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Research projects 2
MAKUTANO - means "gathering" in Swahili. The MAKUTANO research project aims to develop appropriate and new methodological and theoretical approaches for environmental collaboration and conflict resolution to be used in Tanzania and elsewhere. The action research approach will be used to find out if urban forest owners influence forest governance, and induce local conflicts over resource utilization. The project provides skills on environmental collaboration and conflict resolution to a group of small- and medium-scale forest owners and local community members in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, and traces how these skills are transformed and used in the future actions of these forest owners and the surrounding communities. The project is funded by the Develop Academy Programme (2019-2022), which is a programme jointly prepared by the Academy of Finland and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. In many developing countries, there has been a transfer of public and open access land to private use. In the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, the promotion of small-scale private plantation forestry has attracted domestic investors to capture this new resource frontier to meet the increasing demand for timber. This has further increased land value and consequently also land related disputes. The main objective of MAKUTANO research project is to study skills on environmental collaboration and conflict resolution methods among a group of forest owners and local community members in Southern Highlands, and to trace how these skills are transformed and used in the future actions of these forest owners and the surrounding communities. The research idea has emerged from Tanzanian small scale forest owners. The project outcomes may influence Tanzanian-Finnish collaboration by promoting social safeguards to mitigate unexpected impacts of plantation forestry. The research collaboration involves international partners from Tanzania, Kenya, Mexico and Denmark.
Team
Irmeli Mustalahti, Antti Erkkilä, Ida Herdieckerhoff, Aristarik H. Maro, Ubaldus J. Tumaini, Tuyeni Heita Mwampamba, Mara I. Hernández Estrada
BUSCO project supports building sustainable and resilient communities through co-creation between universities and businesses in Tanzania and Finland. The goal is to improve the capacity of 2 Tanzanian universities (University of Iringa (UoI) and Sebastian Kolowa Memorial University (SEKOMU), located in the Southern Highlands and Tanga region) to promote sustainable community development, entrepreneurship and communities� resilience in their environment. In the long run, we aim to make a contribution to an enhanced standard of living, improved actualization of human rights and to improve the employment opportunities in the communities.
Team
Dr Elsa Keskitalo, Mr. Heriel H. Mfangavo, Dr. Wilson N. William, Dr. Evariste Habiyakare