BIomass inventory and potent1al of indigenous medicinal plants: a case study of Duru-Haitemba community forests in Babati District, Arusha, Tanzania.
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Date
2000
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Sokoine Uninversity of Agriculture
Abstract
Majority of local communities in the developing countries depend largely on medicinal
plants to counteract common diseases as compared to the western medical services.
This heavy reliance on medicinal plants results from a number of factors among which
economic and cultural backgrounds plays a big role.
Despite this importance of medicinal plants, there is lack of detailed basic information
on their quantity, distribution and contribution to the livelihood of local communities.
In order to get this information, there is a need for carrying out forest inventory and
determine society-forest relations. However, classical forest inventories for decades
have been and continue to focus on timber estimates. These timber estimates do not
address medicinal plants because medicinal plants include both timber and non-timber
plant species. Information on the quantity and quality of the forest resources and their
value to the local communities can be obtained if biomass measurements are taken.
This study sought to estimate the biomass of the forest resources and assess the
contribution of medicinal plants to the welfare of local communities surrounding Duru-
Haitemba forests and also the contribution of these plant species to the forest diversity.
The study was conducted under two phases, phase one was Participatory Rural
Appraisal, and this was aimed at generating information on the community and their
perception on changes of forest biomass overtime. Phase two was for carrying out forest inventory and socio-economic surveys. Forest inventory was expected to give
estimates of current biomass of the forest while socio-economic studies were expected
to indicate society-forest relationship.
In the case of the forest inventory, eight strata and forty-two sample units were
systematically selected while forty-five households were randomly selected for socio
economic studies. Questionnaire schedules, participant observation and checklists were
used to gather information for society-forest relationships. Spreadsheet excel
programme was used to analyze the forest resource data whilst Statistical Programme
for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze socio-economic data.
During the study, 199 species of trees, shrubs, herbs and grasses were identified. Out of
this, medicinal plants constituted from 7.5% for grasses to 76.5% for tree species. It
was found that biomass, stocking and diversity for species with diameter at breast
height greater or equal to 10 cm have been significantly impoverished. The average
biomass for all eight villages was40.5 t/ha and the stocking was 457 stems/ha. These
relatively lower values are probably the consequences of mismanagement by the local
government authorities who had a control on the forest from independence in 1961 to
1995, when communities around the forests reassumed control. Since then, the stocking
of the forests has been improving. This improvement in forests stocking is especially
for species with diameter at breast height less than 10 cm of replanting these rare species back to their natural habitats. In these community
owned forests, labour cost of conserving the forest is shared among enthusiastic
owners of the forests resources, who are villagers themselves.
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Keywords
BIomass inventory, Local communities, Medicinal plants, Developing countries, Duru-Haitemba, Babati District, Arusha, Tanzania