By Valentine Oforo, Dodoma
AFTER working diligently and contribute to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at least 20.5bn/- during the past financial year of 2022/23, the Tanzania Forest Services (TFS) is now working constructive strategies to heighten its contributions towards the state coffer in this fiscal year, targeting to dish out a total of 23.9bn/-
As of December last year, the country’s semi-autonomous government executive agency with responsibility to develop and manage forest and bee resources had already netted at least 13.3bn/- signaling its determination to accomplish the set vision.
According to the TFS Conservation Commissioner, Professor Dos Santos Silayo, the state-women agency is currently implementing an array of initiatives to scale up its working facilities and human resources with an eye to improve its service delivery.
Among others, he said the ongoing interventions focuses to attain full management and utilization of all necessary forest and bee resources that the country has been endowed with, for the benefit of Tanzania's economic gain, unveiled that the far target is to contribute to the GDP at least 25.1bn/- by 2025.
And, Commissioner Silayo detailed, during the 2022/23 financial year, TFS managed to accumulate a total of 143.5bn/- (equivalent to 96percent of it set projections), added that, “As per our revenues collections estimations, during the past two years TFS managed to raise a total of 298.89bn/-, the amount which was equal to 102 percent of our accumulation projections,” he unveiled during an exclusive interview to this publication.
He said during the currently fiscal year, 2023/24, the esteemed agency is envisioning to collect a total of 161.8bn/-, saying as of 15th of February, this year, they had already managed to fetched about 89.6bn/-, the encouraging figure which reads at 56percent of the projected collections.
To ensure the accomplish its set visions, the Don expressed that during 2022/23 fiscal year, TFS has procured 31 modern vehicles as well as 44 motorcycles, at a total of 6bn/- in efforts to heighten and fast -tracking its daily roles.
To improve the agency’s working equipment, the Don added that TFS has also purchased two modern tailor-made trucks for doing patrols in the complicated forest areas, made KAMAZ, worth at least 773.7m/- from the Equator SumaJKT Ltd Company.
As part to further cementing its roles on effective monitoring and improvement of bee and forest resources, Prof Silayo said TFS has also procured other 39 motorbikes at a cost of 452, 985,000m/-, two Land cruiser (made hardtop) vehicles which were bought by the Tanzania Forest Fund (TaFF) at around 337,353,600m/-.
“And in the current financial year we’re looking forward to purchasing the other 21 vehicles, two major tractors, one lorry, 56 motorcycles and two modern drones, the purchase which is expected to gobble up to 6.3bn/-,” he informed.
He noted, the agency, TFS, is now working more seriously and keen to ensure the country is fully benefiting from its endowed resources in the sector of forest and beekeeping, added that several plans are afoot to be implemented inline to uplift the general performance of the vital economic sectors.
He communicated that TFS will also patriotically continuing to accomplish its dully role of paying reasonable contributions towards the Tanzania Forest Fund (TaFF), noting that during 2022/23 fiscal year it injected the crucial fund with 5.53bn/- added that in 2023/24 a total of 8.1bn/- will be dispatched to TaFF.
In regard to other developments, the TFS’ chief boss, Prof Silayo said they are currently undertaking three major projects for scaling up preservation and improvement of the forest sector in the country.
The 62.7bn/- worth projects, being funds accrued from the development partners, include 'Integrated Landscape Management in the Dry Miombo Woodlands of Tanzania (DSL-IP), "Building the resilience of forest biodiversity to the threats of climate change in Tanzania’s nature forest reserves' and 'Integrated Approach to Sustainable Cooking solution'.
“Implementation of these projects has surfaced due to existing mutual understanding and good cooperation between Tanzania and other countries,” he said.
Briefing over the projects, he unveiled that the 'Integrated Landscape Management in the Dry Miombo Woodlands of Tanzania (DSL-IP) was spending a total of USD 6.9million.
"The key objective of this project is to help curtail and reverse the negative trend of land degradation and loss of biodiversity in the degraded areas of the Miombo forests in western Tanzania by using an integrated landscape management approach, "he informed.
The other project, the 'Integrated Approach to Sustainable Cooking Solution, according to Prof. Silayo involves more than 34.3bn/- (Euro 12,500million).
“This project aims to promote sustainable forest management and wood-fuel production in rural areas with an overall aim of enhancing environmental sustainability, in particular the sustainability of the wood-fuel value chain,” he explained.
Together with that, he communicated that the package includes implementation of the third project, dubbed "Building the resilience of forest biodiversity to the threats of climate change in Tanzania’s nature forest reserves'. He said the robust initiative is worth around USD4.8 million.
"The project is for carrying out activities to build the capacity of forests of nature reserves to withstand the negative effects of climate change by building forest protection infrastructure, strengthening activities to increase income through eco-tourism, together with other activities meant to heighten incomes to the communities surrounding forests, " he unveiled.
Moreover, informing over the others TFS’s achievement in developing the forest sector during the 2022/23 fiscal year, the Don stated that TFS had managed to establish one major tree farm in Makere area of Kasulu-Kigoma, occupying at least 65,000 hectare.
During the past fiscal year, he added that TFS had successfully produced 25.9 tons of tree seeds and planted a total of 32,735,653 seedlings of numerous tree varieties at different areas of the 24 public tree farms available across the country.
He said so far, TFS has managed to plant a total of 6,909 new trees as well as replace trees at a total of 2,434 at different state-owned tree farms in the country.
Dwelling over the other success obtained during the past financial year, Prof. Silayo said TFS managed to conduct a special forest inventory at a total of 42 forests (1,031,293 hectares) across the country, and later on developed the relevant management plans.
In the same vein, he informed that, during the period, TFS had also to upgrade 15 forests to the level of national forest parks, and other five national natural reserves forests, occupying a total of 58,216 hectares.
Similarly, he said during last year, TFS received a total of 4bn/- from the monies that was disbursed by President Samia Suluhu Hassan for supporting improvement of forests preservations and tourism in the country.
“With the amount, we managed to construct at least five modern entry gates at five national parks, but also, the money assisted us to construct a 97km road, as well as a 190.5km-long tourists walking trails at 11 parks,” he expressed.
He also added that through TFS’s internal work plan, they have managed also to improve the country's ecological and cultural tourism attractions by rehabilitating at least 231.7km of tourist’s trails, and 643.54 roads within forests.
Tanzania Forest Service (TFS) is a semi-autonomous government Executive Agency whose establishment is supported by the Executive Agency Act (Cap. 245 Revised Edition 2009), the National Forest and Beekeeping Policies adopted in March 1998 and administered through The Forest Act (No. 14 of 2002) and Beekeeping Act (No. 15 of 2002) which provides legal framework for the management of forests and bee resources.
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