MAKUTANO – Translocal forest owners and environmental collaboration: An action learning process of forest governance transformation in Tanzania

Makutano means gathering in Swahili.

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.

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 project outcomes may influence Tanzanian-Finnish collaboration by promoting social safeguards to mitigate unexpected impacts of plantation forestry.The research idea has emerged from Tanzanian small-scale forest owners.

The project is funded within the DEVELOP Academy Programme (2019-2023), which is a programme jointly prepared by the Academy of Finland and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

MAKUTANO research project has co-created training events on environmental collaboration in Tanzania (2021 and 2022), in Finland (2022) and on-line (2020). Further information: EDUCase Platform and Environmental Collaboration and Conflict Resolution Course Series and Teaching Network.

MAKUTUNO research project supports the UN Security Council Resolution 2250 Youth, Peace and Security, adopted in 2015, and the subsequent Resolutions 2419 (2018) and 2535 (2020) to recognise the positive and active role of youth in preventing and resolving conflicts, building peace, and preventing violent extremism. Further information: Youth, Peace and Security: Finland’s National Action Plan 2021–2024 and the side event report 2019 on Youth Participation in Environmental Collaboration and Peace Processes.

MAKUTANO research project contributes to the implementation of Finland’s Africa Strategy, including the Africa Action Plan for the administrative branch of the Ministry of Education and Culture.

The implementation of MAKUTANO research project is supported by members of Responsive Natural Resources Governance research group, an initiative by Prof. Irmeli Mustalahti.