Planting complete · Tanzania
The Butiama Hills landscape has suffered serious deforestation due to firewood harvesting, charcoal burning and grazing. This project is restoring the forest to protect ecosystem services.
The introduction of agroforestry systems in areas adjacent to the degraded Butiama hillsides will improve local livelihoods while reducing pressure on the remaining forests for fuelwood. At the same time, the project aims to facilitate the proper conversion and formal recognition of a community forest under an appropriate management plan. Together, these practices will help create favorable conditions for assisted natural regeneration (ANR) to support vegetation recovery, restore water catchment areas, and ultimately revive critical clean water springs.
Key challenges in the landscape
Improve forest governance and stewardship:
Clarify forest boundary locations, develop a forest management plan and strengthen law enforcement
Conserve and restore the forest:
Ecological restoration through Assisted Natural Regeneration of the hillside forest.
Strengthen forest-friendly livelihoods and behaviors:
Improve incomes and resilience for smallholder farming households in four villages through training and equipping farmers to convert to agroforestry systems.
Outcome:
Restore a functional ecosystem in the Butiama hillside landscape by reducing pressure on forest resources through a combination of Joint Forest Management implementation, promotion of forest-friendly and diversified economic pathways and improved agricultural productivity via sustainable agroforestry systems in four villages surrounding the hills.
The long-term impact of our work will benefit people, nature and climate.
Project notes from Ecologi, our planting partner for this site.
Restoring the Butiama Hills landscape in Tanzania
Tanzania
This project is supporting 4 communities in Busegwe, Kigori, Nyanza and Mwuikoro. Several interventions are being implemented to improve livelihoods of people within these communities, including sustainable agroforestry and beekeeping. Learning skills that will enable them to earn a sustainable income for many years to come will increase the standard of living for people living in these communities, and protect the forest ecosystem at the same time.
Strengthened governance and forest-friendly livelihoods will ensure communities see the forest as an asset: one that provides resources while being sustainably managed. By introducing agroforestry to the landscape, the project reduces deforestation-driven income reliance while securing long-term economic stability.
This project is restoring and conserving at-risk forests that have been degraded over the last few decades due to unsustainable harvesting, and burning and grazing practices. Restoring these forests will protect habitat important for local nature. Restoring the project area will protect biodiversity and secure critical ecosystem services like water and soil health. Improved land management will enhance habitat resilience, ensuring the forest continues to sustain both people and wildlife
This project will both capture carbon by restoring healthy forest ecosystems, and address some of the drivers of deforestation including unsustainable firewood harvesting and charcoal production, burning practices, and unsustainable grazing practices. This will keep more carbon locked away.
The restoration of the landscape will contribute to both climate mitigation and adaptation too: increasing tree cover to sequester carbon while improving water retention and soil stability to help communities adapt to droughts and erratic weather.
Updates from the people planting it, newest first.
The project completed a major milestone through the distribution of 504,721 seedlings to 245 farmers across the four target villages.
The distribution included agroforestry and livelihood-supporting species, including approximately 14,500 papaya seedlings. To maximise impact and avoid wastage, 50,750 remaining seedlings were donated to local institutions, including 25 primary schools, 20 secondary schools and one university. Seedling losses remained low, with only 5,055 seedlings lost during the distribution process.
The project continued using adaptive management approaches through 28 weekly coordination meetings, which supported progress tracking, problem-solving, and planning. Although planned monthly farmer group and extensionist meetings were not conducted separately due to competing implementation priorities, farmer engagement continued through integrated field activities and wrap-up meetings.
Between January and June 2026, 61,538 trees have been planted, restoring almost 50 hectares of land.
The Butiama Hillside project continues to make strong progress toward strengthening community-led forest governance and promoting forest-friendly livelihood opportunities among communities surrounding the Butiama Hills.
Despite challenges related to a compressed implementation timeline, staff turnover and future sustainability planning, the project maintained implementation momentum and achieved key milestones across forest governance, restoration and community engagement.
The most recent of the 70 trees planted here for somebody's pet.
Every tree on this site still stands and still has its page. New trees go to the sites we plant now.
