Mpingo Conservation &

Development Initiative

ANNUAL REPORT

2013-14

Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative

Conserving the forests and woodlands of south-eastern Tanzania by

creating economic incentives for rural communities

to manage their forests sustainably

– for their own benefit, for future generations,

and for the world.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Letter........................................................................................... 1

Organisational Overview..............................................................................2

Where we Work............................................................................................3

Our Main Achievements...............................................................................4

Programmatic Highlights..............................................................................6

Community-Based Forest Management.......................................................................6

Sustainable Logging.....................................................................................................8

Forest Stewardship Council Certification....................................................................10

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation & forest Degradation...................................12

Capacity Building & Village Governance....................................................................14

Community Benefits…………………………………….................…………..16

Governance Structure & Organisational Capacity......................................18

Financials...................................................................................................20

© PHOTO CREDITS

Anne-Marie Gregory—cover & back page, 9, 10 & 11

Paul Harrison—pages i & 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 20 & 21

Lodrick Mika—pages 14, 15, 18 & 19

Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative—pages 7, 16 & 17

Deogratias Ndossi—pages 12 & 13

Andrew Gordon-Maclean—page 8

Makala Jasper—page 10

EXECUTIVE LETTER

By the end of 2013-14 – in just over nine years since MCDI was founded

in December 2004 – we had supported seven rural communities in Kilwa

District, south-eastern Tanzania, to secure legal tenure over their forest

resources. With our help, five of these villages had also begun generating

long-lasting forest-based income by selling sustainably harvested timber,

including mpingo (Dalbergia melanoxylon).

Whilst Kilwa remains our priority, new opportunities abound elsewhere

and the time is ripe for MCDI to begin further expansion. In 2013, we

extended our support to villages in the Angai Forest of Liwale District, to

the west of Kilwa (see page 6). MCDI is reviewing its strategic direction to

support this expansion; some significant changes are developing:

We are moving towards self-sufficiency – MCDI are identifying ways to become more self-sufficient,

both internally as an organisation and for the communities we work with. A critical and symbolically

powerful step was made in July 2013, when all earning villages agreed to pay for our services

(see page 16). We see this as a viable means to reduce or remove donor dependency in the future.

We are diversifying our focus beyond simply selling mpingo – The success of MCDI becoming self-

sufficient relies on communities earning enough from forest product sales to cover the cost of our

services, plus a substantial profit margin for themselves. It seems unlikely that they will do this from

selling mpingo alone and so we began supporting communities to market and sell additional hardwood

timbers that are also commonly found in community forests in south-eastern Tanzania (see page 9); we

already have the necessary foundations in place to make this a viable business endeavour. Despite this

pivot in strategy, we are sticking to MCDI’s founding principles:

Striving to achieve the highest standards for all projects that we engage with – We are continuing to

certify community forests with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC): the global gold standard for

responsible forest management. We certified an additional 17,921 hectares of forest in 2013 and villages

already registered under our FSC certificate passed a stringent full assessment with no Major Corrective

Action Requests (CARs) for first time in MCDI’s history (see page 10).

Continuing to be pioneers in the field – We submitted a new Verified Carbon Standards (VCS)

methodology in March 2014 to become the first dry forest REDD project to focus on fire management as

a mitigation strategy (see page 13).

Maintaining scalability in our work – We are continuing to expand the area of forest managed by

communities in Kilwa District and are working closely with our partners to take community forestry to

scale in other parts of Tanzania, thereby pursuing a new direction for MCDI as a leading provider of

PFM facilitation services in the country (see page 6).

Makala Jasper

Chief Executive Officer

Page 1

ORGANISATIONAL OVERVIEW

Specifically, we:

Support rural Tanzanians to collectively take control of, manage, and benefit from

their forests in a process called Participatory Forest Management (PFM);

Help communities to generate ethical and long-lasting forest-based income through

sustainably harvesting and selling hardwood timber;

Raise awareness about the benefits that can come from forest conservation; and,

Provide tools and enhanced capacity so that communities can demand improved natural

resource governance systems.

MCDI certify community forests under our Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) group certificate to help

drive timber sales and ensure sustainable and equitable practices in the management and harvesting

process. We also implement a pilot REDD project that, as with all of our work, seeks to generate income

for local communities, thus providing incentives for forest conservation. We advise and support

communities to develop effective governance systems to manage the revenues they earn through forest

management, working to ensure that the benefits are shared equitably within each village. Finally, we

monitor the impacts of our projects on the forests and local people to ensure that they are having actual,

tangible benefits for conservation and development.

MCDI at a glance:

In 2009, facilitated the first commercial timber harvest from community-

managed natural forest in all of Tanzania;

Awarded the first – and still the only – FSC certificate for community-

managed natural forests in the whole of Africa;

In less than 10 years, supported 14,112 rural Tanzanians to get user rights and

management control over more than 100,000 hectares of forest;

Helped communities in Kilwa District to earn more than USD $100,000 from

timber sales in less than 5 years.

Our aim is to drive local community forest conservation in south-eastern Tanzania by

finding and creating opportunities where local people can benefit from sustainably

managing their forests.

Page 2

WHERE WE WORK

Our work began and remains centred in Kilwa and nearby districts of south-eastern Tanzania. These

locations contain some of the largest areas of un-protected woodland in the country, including the highest

remaining densities of valuable hardwood timber trees. They are also home to some of the poorest rural

communities in Tanzania, where local people rely heavily on forests to support their livelihoods.

Page 3

OUR MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS

This year, we helped communities to earn more money from managing their forests

Communities generated revenue amounting to over USD $56,012 from certified timber sales

Four of the villages we support earned TSh 91,971,924/- from selling timber in 2013-14.

This is 60% more than they generated last year.

Going beyond mpingo

Communities generated USD $38,173 (TSh 62,680,020/-) from selling certified non-blackwood

timber this year. This is almost four times the amount sold in 2012-13.

We expanded the area of FSC certified, community-managed natural forest in Tanzania

– and Africa – by over 20%

We included an additional village – Likawage – in our FSC group certificate

In November 2013, we certified Likawage’s Village Land Forest Reserve

(VLFR) under our FSC group certification scheme. The reserve encompasses

17,921 hectares of forest, thus we expanded the total area of FSC certified,

community-managed natural forest in Africa from 82,282 hectares to 100,203

hectares (including a small adjustment to the size of Nainokwe’s VLFR

when the boundary was re-surveyed) (see page 10).

5,799 rural villagers gained

tangible benefits by using

profits from timber sales in

2013. They installed and

repaired 4 water boreholes;

built 1 marketplace, 3 primary

school buildings and 1 nursery

school; funded 200 new school

uniforms; and provided 13

vulnerable community

members with health

insurance.

Page 4

Making progress on REDD

We protected ~20,000 hectares of forest from late season wild fires

We trialled early burning – our preferred strategy to reduce carbon emissions resulting from

frequent uncontrolled bush fires in local miombo woodlands – in two VLFRs: Likawage and Ngea,

thus protecting ~20,000 hectares from late season wild fires (see page 12).

We pioneered a new methodology to quantify carbon gains from fire management

Previously there has been no way to get credit from international carbon markets by reducing

unwanted emissions which result from forest fires. At MCDI, we are changing this by pioneering a

new methodology to quantify carbon gains from fire management. We submitted the method –

which has been designed by us to meet the best known and toughest international carbon market

requirements, as defined by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) – in February 2014, when it

commenced the rigorous double approval process that is necessary for a method to be validated for

project implementation. Once approved, the method will enable communities to sell certified

carbon offsets on the international market. This will not only be a significant achievement for our

REDD project, but will open up new opportunities for rural communities living in miombo

woodlands, which cover some 2.8 million square kilometres across southern Africa; it will enable

them to generate benefits from managing forest fires in a responsible way (see page 13).

Page 5

PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Community-Based Forest Management

Forests support the livelihoods of millions of Tanzanians. This is especially true in south-eastern Tanzania,

where forests are particularly abundant and where infrastructure and social development lag behind other

parts of the country. Despite their importance, forests in Tanzania are increasingly threatened and often

exploited unsustainably, a situation that is exacerbated by weak governance systems, poverty, and a lack of

available alternatives for local people. At MCDI, we are addressing these challenges by helping rural

communities find concrete reasons to manage their forests sustainably. In particular, we assist communities

to gain access to and secure user rights over their forests, by establishing Village Land Forest Reserves

(VLFRs), so that they can realise economic benefits from the natural resources that surround them. This

incentivises local people to promote forest conservation and fight against over-exploitation and illegal

practices, which have unfortunately become common in south-eastern Tanzanian forests.

Page 6

This year, we supported community-based forest management in Tanzania by:

Setting aside more land as Village Land Forest Reserves

We assisted four additional villages (Ngea, Mitole, Mandawa and Mchakama) to begin establishing VLFRs,

with only approval of their byelaws by Kilwa District Council pending to complete the process in each

village. These byelaws should be approved in 2014, thereby providing an additional 7,559 Tanzanians with

user rights and management control over their forests. Communities themselves decide on the area of forest

to set aside as VLFRs, while MCDI provide them with guidance throughout the decision making process. In

MCDI’s December 2013 Annual Stakeholders’ Forum, three villages asked us to help them expand and/or

designate additional areas of forest as VLFRs. This is a strong vote of confidence in our work and makes it

clear that our successes – manifested in the form of real, tangible benefits at the village level (see page 17)

– are having an impact on local attitudes to forest conservation.

Scaling up Participatory Forest Management

We worked with our partners between October 2013 and January 2014 to scale-up PFM in areas of Tanzania

beyond Kilwa District, thus boosting community rights and benefits over forest resources in the country. We

took the lead on PFM facilitation in Liwale District, where we helped three villages of the Angai Forest to

set aside VLFRs, draft management plans, inventory their forest segments, and begin the VLFR management

plan approval process. Liwale District lies directly to the west of Kilwa (only 3-4 hours drive away) and,

although it has plentiful forest cover remaining, logging pressures have escalated sharply in recent years.

Thus, this is an obvious place into which MCDI should expand its operations. We anticipate further

opportunities in the coming months and years to work in ~20 villages around the Angai Forest, which covers

~140,000 hectares of southern-coastal Tanzania. With support from WWF and alongside MJUMITA, we

also investigated the potential to expand our work into Tunduru District of the Ruvuma Landscape in

southern Tanzania, where we plan to start working in the next financial year. This will be the first test of

MCDI’s capacity to work intensively at significant distance from Kilwa (it is likely to lead to the

establishment of a branch office) and will signify the start of a new role which we would like to develop as a

key provider of PFM facilitation services in Tanzania.

“In the past, trees and forests were cut

down a lot, and there were no monitoring

activities to see what was being cut or

replanted, or who was cutting down

trees. But now, trees are being cut

according to laws and guidelines and

there is monitoring going on. There is

hope that future generations will live to

see forests and healthy trees.”

Mama Mwanaisha Abdallah Likoko is a native of Kikole

village in Kilwa, one of the first villages MCDI helped

establish a VLFR in and get certified under the FSC group

certificate. She shared this testimony as part of the launch

of phase II of the Mama Misitu Campaign.

Page 7

Sustainable Logging

Among other valuable resources, the woodlands managed by communities in our project

area contain some of the greatest remaining stocks of hardwood timber, including mpingo

(Dalbergia melanoxylon), in Tanzania. Since 2009, MCDI has assisted communities to

sustainably harvest and sell this timber for a fair price in national and international markets.

The trade presents a significant source of communal income, endowing local people with a

strong incentive to manage their forests sustainably. The first Tanzanian’s to begin earning

regular income from managing their natural timber resources were those supported by

MCDI in 2009, when we facilitated the first commercial timber harvest from a

community-managed natural forest in Tanzania.

Page 8

We boosted community income through timber sales this year by:

Investing in sales and marketing

MCDI’s shift to a more business like stance is being led by significant investment in sales and

marketing, the bedrock of any successful business, to drive timber sales to the level necessary

to support our operations in the long term. Accordingly, in February 2014, we employed a

Timber Marketing Officer (TMO) with a dedicated responsibility to ramp up sales of timber

from MCDI-supported VLFRs. Although such little time has yet passed, this looks to have

been an excellent move; in addition to the seven new buyers who purchased timber in 2013,

nine new timber buyers have expressed significant interest, including new sorts of customers –

such as major construction companies – to whom the TMO has expanded sales efforts. One

result of this effort may be the start of price competition, with customers offering to pay more

than the government royalty rate to secure hardwood timber supplies; this could be managed

through an auction process handled by the communities with facilitation from MCDI. We are

also exploring international markets, including various sectors, for certified timber.

Community income through timber sales rose exponentially this year

MCDI’s partner communities have generated over USD $123,322 (TSh 202,495,278/-) from

certified timber sales since we facilitated the first harvest from Kikole’s community forest in

2009. Sales rose exponentially throughout 2013-14, when four villages sold 620m3 of timber

worth $56,012 (TSh 91,971,924/-); this is 60% more than they earned in the previous year.

They sold to seven new buyers who collectively accounted for 37% of the total sales; three

buyers each purchased more than USD $3,898 of timber.

We invested in exploring international markets, including a range of sectors, for five

hardwood species other than mpingo (Dalbergia melanoxylon). These are commonly

found within Tanzanian VLFRs and thus represent significant potential revenue

earners for local communities. We estimate potential international substitution-based

markets as ranging between 4,600m3 and 25,000m3 of wood annually, which would

translate into revenue for communities of USD $0.5-2.5 million. We established a

relationship with a major American timber dealer who owns the second largest flooring

company globally for which steps on the provision of samples have already been

undertaken. Communities have stocks of the species that interest this buyer sufficient

to generate TSh 1 billion (USD $613,000) in sales each year; we are optimistic that the

first sale may happen in late 2014.

Page 9

Diversifying beyond simply selling mpingo

Forest Certification

We certify community forests with the FSC as an additional means to drive timber sales. FSC is widely

recognised as the toughest international forest certification standard, covering legal, social, economic,

ecological, cultural, and other aspects of responsible forestry; it is the only certification system supported

by many NGOs, including our partners Fauna & Flora International and WWF. Thus, by managing a FSC

group certificate—the only one of its kind for community-managed natural forests in the whole of

Africa—MCDI provides communities with a credible means to differentiate their timber against that which

has been illegally or unsustainable felled and/or where beneficiaries have not got a fair price. The forests

included in our group certificate are managed by the group members: the communities, while MCDI

remains the certificate manager, facilitating the relationship with the certificate issuer, FSC.

We advanced our forest certification programme this year by:

Expanding the area of FSC certified forest

We registered an additional village – Likawage, with a population of 5,994 – under our FSC group

certificate in November 2013, adding 17,921 hectares of forest to the scheme and increasing the number of

beneficiaries to 11,694. This not only increased the amount of forest included in our group certificate, but

it also expanded the area of FSC certified forest in Tanzania by over 20%. Enlarging the total area of

certified forest and associated timber stocks is extremely important as it increases the level of

attractiveness to large buyers, who demand substantial volumes and need long-term security in order to

switch over to a new supplier. Thus, by including Likawage in the scheme, we also provided in-direct

benefits to existing certified villages by making them more appealing to investors and improving their

future earning potential. Four additional villages – Mitole, Ngea, Mandawa and Mchakama, with a

combined population of 7,559 and forest area of approximately 7,700 hectares – would have also been

included in the scheme had it not been for delays in getting their forest byelaws approved by

Kilwa District Council. They should all join MCDI’s group certificate in 2014.

Pushing certified mpingo

A leading European dealer in mpingo expressed interest

in supporting one of his supplier sawmills in Tanzania

to become FSC certified. This will give MCDI

our best opportunity yet to really push the

FSC certified mpingo sold by our partner

communities on to the woodwind

instruments market, as per our original

project concept five years ago.

Page 10

Undergoing our most successful assessment to date

FSC certificates last for five years and, in March 2014, it was exactly five years since MCDI first

achieved FSC certified status. So, rather than a shorter annual audit, we had to undergo a much tougher

full assessment in November 2013. The assessment was MCDI’s most successful to date, with no Major

Corrective Action Requests (CARs) raised for the first time ever in MCDI’s history. The success of this

audit was all the more impressive since it was mostly handled by our field staff, with only minimal

involvement by senior management; this demonstrates significant increases in MCDI staff capacity that

bodes very well for the future.

Mitigating risk

Following previous concerns about risks to our FSC certificate, this year MCDI switched the simpler

Small or Low Intensity Managed Forests (SLIMF) standard available under FSC. The certificate is the

same from the point of view of consumers, but some of the standards are relaxed. Thus, while the

practical impact is negligible, the relaxation of some requirements means that there are fewer areas of

potential failure and a lower likelihood of our FSC certificate being suspended at some point in the future.

Contributing to drafting a new FSC International Standard

At present, the nature of the FSC Standard tends to assume that a commercial business is managing

forests, not rural communities. Therefore, some of the criteria are not as relevant to community forestry

when compared with other situations; this can make it tricky to reach agreement with FSC auditors as to

what is an appropriate standard that should be expected of rural communities. Promisingly, MCDI was

selected recently as a site for field-testing the draft new FSC International Standard, meaning that FSC

wants to listen to the challenges we face. It may also in time lead to a new FSC standard that is designed

specifically for community-managed forests.

Page 11

MCDI is piloting a five year REDD project in Kilwa District which, as with all of our work, seeks to

incentivise community forest conservation in Tanzania through effective provision of benefits. A major

cause of forest degradation (and hence carbon emissions) in Kilwa are frequent forest fires, which kill off

large trees, stunt forest regeneration, and are especially damaging when they occur late in the dry season.

Under our REDD project, MCDI works with communities to reduce the frequency and severity of these

late season fires through pre-emptive early burning. This results in lower tree mortality and more

regeneration, thus storing more carbon in the forests. It is these carbon offsets that, once verified, can be

sold in international markets, opening up a new revenue stream for communities and increasing

incentives to promote forest conservation.

During our fourth year of project implementation, we made a number of advances which

have brought us closer to establishing a marketable and certified REDD project:

Initiating early burning

We trialled rapid large-area early burning in two villages, Likawage and Ngea, thus protecting ~20,000

hectares of forest from late season wild fires. Members of three other villages: Nainokwe, Liwiti, and

Nanjirinji A, were also given the opportunity to participate, thus helping to ensure that a wider roll out

may follow more easily from 2014 onwards. We expect sales of carbon offsets to begin in 2014-15, with

projected revenue rising to between USD $500,000 and $1,400,000 by 2016. We already have a partner –

Carbon Tanzania (formerly Ecological Initiatives) – lined up who are keen to take as many carbon offsets

as possible, as soon as MCDI can bring them to the market.

Strengthening governance and building trust

New cooperation agreements were signed between MCDI and all six REDD pilot villages by the end of

2013. These lay out the management and financial arrangements between our organisation and the

communities, establishing a fair and transparent working relationship between the two entities.

We are focusing on the Village General Assembly (VGA) – a community-wide meeting which, by law,

should occur quarterly in each village – as the key governance mechanism to improve financial

management within REDD pilot communities (read more on page 14 & 15)

REDD+ is a forest carbon initiative aimed at addressing

and mitigating global climate change by reducing the

levels of greenhouse gas emissions that enter our

atmosphere. It stands for: “Reducing Emissions from

Deforestation and forest Degradation”, including

conservation, sustainable management of forests, and

enhancement of forest carbon stocks (the plus sign).

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation

and forest Degradation (REDD+)

Page 12

Pioneering a new Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) methodology to quantify carbon emissions

MCDI’s REDD project is unique as there are no other existing REDD projects that focus on reducing

carbon emissions through fire management in dry forests. This means that we needed to develop a

methodology and set of management practices to allow us to proceed with the technique. The challenge

we faced is that our monitoring systems would need to be super accurate to detect the emissions reductions

obtained through early burning, which, although large enough when considered across an entire forest, are

small in relation to the total biomass. Our partners from the University of Edinburgh therefore

recommended we use a model called ‘GapFire’, which they had developed specifically to predict carbon

changes over time from reducing fire. We worked together with international experts on carbon markets

methods to write a new VCS methodology to quantify carbon offsets achieved through early burning, using

the GapFire model. The methodology was submitted to VCS and opened for public comment in March

2014, following which it must be approved by two independent assessors. Once approved, the method will

signify a big step forward as the same approach could have wide applicability both within Tanzania and

across the Miombo ecosystem of southern Africa, which covers some ~2.8 million km2. Beyond this, the

method could be easily adapted to suit other dryland forests around the world. It will enable communities

living in these areas to generate benefits from effective fire management via previously inaccessible carbon

markets, thus providing incentives for local people to manage forest fires in a responsible way.

Devising a novel strategy to monitor biodiversity

Working with our partners, Carbon Tanzania, we developed a new biodiversity monitoring strategy that is

designed to track wildlife responses to early burning. The community-based method focuses on three

selected indicator bird species as well as opportunistic recording of large mammals; surveys are conducted

by local patrol teams in the villages participating in our REDD project.

Page 13

“At MCDI, we try to ensure that all decisions about revenue distribution

are made at the community level, to the benefit of the entire populace.

Therefore, we work closely with the Village General Assembly to promote

the inclusion of all stakeholders and encourage the participation of

marginalised members of the community in decision-making bodies.....

The entire community – not just a few elites – needs to receive benefits

from managing their forests; we’re working to make sure this happens.”

– Glory Massao, REDD Project Manager.

Capacity Building & Village Governance Communities themselves decide what area of forest to set aside as VLFRs and, once established, they

choose how to spend the money derived from the encompassed natural resources. We support villages to

make these decisions wisely, including advising them on sensible percentages of the total revenue from

forest product sales to allocate for: the Village Council, to be used for community development projects; the

Village Natural Resources Committee (VNRC), to be put towards forest management; and, as a voluntary

contribution to the District Council. These figures must be agreed upon during the Village General

Assemblies (VGA) – a community-wide meeting which, by law, should occur quarterly in each village – and

documented in the forest management plans. We also help villages to develop effective governance systems

and improve existing ones, thus ensuring that entire communities – and not just a few leaders – are truly

benefiting from our work.

We improved local capacity and natural resource governance systems by:

Raising local standards of good governance

MCDI works with VGAs to raise local expectations of the standards of governance, which is crucial to

accountability. All seven of our partner villages with legally designated VLFRs passed the target threshold

of at least three VGA meetings in 2013 (previously the average was 1.9), at least 40% of which would not

have happened without MCDI’s program to improve governance. MCDI staff attended the meetings to raise

awareness about the importance of good governance, including transparent systems and community-wide

participation in natural resource management.

Page 14

Encouraging community-wide participation

MCDI encourage the participation of marginalised members of communities in decision-making processes.

In 2013, we ensured communities selected women for at least one-third of seats on their VNRCs, among

other governing organs, as required by Tanzanian law. Furthermore, after there were no women in

attendance at MCDI’s 2011 Annual Stakeholders Forum, we worked with communities to improve

women’s representation at the event, more than doubling the number of female attendees this year when

compared to 2012-13.

Promoting good governance, both locally and nationally

We are leading local implementing partners in the national-level Mama Misitu Campaign, a movement

launched in 2012 to improve forest governance in Tanzania through implementing effective awareness

raising and capacity building initiatives. MCDI manages implementation of the Campaign in two districts:

Kilwa and Nachingwea, where we currently work with 19 and 10 communities respectively. This year, we:

Facilitated networking and knowledge sharing between communities, timber traders, and

government authorities to raise awareness of PFM;

Strengthened community capacity to perform good forest governance by providing them with

tools and information to support participatory planning, budgeting and monitoring;

Trained communities on natural resource policy, thereby empowering them to advocate for

their rights and hold public bodies to account for the decisions they make; and,

Heightened the capacity of the forestry unit and local authorities to combat illegal practices

by training them on natural resource policies and trade regulation.

Page 15

COMMUNITY BENEFITS

At MCDI, we believe that conservation is best achieved through development. If rural communities

benefit from their forests then they will act to conserve them. Thus, as well as supporting communities to

take control of their forests, we help them identify ways to generate profits from their management

efforts. Without such incentives success will only be fleeting; with them it will be long lasting.

This year, we helped communities to earn more money from managing their forests by:

Expanding our FSC group certification scheme by 20%;

Identifying new supply chains to market and sell a wider range of hardwood timbers;

Strengthening our REDD pilot project, including exploring marketing options

for the sale of carbon credits.

Page 16

This year, communities used profits from timber sales to:

Nainokwe Build a nursery school

Renovate 4 toilets for the local primary school

Provide 3 vulnerable community members with health insurance

Liwiti Build 2 classrooms for the local primary school

Build 1 house for a primary school teacher

Provide 10 vulnerable community members with health insurance

Nanjirinji A Purchase uniforms for 200 primary school students

Build 2 primary school classrooms

Contribute towards building a local police post

Rehabilitate 4 water boreholes

Build a village market, equipped with solar panels

Communities are willing to pay for MCDIs services

During a Stakeholders Forum in July 2013 that was

arranged specially to discuss cost recovery for MCDI,

communities agreed to pay for the services we provide,

reassurance that the value of our support is recognised

and appreciated. The village representatives themselves

pointed the way for future cost recovery, opting to do this

based on a percentage levy of forest product sales (i.e. the

size of village-specific contributions will vary depending

on the amount of revenue they generate from activities

supported by MCDI). The two highest earning villages –

Nanjirinji A and Nainokwe – made public commitments

to pay MCDI 5% of the total revenue they generated

from timber sales during the reporting period, worth a

total of $2,761; Nanjirinji A has already paid $1,299.

MCDI is moving beyond

mpingo; this year we

assisted communities to

sell more than 620m3 of

non-Blackwood timber

MCDI villages earned

over USD $56,000 from

sustainably harvested

timber sales in 2013-14

Page 17

GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE & ORGANISATIONAL CAPACITY

Position Employee

Chief Executive Officer Makala Jasper BSc

Chief Technical Adviser Steve Ball MA Cantab. MSc FRGS

Director of Field Operations Jonas Timothy Dipl. For

Finance and Administration Officer Emme Abel Adv. Dipl. Acc

REDD Project Manager Glory Massao MSc

Assistant Group Certification Manager Yuvenal Pantaleo BSc

Mama Misitu Campaign Officer Andrew Mariki BSc

International Communications Adviser Abigail Wills MSc

Technical Analyst/Communications Officer William Kutandikila B.Eng

Monitoring Officer Deogratias Ndossi PG. Dipl

Governance & Livelihoods Officer Fredson Mwendo BSc

Field Officer Azaria Kilimba BSc

Timber Marketing Officer Abib Kibiki BBA

Accounts Clerk Trezia Nyika Adv. Dipl

Driver Yusuph Kassim

Office Assistant Fatuma Saidi

MCDI’s staff, as headed by Makala Jasper, the CEO, comprises:

In several public statements, Kilwa’s District Commissioner emphasised

the great job that MCDI is doing for the people of Kilwa and Tanzania

as a whole, stating that: “if there could be 5 NGOs similar to us, then

Kilwa would have resolved all of its challenges in natural resources

management, and achieved major livelihoods improvements”.

Page 18

Name (& Position) Background & Organization affiliation

Dr. Felician Kilahama (Chairperson)

Retired Director of Forestry & Beekeeping at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. FAO Committee on Forestry Chairperson 2012-2014.

Mr. Jasper Makala (Board Secretary)

MCDI Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Alphonce Muro (Treasurer)

Dar Rapid Transit Agency under Prime Minister's Office

Ms. Pamela Lwakabare (HR Committee Chair)

Human Resources expert at Catholic Relief Services

Mr. Rawson Yonazi Retired Cabinet Under-secretary responsible for Environment (State House) and Assistant Director - Vice President's Office (Environment Division)

Mr. Gerald Mango Retired Director of National Land Use Commission

Mr. Paul Nnyiti Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania

Mr. Demetrius Kweka Consultant in Natural Resources Management

Mr. Gaudensi Kilasi Tanzania Forest Service

Mr. Raymond Wawa Lawyer & Advocate of the High Court of Tanzania

Mr. Alex Lobora Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute

Mr. John Salehe African Wildlife Foundation

Ms. Teddy Mapunda Former Director of Corporate Relations at Serengeti Breweries Ltd

At MCDI, we want to achieve financial self-sufficiency so that we can continue to support local

communities to benefit from their forests without relying on donor funds. The simplest model for this is

that we charge communities for our services on the basis of the revenue they earn. This approach was

selected by local stakeholders over more complex options (e.g. setting up a local cooperative) and

endorsed during a Stakeholders Forum held in July 2013. A visit by an American timber trader and

potential investor in 2013 also made it clear that there is significant value in MCDI as an intermediary,

facilitating trade by liaising with communities and other stakeholders. The presence of a key mediator

like MCDI was critical to his readiness to invest; international buyers, such as himself, would be willing

to pay for the facilitation services that MCDI are well positioned to offer.

Our vision of becoming financially self-sufficient, along with developing a business plan to achieve it, is

the subject of an ongoing effort by MCDI supported by our partner: Maliasili Initiatives. In 2013, we

mapped out the process of change management and explored a wide variety of end goals with a selection

of different institutional configuration scenarios. A strategic business plan should be ready by the end

2014.

The strategic planning itself has been helped following an overhaul of MCDI’s governing board. This

was initiated in 2012 and completed in 2013. The new board members are more experienced, come from

a wider range of backgrounds, and are more engaged in MCDI’s work and strategy than their

predecessors. For instance, the new Chairman was previously Tanzania’s Director of Forests and

Beekeeping, and therefore has the clout to help deal with future political risks.

MCDI’s new board comprises:

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Our Donors

We received USD $820,196 (TSh 1,362,746,401/-) from nine partner organisations; this is nearly twice

the number of donors we had in 2012-13. Almost half of the grant money we secured was from the

Norwegian Embassy to fund our REDD pilot project.

FINANCIALS

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Income

MCDI secured USD $992,662 (TSh 1,649,296,937/-) in 2013-14, 83% of which we gained through

donor funding. The remaining USD $172,466 (TSh 286,550,536/-) was generated through internal

funds, including USD $1,750 (TSh 2,907,750/-) which we received as payment by two of our partner

communities for the services we provided during the course of the year. We hope to see this figure grow

in the coming years as we move to a more business-like stance, eventually generating enough internal

revenues to cover all of our costs, plus sufficient profits to pay for our desired social outcomes too.

Expenditure

We spent USD $1,058,846 (TSh 1,759,261,926/-) this year; over one third of which we put towards

field work.

We split the USD $688,212 (TSh 1,143,457,373/-) that we used to cover fieldwork expenses and pay for

partner and consultancy work across each of our projects, as follows:

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Mpingo Conservation &

Development Initiative

www.mpingoconservation.org

enquiries@mpingoconservation.org

www.facebook.com/MCDITanzania

Address: P.O Box 49, Kilwa Masoko

Tel: +255 (0)23 210 3093

Registered NGO no. 1350