on this page:		Highlands at Risk Research and Development in Highlands—Lagging Behind

	PROJECT PROFILE
	WATERSHED MANAGEMENT Lushoto, Tanzania The Baga watershed in Lushoto, Tanzania exhibits many of the problems facing highland communities throughout eastern Africa: high population density, natural resource degradation, decreasing yield of food and cash crops, increased vulnerability and poor governance of natural resources.

Food security and economic growth receive consistent attention by governments, development and research organizations; however, attention to environmental degradation and sustaining environmental services stays in the background. The attention to increasing agricultural outputs is often at the expense of sustainability of important agro-ecosystems, such as the intensively cultivated highlands in East and Central Africa. Driving forces leading to unsustainable use of resources are: increases in human population levels, limited policies and institutional strategies, and restricted livelihood options. These conditions are heightening unsustainable agricultural intensification through expansion into marginal lands; increasing competition for and conflict over water, grazing and forest resources; eroding biodiversity assets, and discouraging investment to maintain or replenish natural resources. Poor farmers, in particular, rely more on the resource base and can least compensate for land degradation, loss of wild sources of food and income, and diminishing natural sources of fuel, tools and building supplies. If these sustainability issues are not tackled, we will see continued hunger and decline in the future regardless of short-term gains in production.

In addition to these, there are "new generation" challenges emerging. Climate change will bring dynamic changes to farming systems, influencing patterns of diversification and intensification, and to the resources themselves. This additional pressure has associated problems—most serious being water shortages. Globalisation will heighten interactions between market forces, associated policies and potential productivity / profitability gains or losses and associated impacts on the environment. On a more positive note, the trend in decentralization offers the potential to increase the collective voice of poor farmers and could lead to better resource management, improved economies of scale in marketing, and increased advocacy for more conducive policies.

HIGHLANDS AT RISK

Large numbers of people and governments depend upon the produce and exports originating in the intensively cultivated highlands of East and Central Africa. They constitute about 23% of the total landmass in the region, yet house over 50% of the population given their suitability for human habitation. Population densities (100-200 people per km2) are already high, having risen over the last fifty years, and this has caused critically small, often fragmented farms (due to land inheritance practices) averaging 0.25 to 1.0 ha for family of six (AHI 1998). The negative interplay of population increase, limited livelihood options and non-supportive policies has threatened the resource base upon which there is strong reliance.

The African highlands and its populace are challenged with the following realities:

• small land holdings with high incidence of fragmentation and unstable tenancy regimes;
• intensive soil and water losses and associated off-site effects due to agricultural expansion into marginal, hilly areas coupled with limited investments in conservation measures and maintenance of land cover;
• nutrient depletion coupled with the inability to replenish nutrients;
• increases in pests and diseases associated with declining soil health and productivity that are affecting major cash and food crops;
• destruction of habitats for wild species due to encroachment on wetlands, forested and protected areas, through burning, and through elimination of micro-habitats within agricultural lands is leading to a downward trends in biodiversity;
• depletion of highland forest ecosystems and tree biodiversity in farm-based agroforestry systems, community forests, and natural forests coupled with weak protection and land tenure policies;
• scarcity and inefficient use of water for agriculture, livestock and other competing uses within the mountains themselves and along mountain to lowland gradients;
• declining ability of livestock to positively contribute to the maintenance of the system is caused by poorly intensified feeding systems, poor links to markets and break down of traditional management systems. In some systems this is causing decline of grazing lands and leading to an increased number of conflicts;
• poor public services and infrastructure seriously limiting access to credit and markets.

AHI and the focus it has taken has emerged as a concerted multi-institutional response for overcoming the unique constraints to NRM and production in the highlands.