Sustainable Blackwood

Forest-dependent communities in Tanzania are amongst the poorest in the world. Remote, isolated, poor transport - jobs are hard to find. Instead, people earn their living primarily from the land and its resources. The African blackwood tree is harvested and the wood is used locally for making ornamental carvings or exported to be made into musical instruments. The leaves are used in traditional medicine, especially in childbirth.

Life in the bush is a struggle but mostly people survive by making the most of the natural resources available to them. However, most of the forest does not belong to them as forests are ‘common’ land that are accessible to others. Hence logging companies could come in to an area and harvest blackwood, and local people would not have the authority to stop them.

In this insecure environment, felling of blackwood is rarely done in a sustainable way, as the logging companies have no interest in the long term future of the area. They therefore cut down more trees each year than the number reaching maturity, and over time, the number of trees declines. The trees slowly disappear; the people become poorer.