This Tanzanian village has relied on illegal logging. Now, it changes.

When Hans Cosmas Ngoteya, National Geographic explorer and conservation specialist in Tanzania, started fieldwork four years ago, he did not understand why someone would kill wildlife or damage forests from a national park. (Learn more about National Geographic's new explorers.)

"Why should one cut down trees for no reason?" He thought at the time. "Why should one go fishing for no reason?"

Ngoteya works with villages around Katavi National Park, a large, western Tanzanian park that sees less tourism than more famous destinations like the Serengeti. Without tourism, communities near Katavi have limited economic opportunities. Most people rely on livestock for their animals, which raise incomes outside their small home and keep chickens and ducks inside.

"Nature is what always procured us," said residents in Ngoteya. "So, when you put limits on us to access nature, it's as if you're imposing limits on our lives."

Human encroachment on protected lands takes many forms. Perhaps the best known is the animal hunt for financial benefits or for meat, but another common incursion is illegal logging, especially the endangered mninga and mpodo. Offenders are grouped in the same category: criminals. However, Ngoteya learned that there are different drivers for each one.

Ngoteya's conservation work was to gain the trust of the community. After years of accusations and arrests by environmental advocates who favored the welfare of wildlife, the village was skeptical about VIMA, the Ngoteya project aimed at providing education to conservation and alternative livelihoods to rural communities near Katavi. They even suspected Ngoteya to be an indicator for the park. "If you go there on the wildlife side, you're not a friend." Ngoteya's community-based wildlife management methods are also popular with major conservation groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund. Lisa Steel, Senior Director for Africa and Madagascar with the Fund, said she would like local communities to have "the power to adopt their own vision." Unlike Ngoteya, Steel's work focuses on unprotected areas such as national parks. need for sustainable wildlife management. In his work, Steel understands that it's not enough to tell communities to refrain from using the natural resources that surround them. On the contrary, she says, the World Wildlife Fund works to help people "see more value in wildlife than in death."

Ngoteya tried a similar approach. In the past year, VIMA has focused on the issue of illegal logging in Katavi. Ngoteya first sought to understand why people were cutting trees, and he learned that it was necessary: ​​residents needed firewood.

Ngoteya also worked with the University of Oxford to collect data on the success of VIMA's conservation efforts. knowledge, attitude and behavior. VIMA's wildlife education programs, such as an initiative that brought local youth to Katavi to talk with park rangers, improved knowledge and attitudes in the village. The behavior in the community also changed, but it was not as Ngoteya hoped.

On the one hand, a nursery in the village was so successful that the demand for saplings exceeded their supply. But on the other hand, the data collected by Ngoteya and the Oxford team showed that the community started to buy charcoal to replace firewood, essentially paying for something. One to cut trees for them. (Read about replacing firewood in Uganda.)

To really solve the problem, Ngoteya knew that he had to offer a sustainable alternative.

"The idea we have right now is to establish a biogas system powered by cow manure," says Ngoteya. "So now, if you tell them not to cut the trees we have an alternative for them. Use this now. This is not expensive, it 's just your cow, you can use them to create energy. (Read about biogas in California.)

With this data-driven approach, Ngoteya can respond to changes in its conservation program. focus on the most effective strategies for improving coexistence between humans and wildlife. He hopes that his long-term methods will result in better protection of the wildlife and forests of Katavi National Park and sustainable solutions for neighboring villages