The Implications of Non-timber Forest Products’ Access By-laws on Household Food Security in Semi-arid Zones of Iringa District, Tanzania

Abstract

Local communities in semi-arid zones of Iringa district are vulnerable to household food insecurity. Their vulnerability is mainly due to their dependence on climatesensitive livelihood sources, especially rain-fed smallholder crop farming. Consumption and sale of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) from Kitapilimwa Forest Reserve (KFR) which is under Joint Forest Management (JFM) offer an opportunity to the local communities to improve their resilience to food insecurity. Though NTFPs are also affected by climate change they are more resilient compared to agricultural crops and livestock. Several management by-laws have been passed to protect KFR from anthropogenic degradation and loss. However, the extent to which the KFR access bylaws affect the availability of NTFPs for enhancing household food security had not been examined.. Findings indicated that 76.2% of the respondents were food insecure. Also, it was found that 40.9% and 20.1% of the food insecure households ate and sold NTFPs to enhance household food security respectively. The few types of NTFPs they were permitted to collect, low quantity of NTFPs to be collected, a few visiting days and license fee were reported to be the main KFR management by-laws which impacted on availability of NTFPs for enhancing household security. It is noteworthy that forest conservation by-laws should not compromise local communities’ access to NTFPs. Also, it is good to mainstream customary forest management laws in the formulation of the conventional forest management by-laws.