now rarely fallow, it has to be 

irrigated to maintain outputs. The Basin’s traditional water abstraction systems are very inefficient and 

the amount of water reaching crops may be up to 85% less than at the point of abstraction. Repetitive 

irrigation increases the likelihood of soil salinisation and/or sodicty. The very large number of abstractions 

in the Basin, furthermore, have reduced water flows, presumably including the amount of water available 

for environmental maintenance. 

56

In the Basin’s lowland areas, it would appear that livestock numbers have increased considerably, while 

the amount of pasture has declined as a result of agricultural development. This has prompted concerns 

for livestock over-stocking and consequent degradation of pastoralist lands. 

As development within the Basin increases without any concomitant waste disposal systems, so too 

the likelihood of pollution at both local and Basin-wide levels has increased. Water quality concerns 

also arise in a different form – locally high levels of fluoride content can have serious consequences for 

riparian populations. 

Like elsewhere in Tanzania, overfishing within the Basin is a problem, with its coastal and Nyumba ya 

Mungu (NYM) dam fisheries being of particular concern. In Lake Jipe, the growth of waterweed has been 

so substantial that fishing is impeded. The latter has itself been prompted by increased nutrient inflows 

coming down from agricultural areas on Mt. Kilimanjaro and the North Pare Mountains. Elsewhere in the 

Basin, water hyacinth is a problem. 

The problems facing the Basin’s swampland are contrary. On the one hand, the drainage of swamp 

has serious repercussions for the regulation of river flow, as well as the biodiversity supported by such 

wetlands. On the other hand, the training of watercourses (including those that pass through swampland) 

can increase the amount of water available downstream, particularly for hydropower production. It is not 

only the water retained by such swamps that reduce river flows, but also the increased evapotranspiration 

rates that they imply. 

Uncontrolled mining can adversely affect landscapes and may even have pollution implications if the 

extraction of minerals from ore requires the use of chemical processes. Sand mining in river courses can 

undermine the stability of riverbanks. 

Many of the above trends occur against a background of considerable environmental ignorance. On 

the one hand, these relate to the absence of data concerning the Basin’s flows and the water needed 

to meet environmental demands. On the other hand, many of the Basin’s population are unaware of the 

environmental consequences of their economic activities. 

The high intensity of resource exploitation, development, manipulation and change within the Basin has very 

serious consequences for the Basin’s biodiversity. The PRB contains some of the globe’s most outstanding 

biodiversity resources with high levels of associated endemism and many restricted range species. Much 

of this (but by no means all) is forest-based. With so many of the Basin’s resource bases threatened in the 

ways described above, these biodiversity resources face very real and serious threats. 

Socio-economic and political issues 

Like many of Tanzania’s other populations, most of the Pangani River Basin’s (PRB) inhabitants are 

not wealthy. Although the Basin contains substantial urban conglomerations, these are not sufficiently 

large to absorb much of surplus labour contained within its rural areas. Many (if not most) of the Basin’s 

inhabitants are under-educated and/or under-skilled. In any case, even if skills were available, it is 

doubtful that the labour market is sufficiently developed to absorb them. Development within the Basin - 

as elsewhere in Tanzania - has failed to yield alternative income-generating opportunities that match the 

technical and skills levels of the Basin’s inhabitants. 

As a result, the only source of livelihood available to many in the Basin is primary i.e. a livelihood based 

on the direct exploitation of the Basin’s natural resources, be it forests, fisheries, wildlife resources or, 

most importantly, agriculture. For many, the success of these small-scale ventures is directly related to 

land and water availability. As populations increase, however, so too does conflict between various types 

and scales of users. As a result, this Situation Analysis has presented examples of the conflict that occurs 

between upstream and downstream users, as well as that between large-scale and small-scale ones. 

57

Of course, conflict is but one manifestation of competition for resources. As this intensifies in upstream 

areas of the Basin, agriculturalists are forced to travel downstream to attempt agriculture in less than 

adequate farming conditions. As discussed earlier, this takes land out of pastoralist production, bringing 

agriculturalists into conflict with livestock herders. 

As described above, much of the land use within the Basin can have very serious environmental 

repercussions. Indeed, the nature of these consequences may directly impinge upon the ability of the 

land to support the economic uses to which it is put. In some cases, the political support to alter or stop 

these trends is absent or even contrary, with politicians encouraging people to over-exploit resources in 

order to garner votes. 

A final political problem voiced by respondents was that the Central Government of Tanzania, in its 

efforts to implement policy, may make management and resource-related decisions without reference 

to administrators and resource managers within the Basin. Of particular concern were large-scale 

developments (such as irrigation schemes and mining concessions) that were perceived to provoke 

additional, localised, conflict or to seriously impact the condition of the resource. 

Issues of management and administration 

The Basin’s natural resource management legislation and policy is, in many cases, adequate, but is 

only potent insofar as it is supported by effective monitoring and law enforcement. Monitoring entails 

not only the ability to observe illegal resource use, but also the ability to gauge resource production and 

change. For example, the absence of an adequate water flow monitoring network means that the water 

authorities do not know how much water travels through the Basin, and cannot therefore allocate water 

rights on this basis. Similarly, there exists no methodology for monitoring and gauging the social and 

economic causes that underlie much environmental degradation and resource over-exploitation. 

Monitors assigned by the state to keep an eye on resource trends and exploitation may be disinclined 

to monitor the resource if they are not adequately remunerated to do so. Poor remuneration may also 

be the basis upon which officials are bribed to turn a blind eye on illegal resource use. Low levels of 

expertise, or the absence of adequate technology, may also compound resource monitoring difficulties. 

Funding problems may affect other aspects of the management system. In the absence of adequate 

finances, for example, it is difficult to see how an adequate monitoring system may be implemented 

within the Basin, regardless of the resource involved. Lack of funding may also ensure that such data as 

can be collected may not be analysed or findings correctly interpreted. Finally, funding difficulties may 

also impede the development of managerial capacity and efficiency. 

In addition, management may be undermined by the manner in which it is arranged. In the Pangani 

River Basin (PRB), this problem appears to occur on two levels. On the one hand, management is not 

integrated, so that management activities in one sector – such as the development of irrigation – may 

have serious repercussions in other sectors – such as water conservation. On the other hand, the lines 

of authority often appear confused, with overlapping administrative jurisdictions or, indeed, inadequate 

jurisdictions. Hence, the Tanzanian system of central and regional government ensures that there are 

potentially two administrative actors involved in the management of any one resource. In Kenya, the 

developmental mandate of the Coast Development Authority appears to overlap with that of the newly 

created Water Resources Management Authority. 

Communities of resource users can solve many of the problems of administrative confusion and inadequate 

monitoring via different degrees of participation. In the PRB, the implementation of this process has 

faced a number of problems. First, many of the structures by which it is intended that communities 

should be involved in management have been imposed upon them, with no community participation in 

administrative design, in the implementation of management strategies or the sanctioning of offenders. 

Second, because communities may not have much input in management design and implementation, 

58

these types of systems may actually undermine the ability of communities to meet livelihood needs or 

their ability to compete effectively against other resource users. Thirdly, a plethora of various resource 

‘committee’ types have been created throughout the Basin, instead of simply increasing the mandate of 

pre-existing village governments. Hence, village-level administration has been complicated and many 

Natural Resource Management (NRM) committees have overlapping or contrary jurisdictions. Finally, 

the lines of communication between central NRM authorities and communities may be inadequately 

developed. As a result, community demands and views may be overlooked or unrecognised. In the 

same way, the resource management or conservation goals of centralised NRM authorities may not be 

understood – or even wholly misunderstood – by communities. 

The administrative and bureaucratic process may hamper or undermine well-intentioned management 

gestures. For example, communities of resource users are empowered to create bye-laws which have 

the recognition of central government, regional and district authorities. However, the process of endorsing 

these may take so long that a community’s initiative and managerial momentum is undermined and 

authorities perceived not to be supporting them. 

The Pangani River Basin (PRB) is a cross-border resource. The mechanisms needed to ensure that 

management in both Kenya and Tanzania is harmonised do not exist. 

Areas for research 

The above difficulties are, in many respects, exacerbated by the absence of clear and adequate data on 

the trends and processes that shape the Pangani River Basin (PRB), and affect its management. There 

is no clear understanding of how the Basin’s increasing population will affect its resources in the future. 

Nor is there a good understanding of what kinds of Natural Resource Management (NRM) techniques 

can be employed that are able to operate under such population densities. 

Many of the research demands in the Basin concern its water and hydrology. Thus, while the total 

number of licensed abstractions are known, accumulated illegal abstractions are unknown. In addition, 

the amount of water required to maintain the Basin’s environmental systems is also unknown. The 

implications for the Pangani River of its training through the Kirua Swamps requires additional research 

(although see IVO – NORPLAN, 1997). The contribution of Kilimanjaro’s snowcap to the Basin’s water 

flows is unknown, as are the implications of the cap’s reduction. 

Finally, little research has been carried out to identify effective management practises that will be able 

to cope with the Basin’s particular characteristics and problems. There is no understanding of how 

water may be adequately and fairly distributed between up-stream and downstream users. There is no 

knowledge of how a management system can be efficiently monitored and implemented in an environment 

characterised by inadequate and intermittent funding, limited technical inputs, low skill levels and poorly 

developed community involvement. Importantly, the development of management systems capable of 

surviving under such constraints into the future has not occurred. Finally, an effective institutional basis 

upon which the integrated management of the Basin’s resources has not yet been developed. 

The management of the PRB 

Discussions that occurred during the May 2002 Workshop on the Pangani River Basin, as well as interviews 

carried out in support of this Situation Analysis, suggested a number of options that management of the 

Basin may wish to consider. Amongst these was the argument that the Basin’s inhabitants need to be 

aware of the PRB and the functions that it plays. Complaints have been raised that the river basin is not 

adequately recognised as an administrative unit, and that vested administrative and bureaucratic interests 

do vie to maintain the country’s regional and national administrative emphasis. Funding, respondents 

said, needs to be adequate, and associated remitting mechanisms need to be efficient. 

59

The management of the Basin will need to ensure that government departments are coordinated with 

other managerial institutions. Good quality data needs to be collected to inform management, and 

management should be integrated. Finally, amongst a number of macrolevel planning suggestions put 

forward was that the management of the PRB be linked to population growth control strategies. 

Given that many of the Workshop’s participants and the individuals interviewed for this Situation Analysis 

came from the water sector, many of the management suggestions obtained were concerned directly 

with water use and its regulation. Hence, it was suggested that management will need to follow clear work 

plans, which should contain measures to deal with water loss and inefficient water use. Management will 

need to be able to cater for the fair and adequate allocation of water, and illegal or inappropriate water 

use must be monitored and sanctioned. Water abstractions should be licensed so that abstractions can 

be monitored. The management of the Basin, respondents argued, would also need to be able to reverse 

the degradation of water sources, and the PBWO should have an improved fee-collection structure. 

Some Workshop participants felt that water shortages were not adequately recognised in Tanzania’s policies 

and that this needed to be remedied. In order to ensure that stakeholders’ views are adequately represented in 

the Basin’s water management, calls were made for better stakeholder representation on the PRB Water Board. 

Finally, an adequate strategy is needed to oversee the implementation of Tanzania’s new Water Policy. 

Following the National Water Policy 2002 (NAWAPO) as approved by the Cabinet on July 21, 2002, 

the National Water Sector Development Strategy (NWSDS) was prepared. The NWSDS sets out how 

NAWAPO, will be implemented and describes the institutional and legislative changes necessary so 

that the specified actions contained in the NWSDS can be implemented. On Institutional frameworks for 

water resources management the NWSDS say: “Water is a national and international resource, which 

cuts across villages, districts, regions, national and international administrative boundaries and can only 

be effectively managed on the basis of water basins through Basin Boards and Catchment Committees. 

Representation from district councils and lower local government authorities to these Boards and 

Committees is arranged so as to ensure the presence of the elected voice of the people during core 

decision making regarding water resources conservation, management, allocation, development and 

utilisation.” The NWSDS further states: “The NWSDS support re-alignment of the water related aspects 

of other key sectoral policies with the National Water Policy, and to provide a focus on specific roles of the 

various actors through clearly defined roles and responsibilities and hence the removal of duplications 

and omissions.” In order to provide the enabling legislative framework for water resources management 

a Water Resources Management Bill and enacted into law by parliament in April 2009. 

E. 3 Priority areas for Action 

On the Basis of the above discussion, three priority areas for action are identified: 

1. The development of integrated management strategies for the PRB along with attendant forums. 

There appears to be little doubt that the Pangani River Basin (PRB) urgently needs integrated 

management strategies that can cope with the diverse and complicated issues that have been 

described in this Situation Analysis. As such, it is proposed that the first priority area that needs 

to be considered is the development of such strategies. Within this remit, attention is drawn to the 

following constituent parts of any such strategy: 

• Integration is necessary in the environmental perceptions of planners and administrators to 

ensure that management adopts holistic, basin-wide planning strategies capable of dealing 

with the diversity of resources and problems confronting the PRB. 

60 

• It is important that the river basin should be seen as an administrative unit around which 

management integration can occur and resource conflicts can be resolved. It is also important 

that the use of the river basin as an administrative unit need not be contrary to the fulfilment of 

national and regional administrative and policy objectives.

• An additional administrative device that could be considered is the adoption of Water Demand 

Management (WDM) (see A.2 above). Given that such evidence as is available suggests 

that the Basin’s water supply is stressed, and that present demand outstrips supply, the 

implementation of mechanisms that serve to conserve water and encourage its efficient use 

would be valuable within the context of the Basin’s integrated management. 

• There is some sense in constructing strategies that can, in their early stages, be implemented 

incrementally as logistics and funding permits. In the absence of adequate logistical and 

financial support, strategies that can only work via an immediate, blanket, application are likely 

to fail. One possibility is to focus planning on the sub-basin. 

• The multitude of community-based institutions dealing with all sectors of natural resources 

exploitation is confusing and administratively inefficient. Hence, it makes sense to consider 

ways in which broad-spectrum local institutions can be developed with the capability and 

power to tackle all natural resource management difficulties within their jurisdiction. Each 

institution will require state support, particularly in the form of endorsing community byelaws, 

and supporting community management initiatives. 

• Land use planning should be considered an integral planning strategy from the outset. 

• Planning strategies should be matched against an understanding of capabilities and funding 

in the long run. It makes little sense to develop planning strategies dependent on funding, data 

and logistical support that will either disappear once donor funding is withdrawn or which do 

not match the underlying institutional make-up of the Basin. 

2. The development of effective strategies to facilitate dialogue amongst and between resource users 

and managers of different types and involved in different sectors with a view to improving awareness 

at all levels of management. Mechanisms are needed to ensure that opportunities for dialogue 

opportunities between and amongst stakeholders and managers are maximised, so as to ensure 

that two-way exchanges of information may occur, dissemination improved and the knowledge 

of how stakeholders all play a part within the well-being of the Basin delivered. It is necessary 

that awareness is created about all aspects of the condition and management of the Basin and 

its stakeholders at all levels of management and its co-ordination. It is suggested that forums be 

developed for this purpose, the mandate of which will extend to the resolution of conflict. 

In addition, such forums could have administrative and executive powers, in which all sectors of the 

Basin’s administration are represented. An important component of this process is ensuring that adequate 

lines of communication and dialogue are established between the upper echelons of administration with 

the lowest, community-levels. 

The possibility of using radio and other forms of mass media must be considered as possible avenues for 

the development of dialogue and effective, two-way, information dissemination. Care should be taken to 

ensure that all stakeholders and managers are aware of new policy developments and changes to resource 

administration and regulation. The role of forums developed for the purposes of integration should be expanded 

to include dialogue responsibilities and information exchange. These initiatives could be backed up with 

extension initiatives, which could also be used to obtain an impression of local concerns and grievances. 

3. The identification and development of an adequate data collection and monitoring system. This 

action area is not restricted to the development of data collection systems for hydrological data. 

Satellite and GIS assessments of land use, exploitation rates and geographical change are prerequisites 

for the development of land-use planning and monitoring. In addition, methodologies 

designed to monitor and gauge social and economic change and the development of conflict need 

to be identified and implemented. The data and monitoring systems recommended must match 

local funding and maintenance capabilities. Finally, the use of community-based natural resource 

management organisation as a way of monitoring resource use should also be explored. 

61

F Conclusions 

F. 1 Synthesis of findings 

It will be recalled that the first objective of the Situation analysis was to identify the resources that occupy 

the Pangani River Basin (PRB) and the processes and events that affect them. 

The Pangani River Basin has a very wide diversity of resources. Some of these, and the important role 

they play in the Basin, are as follows:: 

• Forests play a crucial role in the PRB’s hydrology, serving to regulate water run off, minimise 

erosion, store and purify water. In the PRB, they also make a vital contribution to global 

biodiversity. 

• Water in the PRB is integral to the Basin’s agricultural economy, its power generation, its urban, 

industrial and domestic demands and to livestock. It sustains all life in the Basin. 

• The Basin contains four protected areas (PAs). Kilimanjaro, in particular, plays an important role 

in the nation’s tourism economy, and also harbours a wide array of plant and animal species. The 

Mkomazi Game Reserve and Tsavo West National Park are examples of the Maasai – Somali 

Regional Centre of Endemism (RCE). 

• The Basin’s biodiversity is almost unparalleled globally, and the centre of a great deal of 

international interest and conservation concerns. 

• The PRB’s fisheries make important nutritional and economic contributions to the Basin’s rural 

communities. 

• The fertile volcanic soils of the Pangani River Basin are the basis of its agricultural economy, and 

turned it into the ‘breadbasket of Tanzania’. 

• Mining plays an important role in the nation’s economy and in the generation of employment. Its 

benefits must be considered against its negative impacts, including pollution of the environment 

and the destabilisation of riverbanks. 

The threats faced by the Basin’s resources are almost all related to over-exploitation. At their core, 

these threats relate to an increasing population against a background of high levels of poverty. Poverty 

and environmental degradation are often perceived to be interlinked (cf. WCED, 1987). The problems 

of managing Common Property Resources (CPRs) are often thought to increase when there are large 

numbers of people involved, particularly when their cultural homogeneity may be weak (cf. Ostrom, 

1990). The structure and function of rural livelihoods may become imperilled when the ability of rural 

people to control and secure adequate sources of livelihood is threatened. 

Above, the stakeholders of the Basin and their interests were described as follows: 

• The major interests within the Basin comprise industrial interests (electricity, mining and 

farming), farming (large and small scale farming, both associated with a considerable reliance 

on irrigation), pastoralist interests (particularly in lowland areas), and growing urban interests. 

Operating between these diverse interests and the multiplicity of natural resources within 

the Basin are NGOs and international donor agencies. The mandate of these is primarily 

conservation and/or the development and enhancement of rural livelihoods. 

• It is important to note that the population of the Basin is high. For a large proportion of this 

population, livelihoods are derived from farming, and there is much to suggest that they are 

economically vulnerable. In addition, the diversity and richness of the Basin’s resources mean 

62

that large(er)-scale interests are attracted to the Basin, and substantial investments have been 

made. There exists, between these large-scale interests and small-scale livelihood security, 

room for conflict. 

• This Situation Analysis has divided the PRB’s conflicts into three broad categories. The first 

relates to conflicts of scale, in which it was argued that small-scale users often have to compete 

against much larger and more powerful claims for the same resource. The second conflict 

area identified related to conflicts of tenure. ‘Tenure’ here relates to the right to manage one’s 

resources. It was pointed out that it is increasingly popular in Tanzania to assign communities 

of resource users with various types of associations and/or committees with which to manage 

their resources. The hope is that the creation of such institutions will yield better management 

outcomes. It was argued, however, that the way in which these institutions were often imposed 

upon communities, who then had no input into their design, goals or regulations, could 

potentially undermine the quality of their outputs. The third class of conflict related to location. 

Here, the way in which the location of a group of resource users can bring them into conflict 

with users elsewhere, was considered. The classic example of such ‘location’ conflict arising 

between upstream and downstream users was provided. Here, downstream users suffer from 

the excesses of upstream users. 

Chapter D argued that the administration of the Pangani River Basin’s (PRB) natural resources is 

sectoral. The activities of the Forestry and Beekeeping Division is not necessarily synchronised to some 

wider and over-riding set of PRB management strategies, but the outcome of forestry and beekeeping 

policies, in much the same way that the activities of the Pangani Basin Water Office (PBWO) reacts to 

the nation’s water policy. 

This sectoralism permeates down into local-level administrative strategies. Thus, in Tanzania’s Village 

Natural Resources Committees utilised in Joint Forestry Management are not the same as Water Users’ 

Associations. Communities located close to fisheries and protected areas, may also be obliged to create 

Beach Management Units and wildlife protection committees as per the policies of the Wildlife Division 

and the Fisheries Division. The plethora of village-based organisations in Tanzania overlay previously 

created ones like Village Governments. In many respects, the tasks that each group is charged with 

are not dissimilar to the tasks other groups are charged with. Ultimately, all of these organisations have 

to deal with the fair division of resources within a community, their sustainable exploitation and their 

protection from outsiders. 

In Kenya, conversely, very few such groups exist, although new natural resource policies increasingly 

seek to incorporate users into their management structures. 

Chapter D emphasised the following points: 

• The WRM Act gives executive powers to the Pangani Basin Water Board to prepare basin 

water management plans and upon which to base water allocations. The new water legislation 

has put in place a streamlined administrative hierarchy and a clear institutional set-up with the 

necessary powers to implement the policy and legislation.. In Kenya, the New Water Policy sees 

the creation of a Water Resources Management Authority and the inclusion of stakeholders in 

catchment management. 

• The Forestry and Beekeeping Division appears not to have any similar plans for restructuring, 

and forestry administration within the Basin remains dualised between national and regional 

level administrations. In Kenya, the restructuring of the Forestry Department has yet to yield 

dividends. This may be of little consequence to the well-being of the Kenyan part of the basin, 

which suffers mainly from the consequences of deforestation in Tanzania. 

63

• Both the water and forestry policies in the Basin increasingly emphasise the use of communitybased 

organisations in their implementation. As far as Tanzania is concerned, there are 

worries over the extent to which these organisations have been imposed upon communities. If 

communities have not been involved in their design and implementation, management outputs 

may be less than satisfactory. The lessons that the Tanzanians learn from these experiences 

may be valuable in the design and implementation of similar systems in Kenya. 

• The data collection and monitoring network within the Basin appears to be poor, irrespective of 

the resource sector. This Chapter has cautioned that emphasising data collection as integral 

to a management system makes no sense if the data cannot generate a managerial followthrough. 

The second Objective of the Situation Analysis was to identify a series of broad action areas wherein 

interventions may feasibly be delivered. 

Chapter E drew of the proceedings of a workshop on the Pangani River Basin and a series of interviews 

with Basin stakeholders to list the problems and issues of the Basin. Based on this, three areas for 

priority action were identified. These were: 

• The development of integrated management strategies for the PRB along with attendant forums. 

There appears to be little doubt that the Pangani River Basin (PRB) urgently needs integrated 

management strategies capable of coping with the diverse and complicated issues that have 

been described in this situation analysis. 

• The development of effective strategies to facilitate dialogue amongst and between resource 

users and managers of different types and involved in different sectors with a view to improving 

awareness at all levels of management. Mechanisms are needed to ensure that dialogue 

opportunities between and amongst stakeholders and managers are maximised, so as to 

ensure that two-way exchanges of information may occur, dissemination improved and the 

knowledge of how stakeholders all play a part within the well-being of the Basin delivered. It 

is necessary that awareness is created about all aspects of the condition and management 

of the Basin and its stakeholders at all levels of management and its coordination. Additional 

components of this priority area are the development of forums capable of assuming this task, 

as well as serving as a mechanism to remedy conflict, and to bridge gaps between different 

levels of administration. 

• The identification and development of an adequate data collection and monitoring system. 

This action area is not restricted to the development of data collection systems for hydrological 

data. A satellite and GIS assessment of land use, exploitation rates and geographical change 

is a pre-requisite for the development of land-use planning and monitoring. The development 

of methodologies to assess and gauge the underlying social and economic causes of 

environmental degradation and resource over-exploitation also needs to be identified. Such 

systems should also be capable of identifying water demands within the Basin. The data and 

monitoring systems recommended must match local funding and maintenance capabilities. 

The third objective of the first edition of the SA was to identify other organisations, interests or institutions 

with which the IUCN was to develop partnerships as developed the WANI initiative in the PRB. 

In section C6, a number of interventions by NGOs and international organisations were considered and 

assessed in terms of their potential contribution to the development and implementation of integrated 

management strategies for the PRB. Here, we develop that analysis further, and suggest ways in which 

these organisations may contribute towards the integrated management of the PRB:. 

64

• PAMOJA’s expertise lies in the area of developing dialogue, particularly between government 

and community interests. This expertise could play a crucial role in the integration of government 

planning and administration with local level community resource management. At the same 

time, it is crucial that community concerns and ideas are adequately reflected in government 

decision-making and actions. PAMOJA can potentially ensure that this can occur. 

• The Traditional Irrigation and Environmental Development Organisation (TIP) has experience 

similar to that of PAMOJA, and could enhance its application. Of greater interest, however, are 

the technical inputs that TIP can supply in the form of furrow design and development that can 

improve water conveyance systems and their administration. 

• The Tanzania Forestry Action Plan’s (TFAP) experience in the development of local level, 

integrated, resource problem solutions appear particularly pertinent to the Pangani River 

Basin. The development of such systems for communities living alongside the Basin’s forests 

would be a welcome component to any effective management planning within the Basin. If 

coupled with the activities of the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG), the coverage 

of these initiatives could be increased, the two organisations could mutually benefit from their 

shared experiences and knowledge, and an effective strategy for dealing with forest loss and 

degradation developed. 

• Tanga Coastal Zone Conservation and Development Programme (TCZCDP) possesses 

important practical experience in the development of an integrated natural resource 

management strategy, from which the PRB could learn and potentially build upon, expanding 

these lessons upwards and away from the TCZCDP’s jurisdictional area. The jurisdiction of the 

Tanzania Coastal Management Partnership (TCMP) is considerably larger, and for that reason, 

the latter NGO could possess valuable experience on the integrated management of large 

areas containing a very wide variety of natural resources. 

• The River Basin Management and Smallholder Irrigation Improvement Project (RBMSIIP) is 

the only project to have attempted a Basin-wide approach to solving the PRB’s problems. In 

addition, it has also sought to integrate water conservation issues with water development 

initiatives. The knowledge possessed by the Project in these areas is extremely important 

for the development of management strategies for the Basin. In addition, the experience of 

the Project in the development of a hydrological data collection network for the Basin is also 

pertinent for the PRB. 

• The UNDP-GEF East Africa Cross-border Biodiversity Project (EACBP) experience with crossborder 

resource management is important for the PRB. In addition, the EACBPs experiences 

with the development and implementation of community-based joint forestry management 

could be useful for the integrated management of the Basin. 

The PBWO has engaged with some of these organisations and this still can be a useful list for 

reference. 

65

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Interview sources 

Burra, R., ................................ Advisor, PAMOJA, Arusha 13th November 2002 

Bwoyo, D. ............................... Catchment Forest Manager, Arusha, 22nd November 2002. 

Fundi, H. ................................ Regional Hydrologist, Tanga Region, Tanga, November 18th 2002. 

Kijazi, A. and Nashanda, E. ... Forestry and Beekeeping Division, Dar es Salaam, November 15 th , 2002 

Lugeiyamu, J. ......................... Manager, TANESCO Systems, Hale, November 18th, 2002 

Mihayo, J. M., ......................... Director, Water Division, Dar es Salaam, November 15th, 2002 

Mjata, P. J., ............................. Land-use Planner, TIP, Moshi, November 21st, 2002. 

Msuha, M. ..............................BirdLife Officer, Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, 

November 14 th , 2002 

Nasari, J. ................................Regional Hydrologist, Arusha Region, Arusha 13th November, 2002 

Ngana, J. ................................Associated Research Professor, Institute of Natural Resource Assessment, 

University of Dar es Salaam, 14th November, 2002 

Ngula, D. ................................Manager, Research and Development, TANESCO, 14 th November 2002 

Rumambo, O., .........................Basin Management Advisor, River Basin Management Project, Ministry of 

Water and Livestock Development, Dar es Salaam, November 15 th , 2002. 

Salehe, J. ...............................National Project Manager, UNDP/GEF - East Africa Cross-Border 

Biodiversity Project, Arusha, November 22 nd , 2002. 

Sarmett, J. .....................................Water Officer; Pangani Basin Water Office, Dar es Salaam 14 th November 2002 

Shiri – Njoro Village Government, Moshi 22 nd November 2002 

Tegemeo and Kiwayo Village Government, Kiwayo, November 21 st , 2002 

72

Interview sources for Appendix 1 

Aram, F. V. .......... Tanga Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Authority 

Denis, E. M.........DWE’s Office, Handeni 

Fundi, H. ............Regional Hydrologist, Tanga Region 

Hamisi, H. ...........Coordinator, Hellen Keller International (APOC) 

Kisheru, N. .........Regional Natural Resources Officer, RAS Tanga 

Lyimo, Z. C. ........Regional Livestock Officer, RAS Tanga 

Maggid, R. B. .....Coordinator, Tanga CDTI Project 

Malange, J. P. .....RWE, RAS Tanga 

Materu, E. A. ......anga Water Laboratory 

Matiku, W. ..........East Usambara Catchments Forest. 

Mwakibuzi, H. .....District Planning Officer, Muheza 

Mzee, R. S..........Amani Nature Reserve 

Ntemi, A. ............Amani Nature Reserve 

Sasame, M. ........DWE’s Office, Handeni 

Tungu, L. S. M.....Regional Agricultural Officer, RAS Tanga 

73

H.1 Introduction 

H. Appendix 1: Smaller basins included in the 

administrative Pangani Basin 6 

The Pangani River Basin (PRB) covers an area of 43,650 km 2 . The Basin is surrounded by a series of 

small, independent, basins, which while not strictly part of the Pangani River Basin hydrologically, they are 

administered by the Pangani Basin Water Office (PBWO) because they are too small to merit their own 

Basin office. The area administered by Pangani Basin Water Office includes the main Pangani, Umba, 

Msangazi, Zigi 7 , Coastal Rivers and Mkulumuzi Catchments, together totalling 58,510 km 2 . In this Appendix, 

information about these additional basins is summarised as a basis upon which future project activities 

within the PRB may expand to include these additional basins. The basins concerned are as follows: 

• The Umba River Catchment (8,070 km 2 ) 

• The Msangazi River Catchment (5,030 km 2 ) 

• The Zigi River Catchment (see Coastal Rivers) 

• The Coastal Rivers Catchments (2,080 km 2 including Zigi and Mkulumuzi). Besides the Mkulumuzi, 

most of the Coastal Catchment’s rivers are seasonal. 

Each of these catchments is discussed in turn. 

H.2 The Umba River Catchment 

The Umba River Catchment covers a total area of 8,070 km 2 (of which about 2,560 km 2 lies in Kenya), 

where the Umba’s mouth lies at Vanga on the Kenya coast. The river has a dense network of tributaries 

most of which drain the north-western slopes of the Usambara Mountains. These enter the Umba from 

the south. The river receives very few tributaries from the north. The catchment receives an annual 

average of 600 mm of rainfall. 

The Umba Game Reserve, formerly part of the Mkomazi Game Reserve, lies within the Basin. Vegetation 

typical of this park covers much of the catchment: sparse, dry, savannah-type bush and low trees. 

Mountainous slopes in the Basin are covered by afro-montane forest. The Umba River Catchment is 

sparsely populated. The main land use in its northern part is wildlife conservation, while cattle grazing is 

the main land use in the south. 

Agriculture and irrigation 

Rainfed agriculture in considerably more common than irrigated agriculture. Nevertheless, besides the 

Mkomazi and Luengera valleys, which lie in the main Pangani River Catchment, most of the present or 

proposed small irrigation schemes in the Tanga Region are situated along the Umba River and its tributaries. 

These schemes include Mnazi, Kitivo, Kivingo Mnazi village and Mwakijembe Irrigation schemes. The main 

irrigated crop is rice, followed by maize. In the upper parts of the catchment; vegetables and Irish potatoes 

are also under irrigation. The total area under irrigation is estimated at 1,475 ha, consuming an estimated 

25.2 m 3 x 10 6 annually. 

6 

This Appendix has been prepared by the Pangani Basin Water Office. 

7 

Some authors use the ‘Sigi’ spelling, ‘Zigi’ is the preferred spelling of the catchment’s residents (pers. 

comm., 2003) 

74

Natural Resources 

Protected Areas 

The Umba Game Reserve contains an area of some 450 km 2 contiguous to Kenya’s Tsavo National Park. 

The reserve’s wildlife comprises, amongst others, buffaloes, elephants, lions and various buck and antelope. 

The main threat facing this wildlife is poaching by locals, and people entering the area from Kenya. 

Forests 

The Umba catchment was once rich in forests that included tree species such as Brachylaena hulensis 

(‘Mkarambati’) and Albizia vesicular (‘Mkingu’). Brachylaena hulensis is used mainly for making carvings, 

building poles and furniture. It is heavily harvested and is considered an endangered species. Illegal 

forest harvesting for charcoal manufacture also occurs. 

To address the problem of illegal forest harvesting, community-based forest management approaches have 

been developed with villagers, such as those in Mwakijembe, Mwanyumba, Mavovo and Daluni villages. 

Minerals 

The Umba River Catchment is rich in mineral deposits, particularly gemstones. Around the Mghwashi 

and Kararani areas, blue sapphire is to be found, along with green tourmaline and the rose garnet. 

Mining is presently carried out by small-scale miners who lack internal markets, forcing them to sell their 

gems on the black market in Kenya (Kisheru, pers. comm.). 

Water use conflict 

Conflict exists between water users due to insufficient supply, especially in those areas where irrigation 

is practiced. 

Data collection network 

• Umba River at Mlalo (1B1): a secondary station, with range of staff gauges (0 - 3m.); the station 

is operational with a rating curve, but needs updating. 

• Umba River at Mwakijembe (1B4A): a primary station, with staff gauges (0 - 4m); it is installed 

with a, ‘Orpheus’ type data logger. The station is operational, although it requires updating. 

• Mbalamo River at Kivingo (1B1A): a secondary station with staff gauges (0 – 2m). Requires 

rehabilitation. 

• Bombo River at Kwamkole (1B5): an operational secondary station with staff gauges (0 - 3m). 

• Mlalo rainfall station (9438068): operational and in good condition. 

• Mnazi meteorological station (9438075): well-functioning, with both auto-met and manual stations. 

H. 3 The Msangazi River Catchment 

The Msangazi River Catchments covers an area of 5030 km 2 and is considered to include a series of 

narrow catchments extending from west to east over almost the entire width of the Tanga Region. The 

catchments border the Pangani River Basin to the South. Most of the rivers only flow during exceptionally 

wet rainy seasons in their upper reaches. Downstream of Handeni Township, however, the Msangazi 

River flows regularly during the rainy season. 

The entire catchment has uniform geographical features and can be classified as hilly, although the lower 

reaches, where sisal and coconut plantations are cultivated, are flat. The vegetation cover is comprised 

of bush and low tree savannah. Besides scattered agriculture, most of the land is unused economically. 

Average annual rainfall is about 900mm. 

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Population 

The Msangazi sub-catchments cover three districts in the Tanga Region: Kilindi, Handeni and Pangani. 

The total population within the catchments in the Kilindi District was 31,177 in 2002, and 141,263 in the 

Handeni District. This represents about 44% of the population of the two districts. The population of the 

Msangazi Catchments within Pangani district is 10,298 people. 

Land use 

• Agriculture: mainly subsistence farming. Crops grown include maize, cassava, beans, banana, 

sugar cane and various vegetables. A newly introduced crop, Moringa oleifera (‘Mirongeronge’) 

is used in the manufacture of cooking oil and in water purification. 

• Livestock: small quantities of cattle, goats and sheep are kept in the catchments. 

Natural resources 

Water 

The main town in the catchment is the Handeni Township (population 7,700). The town’s main water 

supply is derived from water pumped from the Pangani River. In addition, the town derives water from 

two boreholes: Nderema (9 m 3 /hr) and Mnazini (12m 3 /hr). These serve 35% of township’s population. 

The town’s final water source is derived from one of the Msangazi River’s tributaries, which has been 

ponded nearby. The pond’s capacity 22,500 m 3 , and about 12m 3 /hr is abstracted from it. 

Forests 

The Bondo and Kwamsisi forests both lie within these catchments. Available species of trees are Jubernalia 

gloriflora (‘mtondoro’), Dalbergia Melanoxylon (‘mpingu’), Pterocaptus angolensis (‘mninga’) and 

‘mkomba’. 

Wildlife 

Spartan wildlife reserves occur in the upper reaches of the catchments, and include wild pigs, monkeys/ 

baboons and reedbuck. In the lower parts of the catchments (in Pangani District) lies the Sadani National 

Park, within which elephants, giraffes, antelopes, sable antelope and reedbuck. 

Minerals 

The catchments have no known mineral potential. 

Problems and potential conflicts 

• Encroachment and cultivation around water sources, including riverbanks. 

• Bush fires: these are a serious problem, and are set to clear bush for agricultural use. 

• Illegal tree harvesting: for timber, building poles and charcoal. The most sought after timber 

trees are Pterocaptus angolensis (‘mninga’), Dalbergia melanocylon (‘mpingu’), and Julbernalia 

gloriflora (‘mtondoro’) and Mkomba 

• There is an emerging conflict between livestock keepers and farmers over watering points. 

Disease 

The most common diseases in the catchment area are malaria and typhoid. Cholera and other diseases 

that cause diarrhoea occur occasionally. 

76

Data collection network 

• Msangazi River at Kideleko (1E3): an operational secondary station with a number of gauges 

(0 - 1m ranges). 

• Msangazi River at Kwedilomba (1E1): an operational station (0 - 2m ranges), installed with a 

‘Thalamides’ type data logger. 

• Handeni Meteorological Station (9538079): operational, with an auto-met station. 

• Rainfall station at Kwedilomba: operational. 

Governmental and non-governmental organisations operating in the catchment 

• World Vision (NGO) 

• HADEA - (Handeni Development Association) 

• HIAP - Handeni Integrated Agro-forest Project (Phased out 2000.) 

• Ded - GTZ –Technical and advisory support in the district (water) 

H.4 The Zigi River Catchment 

The perennial Zigi River drains the eastern slopes of the Usambara Mountains, and has two main tributaries 

flowing from north and south (Muzi and Kihuhwi). After their confluence, the Zigi drains eastwards into 

the Indian Ocean via the Mabayani Dam, a source for the Tanga Municipal Water Supply. 

The upper reaches of the catchment are mountainous, consisting mainly of dense forest interspersed 

with tea plantations. Its lower parts are hilly, comprising dry savannah-type bushes and low trees, as well 

as sisal estates. Along the coast, coconut and palm trees are common. As such, the entire catchment is 

fairly well vegetated, and the risk of erosion minimal. 

Rainfall in the Zigi catchment is bi-modal. However, its distribution varies from 1,000 to 2,000 mm. Yearly 

average rainfall is estimated at 1200 to 1400 mm. 


Forests 

There are 30,000 ha of forest in the Zigi Catchment, which include the East Usambara Catchment 

Forest, part of the Eastern Arc Mountain forests. The importance of the catchment’s forests includes: 

• provision of timber and medicinal plants to local communities; 

• forests are the source of the Zigi River, which provides domestic water for Tanga Municipality; 

• conserving water by regulating run-off, preventing soil erosion, improving infiltration to groundwater 

aquifers and water quality; 

• habitat for very high levels of biodiversity, and contributing to the maintenance of the global gene pool; 

• the escarpment forests of the East Usambara Mountains prevent erosion and landslides. 

Biodiversity and protected areas 

Amani Nature Reserve (ANR) was established in 1997 and has a total area of 8,380 ha. The Reserve 

is located in the East Usambara Catchment Forest. The East Usambara Mountains are the largest 

mountain block in the Eastern Arc Mountain chain. The ANR consists of tall luxurious montane forest and 

deciduous lowland forest with an average altitude boundary of 850m. 

77

Biologically, the ANR has a very rich species composition. The East Usambara Mountains are regarded 

as a global centre of plant diversity. Amongst the reserve’s and forests’ endemic plant genera and 

species are Saintpaulia (9 species), Cynometra (4 species), Streptocarpus (2 species), Impatients katae, 

Vernonia amaniencis, Dolichometra leucantha and Cordia peter. 

In addition, the East Usambara Mountains are recognised as having the second most diverse fauna 

in Africa. Some of the ANR’s mammals are classified as globally threatened, such as the East African 

Collared Fruit Bat (Myonyctris relicta), the Black and Rufous Elephant Shrew (Rhyncoyon petersi), the 

Bushy-tailed Mongoose (Bdeogade crassicauda omnivore) and Abbot’s Duiker (Cephalophus spadix). 

The International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP) has classified both the montane and lowland 

forests of the East Usambara as an Endemic Bird Area (EBA). Thirteen globally endangered species 

of birds, such as the Usambara Eagle Owl (Bubo vosseleri), the Usambara Mountain Weaver (Ploseus 

nicolli), the Amani Sunbird (Anthreptes pallidigaster), and the Long-Billed Apalis (Apalismoreaui moreaui), 

are known to live in ANR. 

Amongst the Reserve’s and forests’ amphibians, reptiles and invertebrate species, biodiversity and 

endemism are also very high. Many amphibians breed and find habitat in and along the Zigi River, which 

also provides habitat to numerous reptile and insect species. 

Water and soils 

The Amani Nature Reserve is one of the most important water catchments areas in the East Usambara 

Mountains. The montane rain forest that covers the larger part of the Reserve plays a significant role in 

the hydrological cycle of the Tanga Region. The Zigi River provides domestic water to Tanga Municipality 

(population 300,000), associated industries, estates and adjacent local communities. 

The Mabayani dam lies on the Zigi River, water from which supplies Tanga Municipality. Its reservoir is 

approximately 3,500m long with an average width of 400m. Initially (in 1978), the reservoir had a nominal 

storage capacity of 7.7 million m 3 , but this has gradually decreased due to siltation caused by erosion 

and landslides. Additional deposits are derived from plants uprooted by floodwaters, effluent from the 

decortication of sisal leaves and matter synthesised in the reservoir itself by phyto- and zooplankton 

communities, fish and other invertebrate animals. 

The decay of organic matter requires oxygen, resulting in the de-oxygenation of surrounding waters. The 

presence of such organic nutrients also stimulates the production of more plant material, causing the 

production of more organic matter and subsequent oxygen depletion at the bottom of the dam. Combined, 

these processes of nutrient inflows and subsequent deoxygenation may cause eutrophication, although 

no evidence of this has yet been obtained from the dam. The concern that this may occur nevertheless 

exists, and the following are recommended as possible mitigating measures: 

• to monitor the accumulation of sediment /organic matter in the dam; 

• to frequently remove aquatic weeds (e.g. water hyacinth or the Nile cabbage) from the surface of 

the dam manually, biologically or mechanically; 

• to control the quality and volume of effluent from upstream sisal factories; 

• to identify the proportion of aquatic macrophytes that are swept over the dam spillway. If the 

proportion is small, methods for increasing it should be undertaken. 

Fisheries 

Fishing is carried out mainly along the coast of Indian Ocean, where the Zigi River’s mouth is to be 

found. Minor fisheries exist along its course, targeting fish such as Clarias spp. (a cat fish, ‘kambare’), 

Tilapia spp. (‘perege’), Labeo (‘ningu’), Synodontis (‘ngogogo’), Barbus (‘kuyu’) and others. Fishing on 

the Mabayani reservoir is forbidden because its water is intended as a source of domestic water for the 

Tanga Municipality. 

78

Land 

The main land use in the catchment is agriculture, practised mainly on a small-scale level. Crops such as 

maize, cassava, banana and fruit are cultivated, while cash crops such as sisal, tea and forest (like the 

Longuza Teak Plantation project). To a minor extent, cattle grazing is also practiced. 

Problems 

• Deforestation: this occurs mainly as a result of illegal tree harvesting for timber, firewood, building 

poles, clearing for agriculture etc., and serves to increase surface runoff, while decreasing 

groundwater recharge. 

• Effluent discharge: the discharge of raw or partially treated effluent from sisal decortications 

causes the de-oxygenation of the water into which it is deposited, and works as a nutrient, so 

assisting eutrophication. 

• Agrochemical application: although there is no available data on the effect of agrochemicals on water 

sources in the catchment, it is likely that agrochemical residues/spills reach water bodies via storm 

water. Depending on agrochemical type and concentration, human health and the aquatic life can be 

affected by such residue. In the Zigi River Catchment, agrochemicals, including pesticides, herbicides 

and fertilisers are mainly used in Amani tea estates and tree nurseries (Materu, pers. comm.). 

• Human settlement close to water sources: this causes land degradation and increased sediment 

concentrations in water; the pollution of water by faecal seepage from toilets or the direct disposal 

of faeces, as well as physically and chemically by solid waste disposal to water bodies 

• Aquatic weed: several species of aquatic weed occur in the Zigi River and Mabayani dam, 

e.g. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), Nile cabbage (Pistia stratiotes) and the water ivy 

(Lpomoea aquatica). The water hyacinth is capable of blanketing the water surface such that it 

affects water quality. This may also affect human health by improving the conditions needed for 

the reproduction of various vectors important in the life cycle of various human pathogens, such 

as mosquitoes (malaria), and snails (bilharzia). 

• Poor farming methods: the use of fire to clear vegetation, the cultivation of mountain slopes, 

tree felling and other human activities in water catchments may serve to increase water turbidity, 

colour and sediment load, especially during the rainy season. These causes have been attributed 

to the December 1999 increase in water turbidity on the Mabayani Dam from 20-30 NTU to 1,400 

NTU (Materu, pers. comm.). 

• Disease: river blindness occurs in the Muheza District of the Zigi Catchment. This is caused by a 

worm (filaria) called Onchocerca volvulus. The parasite is transmitted to humans through the bite 

of a small black fly. Besides blindness, the disease also causes severe skin problems. The flies 

breed in well oxygenated fast moving water. Other diseases in the Zigi Catchment related to water 

are cholera, typhoid and malaria (Maggid, pers. comm.) 

Existing and potential conflict 

• Conflict is expected between water users in the Tanga Municipality and Muheza town. The latter’s 

water supply is presently inadequate, and a proposal exists to tap water from the Zigi River on 

which the whole population of the Tanga Municipality presently depends on. 

• Conflict between domestic water use and environmental requirements: the minimum water flow 

required to sustain the ecosystem below the Mabayani Dam is unknown. 

• Conflict between polluters and water managers: for example, conflict between water management 

and agricultural interests as the former seeks to control water pollution, for example, organic 

pollution from sisal estates (Mjesani, Kibaranga, Lanconi and Bamba), and agro-chemical 

pollution from tea estates. 

79

Data collection network. 

• Zigi River at Lancon (1C1): an operational primary station with staff gauges (0 - 10m); installed 

with an ‘Orpheus’ type data logger. 

• Zigi River at Miembeni (1C2): an operational secondary station with staff gauges (0 - 4m); the 

rating curve needs updating. 

• Zigi River at Kisiwani (1C4): a secondary station with staff gauges (0 - 3m) for catchment forestry 

use. Rating curve needs updating. 0 - 1m gauge has been washed away by floods. 

• Muzi River at Msakazi (1CA1): operational, but rating curve needs updating. 

• Zigi-Lancon Rainfall Station: operational. 

• Mabayani dam, water level and rainfall stations: operational. 

• There are additional rainfall stations in the catchment operated by various institutions, such as 

Longuza Forest, East Usambara Catchment Forest etc. 

H.5 The Coastal River Catchment (Mkulumuzi) 

The coastal rivers originate in the escarpment that runs parallel to the coast at a distance of 20 to 30 

km. Average rainfall within the catchments is 1,100 mm. Their ecology is fairly uniform. Slopes at the 

headwaters are generally hilly, and gradually flatten as they enter the coastal plain. Coconut, palm and 

cashew nut trees dominate vegetation. Sisal is also grown on a large scale. Erosion problems have not 

been observed in these catchments. 

Most coastal rivers only flow during short periods in the rainy season and are dry for the rest of the year. 

The only exception is the perennial Mkulumuzi River. This river’s catchment covers 337 km 2 , and is 

situated directly to the south of the Zigi River catchment. Its source lies in the Magoroto Forest. 


Water supply 

The Mkulumuzi River supplies water to Muheza town, with a population of about 25,700 people. 

Agriculture 

Agriculture in the area is mainly practised at a subsistence level, with an exception of sisal, which is 

grown at commercial scales. Subsistence crops grown include maize, banana, cassava, rice and sweet 

potatoes. Fruit (particularly oranges), coconuts, cashew nuts and spices are cultivated as cash crops. 

Livestock 

Livestock keeping in the catchments is fairly insignificant. Small numbers of dairy cattle, goats and pigs 

are kept. 

Fisheries 

Although fishing is a common activity along the coast, no significant fishing activity occurs in the coastal 

river catchments. 

Existing and potential conflicts 

• Settlement: serious demands for settlement land occur after sisal plantations have collapsed, 

and staff evicted. 

• Insufficient water for Muheza Township. 

80

Figure 4: The Administrative Pangani Basin 

see also Plate 2, page 44 


81

The data collection network 

• Mkulumuzi at Upare (unregistered): a new river gauging station equipped with a ‘Thalimedes’ 

type data logger. 

• Msimbazi River at Lugongo: a new river gauging station equipped with staff gauges (ranging 

from 0 - 2m) 

• Mlingano Meteorological Station (under the Ministry of Agriculture): operational. 

Supporting organisations 

• Irish Aid: supports integrated planned programmes in the area. 

• TASAF 

• NORAD: Village Transport and Travel Programme (VTTP) 

• IUCN: Coastal environmental conservation, in collaboration with Ireland Aid. 

• AXIOS International: assists orphans and vulnerable children 

• GTZ: assists health infrastructure, support of basic drug distribution to the health centres. 

• APOC/CDTI: Onchoceriasis control 

82


IUCN – International Union for Conservation of Nature 

IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing 

environment and development challenges. 

IUCN works on biodiversity, climate change, energy, human livelihoods and greening the world economy by 

supporting scientific research, managing field projects all over the world, and bringing governments, NGOs, the UN 

and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice. 

IUCN is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental organization, with more than 1,000 government and NGO 

members and almost 11,000 volunteer experts in some 160 countries. IUCN’s work is supported by over 1,000 staff 

in 60 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world. 

IUCN Water and Nature Initiative 

The IUCN Water and Nature Initiative is a 5 year action programme to demonstrate that ecosystem-based management 

and stakeholder participation will help to solve the water dilema today - bringing rivers back to life and maintaining 

the resources for many. 

Pangani Basin Water Office 

Amendments to Tanzania’s Water Utilization Act (Act No. 10 of 1981) introduced the concept of managing and allocating 

water based hydrological boundaries. The Pangani Basin Water Office was subsequently established in 1991. Its main 

duties are to control and regulate the uses of water in Pangani Basin both in terms of quality and quantity. 


CDA is a Regional Development Authority established to provide integrated development planning, facilitation, initiation, 

coordination and implementation for projects and programmes within its area of jurisdiction, namely the whole of Coast 

Province and Ijara District and the Kenya Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). 

Global Water Initiative 

The Global Water Initiative (GWI) is funded by Howard G. Buffet Foundation and was developed in September 2006 with the 

aim of ‘ensuring that vulnerable populations world-wide have reliable access to clean water in such a way that their dignity, 

rights, culture and natural environment are not negatively impacted’. The strategic objectives of the initiative are to support 

Integrated Water Resources Management programs in identified countries, to develop a water constituency in those countries 

and regions, and to influence beyond this initiative for wider scale-up. The initiative focuses on developing partnerships amongst 

key organizations in three geographic clusters: Eastern Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda), Western Africa (Burkina 

Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, and Senegal) and Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua). Organizations 

currently involved in the initiative are Action against Hunger, CARE, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), International Institute for 

Environment and Development (IIED), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Oxfam America and SOS Sahel. 

In Eastern Africa cluster, the initiative is referred to as ‘GWI Running Dry’ coordinated from a Regional Office based in Addis 

Ababa, Ethiopia (housed by CARE International in Ethiopia). 

Pangani Basin Water Office 

P.O. Box 5978 

Hale Tanga Tanzania 

Tel + + 255 27 2640836 

Fax + + 255 27 2641031 

IUCN Eastern and Southern Africa 

Regional Office 

P.O. Box 68200-00200 

Nairobi Kenya 

Tel + + 254 20 890605-12 

Fax + + 254 20 890615 

E-mail: earo@iucn.org 

Coastal Development Authority (CDA) 

P.O. Box 1322 

Mombasa Kenya 

Tel + + 254 41 22440 

E-mail cda@africaonline.co.ke 

IUCN Water and Nature Initiative 

Rue Mauverney 28 

CH-1196 Gland 

Switzerland 

Tel + 41 22 999 0001 

Faxl + 41 22 999 0002 

E-mail: waterandnature@iucn.org 

GWI Running Dry Program 

CARE International in Ethiopia 

P.O.Box 4710; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 

Phone: 251-11-618 3294 Ext 160 

Fax: 251-11-618 3295 

Web: http://www.care.org.et

PANGANI BASIN WATER BOARD

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