Sectoral Context. 1.2.1 Development priorities and Millennium Development Goals About 38% of the Tanzania’s 886,000 km2 total land area is covered by forests and woodlands that provide for wildlife habitat, unique natural ecosystems and biological diversity and water catchments amounting to 1.6 million ha. These forests are however faced with deforestation at a rate of between 130,000 and 500,000 ha per annum, which results from heavy pressure from agricultural expansion, livestock grazing, wild fires, over-exploitation and unsustainable utilization of wood resources and other human activities mainly in the general lands. In the context of proper forest management the National Forest Programme (NFP) was designed as an instrument meant to implement the National Forest Policy, which was approved by the Government in 1998. The policy takes cognisance of macro-economic and other sectoral policies ranging from environmental conservation to sustainable development of the land based natural resources. Major policies that have a bearing on the forest sector include the Environmental Policy, Agriculture Policy, Livestock Policy, Wildlife Policy and Land Policy. The formulation of respective legislation and their operationalization will enhance sustainable forest management mainly in the general lands and cross-sectoral areas. The NFP was developed in order to address the challenging responsibilities in the near future and to increase the forest sector’s contribution to the national economy and more so in poverty reduction. Forests and trees play multiple roles in the life of majority of Tanzanian rural people, especially women and marginal groups in relation to food security, rural energy supply and household subsistence. Forests are increasingly becoming important in the local and global environmental and biodiversity conservation. The NFP would significantly enhance not only sustainable forest management (SFM) but also improve the design and implementation of projects and programmes which have so far been fragmented and uncoordinated. Recognizing the ever increasing environmental degradation and loss of forest resources, Tanzania embarked on developing a long-term National Forest Programme to implement the National Forest Policy. The objectives of the NFP development programmes are to:
Sectoral Context. Aquatic products are the most internationally traded agriculture commodity in the world. The global seafood market is estimated around USD 80 billion and farmed products make up an increasingly greater proportion of the trade due largely to stagnating wild fisheries supplies. The highest value commodity group traded around the world is “crustacean”; the group to which shrimp and prawn belong to. Over 70 percent of the crustacean production originates from small- scale aquaculture farms. The two major crustacean species produced in the world are; Penaeus spp. (marine shrimp) and Macrobrachium sp. (freshwater prawn). Major market for these products from Asia is the European Union (European Union). Shrimp and prawn are important export commodities for Bangladesh as well. In 2008, Bangladesh produced 69 350 tonnes of shrimp and prawn products and exported 69 326 tonnes, mainly to the European Union and the United States of America, valued at USD 564 million (Figure 2 and Table 1). Shrimp and prawn is the second most important export commodity
Sectoral Context
