Assessment Of Ecological Impact And Restoration In The Former Refugee Camps In Kibondo District, Tanzania

ABSTRACT

There is growing concern on environmental degradation and human population displacement. This study adopted multiple models that consider the variables linking human population displacement and local environmental degradation. The main concern of this study is tied on refugee ecological impacts as consequence of spatial and temporal changes in land use and land cover. The study adopted a combination of descriptive research design and integration of RS and GIS techniques in underscoring ecological impact of refugees in the Former Refugee Camps (FRCs). The study comprised of multi-spectral and multi temporal classification of Landsat images with spatial resolution of 30 m. The satellite images were acquired to represent major refugee scenarios. The Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) of 1990 represented pre-refugee settlement epoch and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) of 2000 represented in-refugee settlement period. The Landsat 5 TM of 2009 marked early period of post-refugee repatriation and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) of 2014 represented post-refugee repatriation period. Using descriptive techniques, data were collected through household interviews, oral history, Focus Group Discussion, key informants and field observation. These techniques intended to provide adequate qualitative and quantitative   information on the past and present ecological condition of refugee campsites. They also provided description on how natural resources users perceived and described the pattern of land use and cover changes over time. The result obtained from this study showed a tremendous decrease in woodland in FRCs from 1990 to 2014. Before refugees’ arrival in 1990, the woodland cover was at 74% and 71% for Nduta and Mtendeli respectively. But by 2009, which marked the end of refugees’ epoch in the camp, the woodland cover remained 43% for Nduta and 17.7% at Mtendeli. The status of woodland continued to decline to 22% at Nduta but increased to 31% for Mtendeli by 2014, the 5 years of post-refugees. Rating woodland covers according to the impact weight scale, both sites had low impact before refugee arrival and high impacts during and after refugee settlement. During the period of 2009-2014, the rate of change of woodland indicated an annual net loss of 2.38% at Nduta and net gain of 2.04% for Mtendeli. Given the constant trends, Nduta will lose all its woodland after 13 years but Mtendeli will have a complete recovery within the coming 3 decades. The process of recovery at Mtendeli was contributed by the natural regeneration occurred in the refugee abandoned agricultural fields. The perceived ecological impacts during pre and post-refugee period emerged with several negative impacts such as deforestation, land degradation, depleted water quality and quantity, depleted wildlife at their vicinity, fuelwood scarcity; reduced wild foods and depleted indigenous trees. Drivers of the impacts were several including compliance and non-compliance of refugee operation standards, refugee involvement in socio-economic activities, refugee emotional reactions, lack of environmental citizenship, high demand for wood resources and lack of community led environmental management blue prints. Since both compliance and non-compliance of refugee operational standards resulted into ecological impacts, it is argued that refugee influx had inevitable negative feedback on local natural environment. Different perceptions on the impact attributions existed among respondents. Refugee sighted (46%) as the major source of the ecological impacts during pre-refugee repatriation while 38% commended both refugee and locals. Few respondents (9%) mentioned only local community as source of impacts Nevertheless, all respondents agreed the currently environmental degradation in FRCs to be associated by the local community. Further data indicated that the rate of environmental degradation during post refugee was higher than during pre-refugee repatriation period suggesting poor sustainability of natural resources in the FRCs. The result from this study further indicated that little efforts have been put forward toward rehabilitation intervention in the FRCs. Response from the interview (88%) indicated that United Nations High Commissioner for the Refugees (UNHCR) and the Government of Tanzania failed to intervene in making informed rehabilitation decisions of the FRCs. The failures were associated with top-down decision in the alternative use of FRC after camps closure, poor community involvement in rehabilitation intervention, lack of property right and right of use of the FRCs and lack of rehabilitation blue prints. The rehabilitation intervention was also obstructed by poor coordination mechanism, lack of sustainable rehabilitation funding and poor political will. The data obtained from this study were used to develop a new Sustainable Ecological Rehabilitation Framework for the management for the landscape of FRCs.  This framework propagates the recent ecological restoration approach that focuses on Landscape (LR) restoration rather than considering patchy ecosystems. The framework has the strength of being highly participatory, local community owned, cost effective and addresses community socio-economic interests.