The Tanzania Coastal Management Partnership (TCMP) is a group of professionals committed to creating healthy coastal environments for the country and region. TCMP acknowledges that the real power to achieve this lies in strong partnerships and networks and by engaging all stakeholders. The Partnership has grown and prospered in the decade since it was created in 1997 through collaboration of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Tanzania’s National Environment Management Council (NEMC), and the Coastal Resources Center (CRC) at the University of Rhode Island and registered as non-profit organization in Tanzania in 2008. Currently, the Tanzania Coastal Management Partnership is managing the following proejcts:1. Pwani Project
Pwani Project covers an area of over 348 km of coastline in Bagamoyo, Pangani, and on Unguja. The area include the lower Wami River (3,270 km sq), Saadani National Park (1,114 km sq, including a marine area of 60 km sq), and the Menai Bay Conservation Area in Zanzibar (almost 500km sq). Combined, these areas encompass around 39 coastal wards (21 small wards on Zanzibar and 18 wards on mainland) and a population of over 200, 0000. Pwani is a targeted project, aiming to sustain the flow of environmental goods and services; reverse the trend of environmental destruction of critical habitats; and improve the well being of costal residents in Bagamoyo – Pangani and Menai Bay Seascapes.
The specific project areas are:
Protect Critical Forests, Wildlife, and Freshwater Resources – This project builds on work conducted under Sustainable Coastal Communities and Ecosystems (SUCCESS) and the Water and Development Alliance (WADA) to protect terrestrial resources linked to coastal and estuarine ecosystems in Tanzania. The geographic focus of the activities is the marine and coastal areas of Pangani and Bagamoyo Districts, including the Saadani National Park. The project is designed to address threats related to land clearing for agro-industries, tourism, and energy production to biodiversity assets such as coastal forests and habitat, terrestrial wildlife (i.e elephant migration corridor), and the Wami and Ruvu River estuaries.Protect Critical Marine Ecosystems and Endangered Species – This project targets specific problems and opportunities critical to reserving current trends of marine ecosystem misuse and over-use in Bagamoyo-Pangani and Menai Bay Seascape. This means
protecting marine biodiversity assets such as fish stocks, coral reefs, intertidal resources, and sea turtles by investing in activities related to marine protected area management (community-based and park-based), fisheries management, and protection of turtles. Ensuring multiple uses, community empowerment, capacity building, local ownership, use of participatory approach, and science for management are important features of these Pwani activities.Human Dimensions of the Coastal Ecosystem – Pwani concentrates on three aspects of the human dimensions of coastal ecosystems: climate change adaptation, economic growth, and HIV/AIDS mitigation and prevention activities. The goal is to create wealthier and more empowered communities.
Climate Change adaptation - Wealthier communities are created not by simply increasing people’s economic health and standing, but improving as well other factors that contribute to quality of life – factors such as increasing people’s resilience to the impact of climate change stressors can contribute to the improvement of quality of life.
HIV/AIDS mitigation and prevention – The wealthier communities that can effectively participate in environmental management activities can also be created by improving their access to health services that shape their overall physical well being. These include reducing their vulnerability to diseases such as HIV/AIDS. It is this combination of socioeconomic “wealth” factors that the Pwani project seeks for its beneficiaries.
Economic wealth - Pwani helps coastal entrepreneurs move up the value chain by diversifying and improving production and marketing of goods and services for local and international trade of natural, non-traditional marine fisheries and coastal ecosystem assets; helping provide access to capital; and improving connections between industry groups and improving the investment and market climate.Leveraged funding from Building Actors and Leaders for Advancing Community Excellence in Development (BALANCED) project helps empower women through increasing access to family planning information, services and commodities; thus improving the quality of life for themselves and the entire family. The project is integrating cross-sectoral issues into Integrated Coastal Management (ICM). The issues include HIV/AIDS, family planning, water and sanitation, population and child health.
3. Gender Mainstreaming
Understanding and addressing societal structures and patterns that perpetuate inequalities is a critical part of ecosystem-based management. Pwani considers gender in all aspects of its work, with the goal of helping women and men get to the point where they are able to participate as equals in the project. The Pwani Project’s gender mainstreaming plan includes: involving women in managing intertidal areas and climate change adaptation activities; targeting women for microcredit and providing leadership training to both men and women villagers with the goal of transforming women’s role in decision-making. It also includes identifying and collecting data on measurable gender related targets; involving women in natural-resource management decisions; and encouraging female scientists to participate in project work.