Where: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Area of Solutions: Biodiversity and nature-based solutions, Education and advocacy, Involvement of local communities and indigenous peoples
From July to October 2020, Culture and Development East Africa ran 'Okoa mimea Asili-OMA' which translates to 'save native plants', a project aimed at preserving native plants. The project focused on East African coastal plants. Native plants of this ecosystem are at serious risk (among the world’s 36 biodiversity hotspots).
OMA pooled together experts from the botanical department at UDSM, COSTECH, TFS, Slow Food Tanzania & others to educate local botanists from the Pwani and Dar es Salaam regions, which are at the center of the spread of alien plants in this habitat. These botanists participated in a three-day workshop that saw them visiting Pande Forest, a national park with plenty of native plants that is heavily protected due to encroachment. The majority of these botanists had never been to the Pande Forest, and they learned a lot from the workshop. Additionally, each botanist left with two native plants to continue to nurture in their own nurseries.
OMA launched a social media and public relations campaign which had a direct reach to over 20 million people, mainly people in the East African coastal regions. They created a documentary which highlighted varying voices, including experts, locals and government stakeholders, who had knowledge or experience on the preservation of native plants in the East African coastal ecosystem. The documentary is yet to be aired, however, six short videos were procured that were aired during OMA public relations campaign. All this was made possible through the sponsorship of Purpose Lab USA.
While working on this project, there were normal challenges with human resources in terms of team cohesiveness as Culture and Development East Africa worked with a lot of consultants.
It will be disappointing if the momentum gained from this project doesn't get funding to allow it to continue. If this project does continue it will feature further advocacy and a heavy focus on establishing exclusive native plant nurseries. This campaign coincided with the spread of Covid-19 in Tanzania, so Culture and Development East Africa worked to remind the populace that preserving the natural ecosystem (bedrocks of which are its native plants) ensures their health is safe. This endeavor was backed by the national traditional medicine university of MUHAS-ITM and proved to be useful.
Photos credit: Culture and Development East Africa
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