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UNGUJA, Tanzania \u2014 Decades before they would partner to build a marine conservation organization together, Ali Thani and Lorna Slade crossed paths in Tanzania.<\/p>\n
Years later, Slade returned to the East African country researching tourism for her master\u2019s degree when she became involved in an initiative aimed at strengthening the knowledge and rights of local resource stewards. Then came the 2008 global financial crisis. The organization backing the initiative withdrew from Tanzania, providing only a fraction of the funds it had earlier promised \u2014 $25,000 \u2014 and an idea worth pursuing.
That modest beginning would eventually become the Mwambao Coastal Community Network, a locally rooted organization now working with coastal communities across Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania, with an annual budget of around $3.5 million.<\/p>\n
For Thani, a coastal Tanzanian who had worked in government and with larger conservation organizations, Mwambao grew from a conviction that conservation could not simply be designed elsewhere and brought to communities. People who depend on natural resources, he says, should have the knowledge, capacity, and authority to help manage them.<\/p>\n
That idea has wider resonance as countries pursue the global goal of conserving 30% of the world\u2019s land and oceans by 2030. Local organizations and communities are expected to shoulder much of that work, even as many struggle to secure the long-term funding available to larger international organizations and intermediaries.<\/p>\n
Mwambao\u2019s work includes supporting community fisheries management, temporary fishing closures, and livelihood initiatives. But independent evaluations that Mongabay obtained have also documented mixed community reactions, disputes and mistrust around some fishing closures, uneven enforcement, and questions about whether community institutions can sustain gains without continued outside support.
Thani and Slade, who is British, brought very different experiences to that experiment. Thani brought deep knowledge of coastal communities and local culture; Slade brought decades of experience in Tanzania and an understanding of the international institutions that finance conservation. What sustained their partnership, they say, was simpler. \u201cRespect each other,\u201d Thani says.<\/p>\n
During a reporting trip to Zanzibar, Mongabay\u2019s David Akana sat down with Thani and Slade to discuss Mwambao. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\nLorna Slade, one of the co-founders of the Mwambao Coastal Community Network. Image courtesy of Mwambao.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMongabay: Let\u2019s start with the beginning. Lorna, how did the story of Mwambao begin?<\/strong><\/p>\nLorna Slade:<\/strong> I will go back about 31 years. Ali was working with my husband in the Department of Forestry in Zanzibar, and I was working in the Department of Environment. So, we knew each other.<\/p>\nWe worked here [in Tanzania] for about five and a half years and then went our separate ways. Later, I came back to do some master\u2019s research in tourism. As a result of that, we came into contact with an organization called Sand County Foundation [based in the U.S.].<\/p>\n
They were interested in championing the rights and knowledge of landowners and resource stewards. They asked me to look regionally and see whether we could establish some kind of network.<\/p>\n
I did a study and came back and said, \u201cI think we should concentrate on Tanzania. There\u2019s a lot of work to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
They agreed. But just as we were about to start, it was 2008 and there was the stock market crash. They decided to withdraw completely from Tanzania. They basically said, \u201cIt\u2019s a good idea. We have $25,000, so here you are.\u201d That\u2019s how we started.<\/p>\n
At the time, Ali was working with CARE [Tanzania] and WWF, and I was working part-time in the U.K. and coming back here part-time. With that $25,000, we decided we wanted to establish a knowledge and advocacy network to share good practices between communities.<\/p>\n
We trained ourselves in something called participatory media. You go into a community, design a story together, teach people how to use cameras, develop and edit a story, make a film, and then share that with others. I think we made about 10 or 12 films altogether.<\/p>\n
Then we realized that funding for knowledge and advocacy is really difficult to get. You need to be doing stuff. We started getting small opportunities, doing consultancy work and gradually moving into implementation.<\/p>\n
For quite a while, the money was just trickle, trickle, trickle. At the beginning, we were subsidizing the costs of the organization through our own salaries. About two years later, we eventually managed to get enough money to employ both of us. And we\u2019ve really grown from there.<\/p>\nAli Thani co-founded the Mwambao Coastal Community Network with Lorna Slade. Image courtesy of Mwambao.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMongabay:<\/strong> Ali, you had already worked in government and with organizations such as CARE and WWF. Why leave that environment and start something yourselves?<\/strong><\/p>\nAli Thani:<\/strong> From what I experienced during that time, I felt this could be the time to start by ourselves and practice co-management, governance, and other things.<\/p>\nI had done a lot in government and with WWF. We believed in strengthening capacity in resource management. Co-management was an approach we believed could help address many of the problems we were seeing in communities.<\/p>\n
At the beginning, we were doing things voluntarily. We put all our efforts into making sure we were working with communities and trying to solve their problems.<\/p>\n
We had seen many of these problems through our work and assessments in Kenya, Pemba, and Tanga. We could see that some could be addressed through co-management and by strengthening governance capacity in communities.<\/p>\n
Mongabay: But you had both seen how large international organizations operated. They had access to significantly more resources. What made you believe a small, locally rooted organization could succeed?<\/strong><\/p>\nLorna Slade:<\/strong> I think there was a sense that being from here or, in my case, having been here for a long time and working with people who are from here, gives you an understanding of coastal communities.<\/p>\nYou have people who are respected by coastal communities, who know how to work with people in the area, rather than an outside organization coming in with ideas about how they\u2019re going to fix the problem. That can become very top-down.<\/p>\n
Initially, we thought international organizations could bring the scientific approach and evidence, and we could be the facilitators because we had the community trust and the community approach.<\/p>\n
We thought we could work alongside each other. Over time, we realized that we also needed to strengthen the scientific side of our own work. We began using data more and taking a more rigorous approach to monitoring.<\/p>\n
Mongabay<\/strong>: Ali, how important has being from Zanzibar and understanding coastal culture been to Mwambao\u2019s success?<\/strong>Ali Thani:<\/strong> Very important. To understand conservation, you need to know people\u2019s culture. You need to know how people perceive conservation and how you want to align with them.<\/p>\nIf I came from somewhere else, I don\u2019t think I would have been as successful. But as a coastal Tanzanian, I can work here. Even in Kenya, I can work because the culture of coastal communities is similar.<\/p>\n
If you come from outside, you need to study the community first. Lorna came from somewhere else, but she studied the community. She knows coastal communities. She has spent time with communities along the Tanzanian coast.<\/p>\nLorna Slade, co-founder of the Mwambao Coastal Community Network, shares a moment with a member of a community where the organization works in Tanzania. Image courtesy of Mwambao.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMongabay:<\/strong> Lorna, presumably there is also value in knowledge and experience coming from outside. How have those two kinds of knowledge worked together?<\/strong><\/p>\nLorna Slade:<\/strong> We work together as a team because we bring different skills to the table. We have some of the same skills, but different skills as well. Sometimes, to relate to the people who are going to fund us, you have to speak their language. I don\u2019t mean German or English. I mean understanding their expectations, ticking the boxes, those sorts of things.<\/p>\nOf course, you can learn from other places. You can read about what is happening elsewhere, bring people in, do exchange visits. But when we talk about donor culture and expectations, I always say to our team, \u201cLook at what you\u2019re bringing to the table. You have so much value.\u201d<\/p>\n
We have so much value as a team, as an organization and as people. People coming from outside cannot necessarily do what we do. We have those networks. We have those partnerships. We know those people. We know the government. You can\u2019t just jump in and expect to be able to do this stuff.<\/p>\n
Mongabay:<\/strong> You started with about $25,000. Mwambao now has an annual budget of around $3.5 million. How does that change an organization?<\/strong><\/p>\nAli Thani<\/strong>: Right now, we\u2019ve got a very good finance team that can make sure we\u2019re managing the funds. But staff outside the finance team also need to understand how to comply with financial policies. We have finance policies, HR policies, and other policies.<\/p>\nI don\u2019t think that is a very big challenge at the moment. It is more about enforcing those policies and making sure everybody follows them.
Bringing other people in who feel that same sense of ownership and keeping the same ethic going forward is a challenge for any growing organization.<\/p>\n
Getting very skilled people is also difficult. We sometimes joke that we\u2019re a bit of a training academy. You get young, enthusiastic people, you train them, and then they find a better job with a bit more pay.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s good for them, but it\u2019s difficult for us. And as you grow, you have to ask: Is it a good idea to keep growing, covering more ground and hiring more people? How do you maintain the quality of what you\u2019re doing? That\u2019s a strategic debate for us right now.<\/p>\nBefore co-founding Mwambao, Ali Thani worked in government and with larger conservation organizations. These experiences helped shape his thinking about how conservation should be organized and led. Image courtesy of Mwambao.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMongabay: Before we get to Mwambao\u2019s future, what achievements make you particularly proud?<\/strong><\/p>\nLorna Slade:<\/strong> One is the eco-credit program, because I think that\u2019s quite novel. But more broadly, it\u2019s the community role in management, building people\u2019s confidence so they know they can actually do it. And also building respect from government so government knows communities can do it.<\/p>\nWe\u2019ve really seen people empowered and enthused. I feel like they have a sense of ownership over their future. We\u2019ve also achieved quite a lot with the way local fisheries management committees operate. For example, there wasn\u2019t much written around gender representation or election procedures. We\u2019ve worked with government on standard operating procedures that include those things.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re sitting in the same room with government and coming up with procedures that they accept. That\u2019s an achievement. Another area is local marine spatial planning. We brought community resource plans together and got different government departments around the same table. Government departments can work in silos. There is also significant pressure from tourism investment and other development. Sometimes communities don\u2019t know that a hotel is planned here, something else is planned there, or that an area is going to become a particular kind of zone.
Mongabay: Let\u2019s talk about eco-credit. Why connect conservation with people\u2019s livelihoods?<\/strong>Lorna Slade:<\/strong> When you\u2019re working in a marine environment where people depend on the environment for their everyday livelihoods and food, you can\u2019t do conservation without [considering] people\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s just never going to work. And caring about people is the right thing to do anyway. One barrier for people who want to engage in business is that they haven\u2019t had training and don\u2019t have access to cash. The program makes small amounts of money available to invest in businesses and provides training on selecting a business, running it, budgeting, and deciding what to keep for the household and what to put back into the business.
But I\u2019m amazed at how people have embraced it. One challenge is scale. We might start with five groups \u2014 about 150 people or 150 families \u2014 but we\u2019re working in communities of 2,000 or 3,000 people. There are other groups waiting. So, we\u2019re looking at how we expand.<\/p>\n
Ali Thani:<\/strong> And the credit is aligned with the culture of the community. People are attracted to it and want more, but Mwambao doesn\u2019t have the capacity to take everybody.<\/p>\nOne sign of success is that some communities decided to start themselves. They only wanted the knowledge from us. That\u2019s good news.<\/p>\nMwambao\u2019s founders say understanding local culture is essential to conservation. Image courtesy of Mwambao.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMongabay: What does community-led conservation mean to you in practical terms?<\/strong>Lorna Slade:<\/strong> There need to be rules. There need to be national laws and national guidelines, and we can advocate for more community-friendly guidelines.<\/p>\nBut people know what works on the ground. They know their people. They know who is related to whom. They know how they use their area. They know which things are harmful and which are not. They know that resources have declined, and quite often they understand why.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s so much knowledge within the community. People need to be empowered to use it. That means knowledge of the laws and opportunities within the laws. It means training and information so people can make the best decisions.<\/p>\n
I always think governance is about good, informed decision-making. And governments simply don\u2019t have the resources to look after these huge coastlines and do everything that needs to be done. So, community management can be a win-win situation.<\/p>\n
Mongabay: Ali, let\u2019s talk a bit about different approaches to conservation enforcement. You\u2019ve said you don\u2019t agree with approaches that rely more heavily on militarized enforcement. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\nAli Thani:<\/strong> I\u2019m not interested in militarized conservation. If there is a problem, whether it\u2019s dynamite fishing, deforestation, or something else, you need first to understand why they did it and who did it.<\/p>\nYou need to study. You need to collect information. That information can help you address the problem. When you identify the people doing something harmful, you can call them and try to make them understand the importance of the issue.<\/p>\n
You shouldn\u2019t assume that everybody in the community is doing it. And then you can receive ideas from the people themselves about what can be done to solve the problem.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not always you who has the solution. You can solve the problem together. There should be rules. But you also need to inform people about those rules and understand why something is happening.<\/p>\n
Mongabay: Lorna, surely there are situations where strong enforcement is necessary?<\/strong>Lorna Slade:<\/strong> Absolutely. If you find somebody dynamite fishing, you need a strong approach. They need to be stopped because it is very harmful, selfish, and unsustainable.<\/p>\nThere are times when you need to draw a line and say, \u201cThis is not allowed.\u201d But you can also think about alternatives: education, learning, livelihoods, and adding value to the products people are bringing in.<\/p>\n
If people are paid a fair price, they don\u2019t necessarily need to extract as much. And if resources are sustainably managed, there will be a sustainable supply.<\/p>\nAn aerial view of Pemba Island, one of the two main islands that make up Zanzibar. Mwambao works with coastal communities in southern Pemba and across parts of mainland Tanzania. Image by David Akana\/Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMongabay:<\/strong> Could success eventually mean Mwambao becoming less important because communities are managing these resources themselves?<\/strong>Lorna Slade:<\/strong> To some degree. These communities may know what they want to do. They may have good plans and good governance structures. But finances are still needed. Realistically, I can\u2019t see how either communities themselves or government are going to produce all the funds needed to manage these areas effectively in the next 20 years.We heard about revenue going back to communities from marine park fees, but the amounts can be tiny. You can\u2019t run many patrols or support meetings with that. So yes, communities can increasingly take ownership, but they still need resources.<\/p>\nMongabay: Does that raise a bigger question about Mwambao\u2019s own model? Do you keep expanding, or increasingly transfer resources and responsibility to community organizations?<\/strong><\/p>\nLorna Slade:<\/strong> Exactly. That\u2019s the strategic debate. We work with organizations and communities where we\u2019ve been for quite a long time and where people are increasingly doing their own planning.<\/p>\nMaybe we should start re-granting more to them, with the idea that they do more of the work themselves. Then our role changes. We would be monitoring, supporting, and looking at financial accountability and budgeting.<\/p>\n
So do we have a smaller, highly skilled team managing and re-granting to other groups? Or do we continue with the same model: growing the team and moving into more places? That\u2019s something we\u2019re thinking about.<\/p>\n
Ali Thani:<\/strong> We have requests from other areas, including political leaders and government, asking us to come and work there. So we also have to decide whether to replicate what we\u2019re doing in other places and what the structure of the organization should look like in the future.<\/p>\nSeaweed farming offers coastal communities an alternative source of income that can reduce reliance on fishing. Mwambao trains local farmers, particularly women, in more productive and environmentally responsible farming methods, including techniques designed to increase yields and improve returns. Image courtesy of Mwambao.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMongabay: You now work closely with government. What have you learned about that relationship?<\/strong><\/p>\nAli Thani:<\/strong> Right now, I would say we\u2019re working very well with government. What we need to improve is collaboration: having MOUs, working together, and having regular reporting meetings. We\u2019re working with national government, but there are also local government offices and district councils. We need all of them to understand what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\nWe need regular meetings where we present what we\u2019re doing and they give us suggestions and comments. And with other NGOs, the space is not for one NGO. It\u2019s for all. Everyone needs to understand what the others are doing. We need to share lessons and sometimes divide responsibilities.<\/p>\n
Mongabay: Lorna, there are many more conservation organizations working in this space today. Is that entirely positive?<\/strong>Lorna Slade:<\/strong> When we started, there weren\u2019t many organizations doing what we were doing. In recent years, there have been many more organizations coming up and doing similar work in other places.<\/p>\nI think that\u2019s great because it shows it\u2019s a good model. But ultimately, it can become a scramble for resources and a scramble for space. That\u2019s difficult.<\/p>\n
So, we need to continually ask ourselves: Are we still adding value? What can we do that adds more value? And if that means changing our strategy, we need to be open to that.<\/p>\n
Mongabay: After everything you\u2019ve seen, what gives you hope about the future of the ocean?<\/strong><\/p>\nLorna Slade:<\/strong> Sometimes it is a bit hard to have hope, bearing in mind the whole global situation. But you have to have hope, or else you just give up, wouldn\u2019t you? We do see signs of improvement. We see signs of better stewardship. Whether it\u2019s enough, and whether it\u2019s happening soon enough, I can\u2019t tell you. But that doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t do anything.<\/p>\nYou have to have hope in people. You have to have hope in the environment and in the resilient nature of the environment. But you can\u2019t just leave it. You have to be as active as you can to try and build the resilience of both people and the environment.<\/p>\n
Ali Thani:<\/strong> I don\u2019t have 100% certainty about the future of the oceans. But I hope there will be increasing social and ecosystem resilience through the community. That is where the future has to be.<\/p>\nBanner Image<\/strong>: Mwambao\u2019s founders say understanding local culture is essential to conservation. Image courtesy of Mwambao.<\/em><\/p>\n