6.2 Capacity of Local Governments In Environmental Management

Decentralization continues to spark continual debate in Tanzanian polemics. A quick assessment, however, indicates that local governments have a limited capacity to manage natural resources. Colman (1996:42) argues that local governments' performance in developing countries have not been successful in the management of the environment, as they face constant problems in various operations. He identifies the local institutions formation and organization, particularly in developing countries, as the source of problem. He reasons that the local institutions in developing countries have never experienced self- governance since their time of creation. They have been subjected to central government control in both financial and decision-making capacities.

As shown above, land tenure is unclear in Tanzania and this affects rural areas where most of the local governments are based. If laws do not clearly define tenure and access to natural resources, local governments will not be able to manage these resources. In addition, the central government in the past has shown its ineptness in dealing with environmental management; hence, decentralized management of natural resources is required.

Clarity is also lacking in institutional mandates to manage natural resources. In the Forestry sector for example, the Director of Forestry is in charge of all forests in Tanzania though there are forests, which are under local authorities. But there have been instances where districts and regions have collided in the issuance of licenses for exploitation on forest resources on public lands and sometimes districts have ventured to issue licenses on central government forest reserve.

Most local governments have no laws or policies to implement, thus, limiting their capacity to protect natural resources. This situation is exacerbated by the policy of retrenchment, which also affected local governments. In the Kyela District, there are only five employees under the District Natural Resources Officer to manage the fisheries, forestry and wildlife sectors in a district with a population of more than 300,000 people (pers. comm. with A. Libenanga, District Natural Resources Officer, Kyela).

The capacity of local governments to manage cannot be enhanced under the current system of revenue sharing. For example, the forest sector districts can only retain revenues accruing from local government forest reserves. Despite the presence of central government and public land forests within district lands, districts are only required to collect revenues from those forests and remit it to the Director of Forestry. Districts may only charge levy above the specified tariffs on forest produce set by the Director of Forestry. At the same time, districts must ensure the protection of those forests in central government forest reserves and public lands while there are no funds allocated for that assignment.

Wildlife utilization faces a similar problem. Most districts providing hunting blocks for tourist hunting give at least 25% of their revenues to the district councils. And the villages typically never benefit from this money. Admittedly, it is in villages where wildlife co- exist with people and wildlife related problems are experiences. In that way local people rarely get the incentive to conserve wildlife.

The central government's control over revenues hinders the local governments ability to manage and protect its resources and villagers. This view is shared by Kamata (1993) who gives an example of that the Harare city council, which had a conflict with the central government because all the lucrative sources of revenue at the local level are owned by the central government. This applies also to the local government system in Tanzania, where most resource bases for local government revenues are owned by the central government.

In some districts conservation of natural resources is not a priority. It only becomes a priority if it is a source of revenue generation. Nothing is being ploughed back to develop or conserve the resources. In some areas, local councilors will not promote allocation of funding to the natural resources sector because it is not viewed as important. There is a problem of political decisions being made without consideration of advice from natural resources staff. In some instances politicians think that in order to conserve natural resources the only way is to ban local people from using such resources hence causing encroachment.

The governing policy for environmental management in the country is well formulated, but the mechanisms and plans of actions at the local level are not well implemented. There is inadequate expertise in the field of environmental education and public awareness to implement those designed policies at all levels. Therefore, a concerted effort to formulate a common training package that should contain basic information about environmental issues and problems in all levels of the government should be provided. Training of this kind should be seen as one of the strategies and bases for capacity building at the local level.

It should also be recalled that many of these laws dealing with environmental issues are based on colonial perceptions and are typically " command and control" oriented. This acts as a disincentive for compliance and leads to conflicts between different government departments, institutions and local authorities. Hence, resulting in ineffective laws for environmental management.

Moreover, the institutions dealing with overseeing the management of natural resources, in some respects, overlap in functions and are constantly re-inventing the wheel. Traditional natural resource management institutions and regulative systems have not been given support by the government (Liviga, op. cit.: 27). As stipulated in the National Conservation Strategy for Sustainable Development:

This phenomenon has therefore resulted into the ambivalence between the central and local government over their duties and mandates on environmental management. Green (1995:26) further argues that district council staff are employed by the district councils but are instead, required to implement and support national governmental policies.