Reversed migration Trends in the Kondoa Eroded Area: Lessons for future conservation Activities in the Hado project areas, Tanzania

The HADO project was established in 1973 to deal with environmental conservation in Dodoma region. The main objective of the project was conserving land and water ad reclaiming the already depleted areas. During the early years of its existence, the project emphasised land conservation and afforestation programmes. In collaboration with the district administration, the project identified villages that were severely affected by land degradation in the form of gully and sheet erosion. Settlements located in such villages were resettled to other areas. This measure was taken to reduce the impact of population pressure and enable the process of environmental recovery. Similarly, the project destocked the whole Kondoa Irangi Highlands in 1979. Livestock were thought to be a major cause of land degradation and an obstacle to land conservation activities. The removal of human population and the eviction of livestock in the KEA were followed by amendments and enacting of new by-lows to take care of the settlement distribution, land use and environmental conservation issues in the Kondoa district. Initial demographic studies in the HADO areas indicated strong linkages between migration and the HADO project activities. Migration trends tended to be unidirectional from the highlands to the lowlands. Such migration trends were linked to land scarcity and to the destocking exercise. Many families and individuals remained reluctant to part with their livestock. The initial phase of people moving out of the HADO project areas is now over. Recent observations and reports demonstrate a reversal of migration pattern of both human and livestock populations from the lowland to the highland. In many cases, the land that was considered to germinate stones in the early 1970s is now coming up. The germination of stones during that time was actually an indication of severe sheet erosion. The coming up of land can be taken to mean the beginning of the process of environmental recovery in the protected areas.