About Us

Tanzania Natural Resource Forum (TNRF) is a collective civil society-based initiative to improve natural resource management in Tanzania by addressing fundamental issues of governance.

• We view the quality and equity of governance as fundamentally determining how natural resources are managed and how they support the livelihoods of Tanzanians and the sustainable economic development of the country.

• We work to improve accountability, transparency and local empowerment in natural resource management.

• We bring together a diverse range of stakeholders and interests to share information, build collaboration and pool resources towards a common aim of better and devolved natural resource management.

TNRF is a long term, innovative and adaptive process of advocacy and capacity-building, based on collaboration and collective interests.

Our vision

Our vision for improved natural resource management consists of five straightforward points:

• Governance - more accountable and transparent governance institutions;
• Policy and law - a responsive and better functioning policy and legal environment that enables sound management and fully supports local people's rights;
• Communities and rural livelihoods - people who are empowered, skilled and accountable resource users and managers;
• Formal enterprise - profitably operating through fair partnerships with rural people for better rural livelihoods and sustained local and national development;
• Landscapes - that are well managed ecosystems which generate sustainable services and values needed by a diverse range of people and interests.

.... and Achieving It

We are working towards this vision by:

Increasing the flow of information - in as many ways as TNRF's diverse membership finds most useful and effective. We hold meetings and seminars, we use the internet, we develop straightforward language guides, and soon we will be working on developing novel forms of communication to reach remote rural communities. Information is key for bringing about change;

And so is:

Facilitating collective action - through TNRF's support of working groups. Members see the need to come together of their own accord to work on key issues that affect the way they are able to use, manage and conserve natural resources. Working groups collaboratively develop rounded and innovative solutions for better natural resource management, drawing on their local knowledge and the latest developments globally. And then we need to ensure we are:

Being effective advocates - in compellingly communicating our ideas and solutions to government. TNRF is building open, non-partisan and professional links with government and parliament. Very often they need our support, and we need theirs. Without government support and better governance, we simply won't succeed in realising our vision.