Yaeda Valley REDD

This project helps an indigenous hunter-gatherer community safeguard their natural resources and prevent their land from being converted into cropland by encroachers. In addition to preserving their traditional lifestyle, the project provides the community with an income stream and creates social benefits.

Forests are essential natural resources for Tanzania’s indigenous communities, such as the Hadza people. The Hadza have lived in northern Tanzania’s Yaeda Valley for 40,000 years and are one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes on the planet. As such, they live off the land and depend on the health of the environment for their survival. 

In recent decades, the Hadza have been gradually displaced from this land. The community has lost 90% of their land to outsiders who clear woodland areas to grow crops and graze livestock. This deforestation and land-use change not only threatens the existence of the Hadza people, it also generates carbon emissions and contributes to global climate change.

This project is a community-based conservation effort located on 34,073 hectares of forested lands in the Yaeda Valley. It is the first fully operational REDD project in Tanzania, and serves as an effective model for generating economic benefits from ecosystem services in the region. 

The project reduces the amount of carbon emissions released through deforestation by preventing the Hadza’s land from being converted into cropland. The project strengthens the Hadza community’s rights to the land and helps them safeguard their natural resources from encroachers. This is accomplished via a series of actions such as enforcing the village land use plan, improving forest management, and addressing slash and burn agriculture. 

In addition to ensuring resource security, this project allows the Hadza community to earn money and social benefits from conserving their land. The project will create jobs for 40 community guards and provide a diversified income for 1,300 community members. Contributions to the project support forest management while also funding community development initiatives, such as improved healthcare and education services.