Transformation of Natural Ecosystem to Agricultural Land and Implications on Environmental Integrity and Rural Livelihood in Lower Irangi, Semi-arid Central Tanzania

Abstract

This article attempts to establish environmental changes in the lower Irangi, Central Tanzania with specific focus on deforestation due to expansion of cultivated land and land degradation, associated with inappropriate land husbandry such as cultivation and livestock keeping.  It also looks at resources use conflicts as a response to diminishing natural resources in the area.  Implications of such environment are discussed.  This study has established that the environment continues to be degrade due to population increase, coupled with stagnant technology in land management.  Farm sized are becoming small because there is no more land for further expansion.  However, the communities have developed strategies to cope with the degrading environment and diminishing natural resources.  It was, however, established that despite the diminishing natural resources, people are sharing these resources regardless of administrative boundaries like village boundaries, thus enhancing depletion of these resources in resource-rich villages.