Salome Misana

• PhD
• University of Dar es Salaam

Tanzania, like many other tropical countries, has streamlined its environmental policies to institutionalise community participation and improve governance of community forests. The question is: to what extent has the governance of these forests improved as a result of the specified measures? The aim of this paper is to understand whether the insti...

Human beings have continued to decline and fragment mini‐antelopes habitats. We studied the effects of land cover change on the conservation of the endangered Ader's Duiker ( Cephalophus adersi ), the Zanzibar blue duiker ( Cephalophus monticola sundevalli ) and the Suni ( Neotragus moschatus zanzibaricus ) in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Data were obtained...

Rapidly developing societies in East-Africa impose increasing pressures on wetlands due to rising food demand and degradation of upland soils. Reconciling wetland conservation with human needs for food and energy is therefore becoming an increasing contentious issue. Stakeholders and actor coalitions generate and apply a great variety of meanings,...

This study seeks to provide an understanding of the effectiveness of adaptation strategies to climate change and variability in enhancing food security of rural smallholder farmers in Mvomero District. Food availability, measured by surplus food production, was the indicator of food security. Simple random sampling was used to get 373 respondents,...

Despite formal recognition of the need to incorporate multiple values in the assessment of ecosystem services, the operationalisation of a consistent integration of different types of values is still limited. This article assesses stakeholders’ perception and monetary (economic) values of ecosystem services delivered by the Kilombero wetland in Tan...

The main objective of this research was to provide an understanding of how the coastal communities are changing in their vulnerability to climate change and how the livelihood systems are adapting to the change and the implications on coastal resource use, governance and management. Specifically, the study sought to assess the current trends in cli...

This paper presents findings of a study on the effectiveness of forest resource governance on the performance of the REDD+ project in the Masito-Ugalla ecosystem in Uvinza district, western Tanzania through transparency, accountability, participation and integrity. The study was conducted in Ilagala, Karago and Kirando villages with the objective o...

Deforestation and forest degradation has been observed to be rampant in Masito-Ugalla ecosystem, Kigoma Region, western part of Tanzania. This paper therefore, intended to assess the extent of deforestation and forest degradation in the area, and to determine their causes. A total of 101 respondents were considered as the sample size for this study...

Purpose: The study examined the contribution of REDD+ in addressing deforestation, climate variability and people’s livelihoods in three villages of Ilagala, Karago and Kirando, within the REDD+ Masito-Ugalla ecosystem in Uvinza District, Tanzania. Methodology: The methods used were household interviews, semi-structured interview, focus group disc...

Deforestation and forest degradation has been observed to be rampant in Masito-Ugalla ecosystem, Kigoma Region, western part of Tanzania. This paper therefore, intended to assess the extent of deforestation and forest degradation in the area, and to determine their causes. A total of 101 respondents were considered as the sample size for this study...

Soil moisture is an important parameter that drives agriculture, climate and hydrological systems. In addition, retrieval of soil moisture is important in the analysis as well as its influence on these systems. Radar imagery is best suited for this retrieval due to its all-weather capability and independence from solar irradiation. Soil moisture re...

Small wetlands in East Africa have grown in prominence driven by the unreliable and diminished rains and the increasing population pressure. Due to their size (less than 500 Ha), these wetlands have not been studied extensively using satellite remote sensing approaches. High spatial resolu-tion remote sensing approaches overcome this limitation all...

The paper describes the assessment of the vegetation and the land use systems of the Malinda Wetland in the Usambara Mountains in Tanzania with the parachute UAS (unmanned aerial system) SUSI 62. The area of investigation was around 8 km2. In two campaigns, one in the wet season and one in the dry season, approximately 2600 aerial photos of the wet...

The dynamic nature and inaccessibility of wetland ecosystems restricts in situ data collection and promote the use of various remote sensing platforms. This is because of their ability to record large areas in comparatively short time peri-ods and map physically unreachable areas. Sensors in the optical and microwave range of the electromagnetic sp...

Small wetlands in East Africa are increasingly converted into sites for agricultural production. The resulting changes in land use and cropping systems will impact on the wetlands’ vegetation. We characterized the plant communities in four wetlands of Kenya and Tanzania, each comprising four types of land use differentiated by the degree of anthrop...

SWEA (agricultural use and vulnerability of small wetlands in East Africa) is a multidisciplinary project which task is to evaluate the effects of land use on the ecological and socio-economical functions of small wetlands in Kenya and Tanzania. In order to allow the availability of the collected data for further studies we stored them into SWEA-Da...

This paper presents the findings of a study that analyzed land use and cover change, their driving forces and the socio-economic implications on the southern and eastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. This study is based on data extracted from remote sensing techniques using 1973, 1984 and 1999/2000 satellite images and household interviews. The majo...

a b s t r a c t Although wetlands in Tanzania and Kenya have great potentials for agricultural production and a mul-titude of uses, many of them are not even documented on official maps. Lack of official recognition has done little in preventing there over utilization. As the wetlands continue to play remarkable roles in the movement of people and...

a b s t r a c t Although wetlands in Tanzania and Kenya have great potentials for agricultural production and a mul-titude of uses, many of them are not even documented on official maps. Lack of official recognition has done little in preventing there over utilization. As the wetlands continue to play remarkable roles in the movement of people and...

Small wetlands in Kenya and Tanzania cover about 12 million ha and are increasingly converted for agricultural production. There is a need to provide guide-lines for their future protection or use, requiring their systematic classification and characterisation. Fifty-one wetlands were inventoried in 2008 in four contrasting sites, covering a survey...

Anthropogenic pressure and environmental change processes are key drivers of the recent intensification in the agricultural use of East African wetlands. Land shortage and degradation of upland areas as well as climate change effects turn wetland ecosystems into focal points of production by commercial and traditional users, entailing rapid wetland...

A study was carried out to determine the charcoal potential of the miombo woodlands of Kitulangalo area, near Morogoro, Tanzania. Systematic sampling design used in an inventory in 1996 was repeated in 1999 in order to determine the general current stand parameters and forest change. A total of 46 sample plots were laid out in the forest reserve. I...

Scientists, governments and NGOs have a critical need to understand the reasons behind land degradation, desertification and loss of biodiversity. Development of this understanding needs to be put on a firmer empirical and analytical footing. Current data deficiencies are due to limited biophysical and socio-economic databases that often are tempor...

The overriding finding of the LUCID land use changes analyses is how rapidly farming and agro-pastoral systems have changed. Small-scale farmers and pastoralists have changed their entire system several times since the 1950’s. New land uses have been developed, and existing land uses have been transformed. In sum, the most significant land use chan...

This report analyzes the water of the Somali Current identifying pressures and impacts, scoring them for levels of present and future severity, taking into consideration increasing pressures over time in the water basins and the effects of climate change and global warming on the same. The report was undertaken as part of the Global International W...

One of the remarkable contemporary features of the landscape on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro is the sharp land use-land cover boundary that cuts across the gradient coinciding with the political boundary between Tanzania and Kenya. The general similarities in ecological conditions and potential land use on both the Kenyan and Tanzanian sides of th...

The overriding finding of the LUCID land use changes analyses is how rapidly farming and agro-pastoral systems have changed. Small-scale farmers and pastoralists have changed their entire system several times since the 1950’s. New land uses have been developed, and existing land uses have been transformed. In sum, the most significant land use chan...

Scientists, governments and NGOs have a critical need to understand the reasons behind land degradation, desertification and loss of biodiversity. What is needed is an approach that links biophysical and socio-economic processes with land use and land management practices, which in turn would be linked to landscape or ecosystem dynamics. This appro...

The "Land Use Change Analysis as an Approach for Investigating Biodiversity Loss and Land Degradation" is a medium sized targeted research project funded by United Nations Environment Programme-Global Environment Facility (UNEP-GEF) and other donors. The project provides an umbrella for coordinated research activities occurring in sites across East...

Research is being undertaken to expand the knowledge about the biomass potential for supplying charcoal to urban centres and find workable policy tools that will enable sustainable production and use of charcoal in the medium term perspective. The project, CHAPOSA (Charcoal Potential in Southern Africa) focuses on the dynamics of charcoal productio...