Baseline Study on Public Awareness and Perception on Biodiversity in Mikindani District, Mtwara Region

Summary

It's a six months projects starting from October 2016 to March 2017. The two projects with related activities are proposed to be implemented concurrently. The projects aim to assess the level of awareness and perception of the society towards biodiversity in Mikindani District, Mtwara Region. Proposed projects are in line with the National biodiversity strategy and action plan that emphasize on level of awareness and perception of society for the conservation of biodiversity.

The projects are centered on providing the level of understanding of the public on biodiversity and determine the perception on biodiversity. To accomplish this, the project is expected to identify targeted stakeholders and develop questionnaire for collecting their views. Furthermore, field survey will be conducted to evaluate the actual situation at grass root. Also, the gathered information will be analyzed and writing a reports. To validate the information in the prepared reports, stakeholders workshops will be conducted. At the end of the projects it is expected that reports on the level of public awareness and perception on biological diversity will be established.

The total projects budget will be Euro18,400 of which 16,000 Euros is requested from Royal Belgian Institute of natural Science and 2,400 Euros will be contributed by the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania.

The project monitoring and evaluation will be done by both parts through project reporting and evaluation of the project deliverables as per project logical framework.

Context

Tanzania has vast biodiversity assets that have the potential to contribute to the economy and to support human wellbeing. The need to care about the biodiversity is a prime necessity because of the heavy dependency on her capital of natural resources. The nation’s biological diversity has important economical, technological and social implications. Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry, and Fisheries together contribute over 65% of GDP and account for over 80% of total employment and over 60% of the total export earnings. The society’s dependency on biodiversity for socio-economic development in Tanzania is underscored by the rendered ecological services, source of food and medicines, source of building materials and energy as well as perpetuation of nature as decomposers of organic wastes and enrichment of soils and aquatic environment. Thus the conservation biodiversity in Tanzania is vital to humanity’s economic and social development of the country.

Tanzania has the obligation to meet the CBD objectives that is to promote the conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.

In the implementation of these objectives Tanzania has put in place the National Biodiversity strategy and action plan (NBSAP), 2015-2020 that save as the overall framework for national implementation of the Convention, through conservation measures and sustainable use of biodiversity. The strategy includes among others issues on level of awareness and perception of society towards conservation of biodiversity.

The main challenge of understanding the level of awareness and perception of public towards biodiversity is unavailability of relevant information. Therefore there is a need to conduct a baseline study on public awareness and perception.

Though the government has taken some initiatives to solicit resources for implementation of the NBSAP including public awareness and perception, nevertheless resources have been inadequate. In that contest the support to conduct the baseline study on these is of paramount important.

Objectives

General Objectives

The overall objective of the Projects is to assess the level of awareness and perception of the society towards biodiversity in Mikindani District, Mtwara Region.

Specific Objectives

  • Understanding level of public awareness on biodiversity issues
  • Determine perception of society on biodiversity issues
Aichi targets
1. Awareness increased
19. Knowledge improved, shared and applied
Countries
Belgium
Tanzania