Conservationists have launched a 20-year-long project to protect what is arguably Tanzania’s most biologically rich landscape: the Udzungwa Mountains. The strategy places notable emphasis on communities living here, with more than half of its budget allocated to social and economic projects and managing human-wildlife conflict.

The Udzungwa Mountains’ evergreen forests, woodlands and grasslands are home to plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth. Scientists, however, estimate that over the last 2,000 years the massif has lost more than three-quarters of its forest cover. In the past century, expansion of small-scale farming, tea and exotic timber plantations, and hardwood logging have been primary drivers of deforestation.

While the rate of forest loss has slowed in some areas since 1992, when formal conservation areas were established, Trevor Jones, director of strategy and development at the Southern Tanzania Elephant Program (STEP), says the goal now is to halt deforestation entirely, and eventually reverse it.

The Udzungwa Landscape Strategy (ULS) was launched in October last year. A collaborative effort between conservation groups, government agencies and communities, the ULS aims to safeguard three key protected areas in Udzungwa, the largest among a dozen isolated massifs in the Eastern Arc, a mountain chain stretching between Tanzania and Kenya.

“The opportunity that we saw, that we wanted to focus on, was the protection of these three core protected areas, which is only about 60% of the area of the whole landscape,” Jones says.

The core areas are Udzungwa Mountains National Park, which is well-protected, and Kilombero and Uzungwa Scarp nature forest reserves, which are not.

Initially funded by the Hempel Foundation and Aage V. Jensen Charity Foundation, the ULS aims to raise $3 million per year over the next 20 years, with 80% of these funds allocated equally between protecting the park and forest reserves and promoting social and economic well-being in surrounding communities. The remaining 20% will go toward resolving human-wildlife conflict, enhancing collaboration with local communities, covering management costs, and monitoring the project’s impact.

In the short to medium terms, ULS partners will seek further philanthropic support and explore innovative sustainable financing models. Jones notes that their partnership with the Tanzanian government is key to accessing major international funding sources, such as the Tropical Forest Finance Facility, global biodiversity funds, and U.N.-backed conservation initiatives.

In the longer term, revenue from carbon and biodiversity credits could further sustain conservation efforts.

“The Udzungwa Mountains will be incredibly competitive [in attracting investment in biodiversity credits] because it is already in one of the top 10 global biodiversity hotspots,” Jones says.

Udzungwa is reputed to hold 6% of the world’s bird species, 3% of the world’s mammal species, and nearly 1% of the world’s reptile and amphibian species. These include the Kihansi spray toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis), a small yellow frog that only lives in the spray zone of Udzungwa’s Kihansi Falls. The toad was declared extinct in the wild in 2009 after a dam built upstream of the falls cut off 90% of the water flow. The toads have since been bred in captivity, with ongoing efforts to reintroduce them into the wild.

Other unique animals include primates like the Udzungwa red colobus monkey (Piliocolobus gordonorum) the Sanje mangabey (Cercocebus sanjei) and the kipunji (Rungwecebus kipunji), an endangered grayish-brown monkey with a punk-rocker hairstyle that was only revealed to the world in 2006.

“Safeguarding these precious forests whilst guaranteeing the sustainable livelihoods of local communities demands a well-planned, well-financed project with ambition,” says Oliver Beasley, a lecturer in conservation science at the U.K.’s Bristol Zoological Society.

His organization, which has worked to protect Sanje mangabeys in Udzungwa since 2014, isn’t an implementing partner of the ULS, but sees promise in its approach. “This project brings together a diverse group of key partners and stakeholders and unifies them to deliver long-term conservation actions co-designed with the communities themselves,” Beasley says.

A major focus of the ULS is improving the livelihoods of residents in 71 villages bordering the protected areas. Conservation partners plan to sign voluntary agreements with villages, which will receive performance payments for efforts such as preventing forest loss or reducing poaching. Village savings and loan associations will be set up to help residents start businesses, pay school fees or cover health care costs.

Mathew Mabele, a human geographer at the University of Dodoma in Tanzania, says the ULS has the potential to redefine how biodiversity conservation aligns with the needs and aspirations of local communities. However, he raises concerns about both the role of non-Tanzanians in shaping the strategy and the involvement of state conservation agencies and protected area (PA) staff in its implementation.

“The [park and forest reserve] officials don’t trust the communities, and community members don’t trust park officials,” Mabele says, noting that this tension stems from the colonial history of conservation in Tanzania, as well as statutory policies, laws and operational structures.

“The goals [of the ULS] must follow the policy and legal frameworks, which sometimes may not necessarily support the nurturing of positive PA-community relations.”

Arafat Mtui, the ULS’s Tanzanian manager, acknowledges these concerns. But he also emphasizes that while non-Tanzanians have contributed technical expertise and insights on international best practices, the strategy remains firmly grounded in Tanzanian priorities and local realities.

“The objective has always been to empower local actors rather than impose external solution,” he says.

To build trust, community members will participate in joint patrols with park and forest reserve staff, co-host training sessions on human rights and regulatory compliance, and collaborate to foster conservation values. Integrating sustainable livelihood opportunities for residents of the 71 villages bordering the protected areas with conservation initiatives is also a key focus. This, Mtui notes, could help navigate the constraints posed by existing policies and legal frameworks.

Another key component is promoting alternative energy solutions. So far, more than 2,400 people in five villages have benefited from more than 500 mud stoves built by one of the ULS’s implementing organizations, Mazingira Alliance for Community and Conservation (MACCO), an Udzungwa-based nonprofit that promotes sustainable development.

Residents of 23 villages who attended consultations arranged by STEP and its partners in 2023 ranked fuel-efficient cooking stoves as a top priority.

Silvia Ricci, an adviser in the community and livelihoods department at MACCO, says most households in Udzungwa need to cook three or four times a day for a half dozen people, making fuel costs a significant financial burden. MACCO has introduced a stove constructed from a dozen mud bricks coated with a clay and sawdust mixture that is designed to channel air efficiently and expel smoke while reducing firewood consumption.

“Cooking energy and related issues are a priority for Tanzanian people,” Ricci says, “even if not necessarily for fighting deforestation and environmental degradation.”

By 2027, MACCO aims to reach 15 villages around the three core protected areas with the stoves. The project employs 30 people who build around 450 stoves per month. They’ve also set up three factories to produce biomass briquettes, a cheaper substitute to charcoal made from organic waste like corn cobs, coconut shells and rice husks.

For Jones, who has spent years studying Udzungwa’s mammals, the urgency of conservation is underscored by his own encounters in the field. He recalls his first sighting of the kipunji in 2004 while exploring the Ndundulu sector of the Kilombero Forest Reserve for undocumented Sanje mangabeys.

“As we were scanning another mixed-species monkey group, Richard [Laizzer, a research assistant] suddenly cried, ‘Mangabey!’” Jones recalls.

“I turned my binoculars to the individual in question and excitement gave way to shock, for this was not a mangabey. In fact, I had no idea what it was. In an instant this shaggy, punky monkey was gone, and I was sitting on the ground uttering expletives [in astonishment].”

Later named Rungwecebus kipunji after Mount Rungwe in Tanzania’s southern highlands where a type specimen was found by another group of scientists in a hunter’s trap, the kipunji was the first new monkey genus to be described in Africa for 125 years.

“This is just one of so many extraordinary discoveries in the Udzungwa Mountains over the last 40 years,” Jones says, “and they are still happening today.”

Banner image: One of approximately 200 kipunji monkeys in the Udzungwa Mountains. Image courtesy Anthony Jarrett.

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