DAY EIGHT: SUPPORTING ZANZIBAR’S FORESTS AND COMMUNITIES
Our early flight made for a very early day for the bunch of us heading to Zanzibar (not that I’m complaining), and we arrived there mid-morning, greeted by the good people from
CARE and the
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the NGOs who worked together on a forest conservation project near Jozani Forest. The forest is part of Zanzibar’s only national park. It is located about 38 kilometers southeast of Zanzibar Town, the capital city of Zanzibar.
They spirited us away in a dala dala—in this case, a sort of long, covered pick-up truck with benches and a bright red decor—which offered fresh air and good views (if not cushions). Before long we were at Jozani. We first joined a panel of staff from CARE and WCS for a presentation on the project’s facets and achievements.
The CARE/WCS partnership on this project emerged on a recommendation by CEPF Grant Director John Watkin that proposals coming from each organization be combined to create a stronger project and a cooperative effort to improve conservation and human well-being around Jozani. The partnership also included the Department of Commercial Crops, Fruits and Forestry. The project’s goals included maintaining Zanzibar’s biological diversity through better habitat protection; implementing improved livelihoods for residents through ecologically sustainable activities; and engendering community participation in and benefit from conservation activities.
Jozani is home to the endemic Zanzibar red colobus monkey. The surrounding villages also share their land with the Endangered monkeys and a number of other species, including the Critically Endangered Ader’s duiker. Through the CARE/WCS effort, the Zanzibar government turned over land use control in and around several of these villages to community committees who then designated high-use and low-use forest areas to try to create or improve forest buffer zones and wildlife corridors. Some residents were trained to monitor the wildlife and patrol against illegal use of the forest, and others received assistance in developing sustainable livelihoods such as beekeeping. The project also encouraged villagers to get involved in a personal savings program.
Our plan was to visit and talk with some of the residents who’ve been involved in the project, but first, our hosts took us on a brief tour of the park, starting with a quiet area of forest with a lovely, mostly flat trail, which my leg especially appreciated. The area was dense with huge ferns, mahogany trees and eucalyptus.
After taking all of that in, we went almost immediately on to another area of the forest to see the red colobus monkeys. They weren’t hard to find or photograph (laid back, easy to spot, hard to motivate). Apparently the afternoon is prime digestion time, so most of their action that time of day is internal.
A BUMPY TOUR OF SOUTH ZANZIBAR
After taking plenty of colobus photos, we all piled back into the dala dala to travel to one of the communities CARE and WCS have been working with: Mtende near the southernmost tip of Zanzibar Island.
We met members of the community conservation committee at a spot in the high-protection use zone of their forest outside of the village. Here I briefly interviewed the committee members about the program, having to use a tree branch to hold the microphone.
In response to my questioning, the committee members said other community residents have joined in the effort by helping to patrol the forest and report any illegal activity. The forest has grown back in the high-protection zones after about three years of enforcement, they said. The community has also benefited from renewed interest in the area from wildlife researchers who come to study the Ader’s duiker and other species. These visitors often donate money to the community, and that has contributed to the construction of schools and a library.
Next, we returned to the dala dala, and headed off to another village, Paje, located on the southeastern side of the island. There, or rather in the bush near there, we met with members of that village’s conservation committee and its environmental association. They also reported an improvement in the forest after they implemented the land management agreement and took charge of managing and policing the different land use zones, noting that animals that were not previously seen in the area now frequent it. They also have been not only patrolling the area, but also working cooperatively with a neighboring community on patrolling.
Meanwhile, the village and surrounding area have also gotten involved in some livelihoods that do not degrade the forest, such as sustainable fishing and seaweed harvesting, or making handicrafts, soap or rope out of coconut husks.
After the interviews, we briefly toured Jozani’s mangrove forest trail, then back to the park for a pit stop, and piling back into the dala dala once again for the rough ride to Stone Town, having covered a large swath of the southern half of the island in a single day.
STAYING IN STONE TOWN
We stayed the night in Stone Town, the old quarter of Zanzibar Town whose history and 
culture have made enabled it to qualify as a World Heritage Site. It used to be the center of East African trade—including slaves—before colonization of the mainland. It’s known for its mix of cultures, the resulting architecture, narrow and winding streets and alleys, and many beautiful carved wooden doors. And though I don’t think this factored in to the World Heritage Site designation, it should be noted that Stone Town also is the birthplace of Freddie Mercury of the band Queen.
For dinner, some members of the group took advantage of Stone Town’s oceanside food market, where grilled seafood was abundant, and the squid was tasty. (A tip gleaned from Conrad’s experience: Don’t eat the lobster if it smells like a urinal.)
Not long after dining, I retired to the hotel to catch up on my sleep, but members of the party apparently joined in Zanzibar’s nightlife. There are tales of tail-shaking, but sadly no video. Or they’re hiding it from me.
DAY NINE: STONETOWN CONTINUED
Our hotel had a lot of, shall we say, character. The lock on the door for my room was actually a padlock. And the management apparently decided to have a worker come in and paint the floor of the common areas and stairways during the night. This not only offered strong fumes to help us sleep, but also provided extreme traction when we stepped out of our rooms in the morning, to the extent that it was hard to keep your shoe with you to that second step. There were, in fact, a few shoe casualties among our group that morning (flip-flops did not fare well), and one colleague actually was unable to leave her room for a while as the door had been partially painted over.
Once we unstuck our shoes, we divvied up into two groups, with one advance party heading to an early wrap-up meeting with WCS and CARE, and the rest of us meeting up with them later. I interviewed Said Fakih of WCS and Ismail S. Mgeni of CARE about the unusual pairing of their organizations—one focused on conservation, the other on human health and well-being. Their organizations seem to have melded together for the project almost seamlessly, a positive sign for the future of such cooperative efforts on Zanzibar and elsewhere.