GoodGeist
A podcast on sustainability, hosted by Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network. Looking at sustainability issues, communications, and featuring global guests from a wide variety of sectors such as business, NGOs and government.
GoodGeist
Land, Gender & Dialogue with Paine Eulalia Mako
Join us for a sparkling conversation that dives into land rights, women's rights and sustainability in Tanzania, with the hugely inspiring Payne Mako from the Ashden Award-winning Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT).
Her journey encompasses the profound challenges faced by communities in northern Tanzania, battling the impacts of climate change while striving for justice and equity. We talk about the vital role of collective ownership as a key driver toward positive change and how Payne's advocacy for land rights promotes resilience against environmental degradation.
We get some insights into the unique ecosystem of northern Tanzania, where the livelihoods of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers are intricately tied to the land. Our talk also highlights the ongoing efforts to empower women in traditionally patriarchal societies, showcasing how UCRT’s initiatives spark transformational change and foster a culture of dialogue and equality.
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Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone, you are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damla from Mira Agency, istanbul, and.
Speaker 3:This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester.
Speaker 2:This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated and what creativity can do to make positive change happen improve the lives of pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and hunter-gatherer communities in northern Tanzania by empowering them to sustainably manage and benefit from the natural resources on which their livelihoods depend. Ucrt believes that empowering these communities is a fundamental step towards a just and sustainable society.
Speaker 3:Payne took over as Executive Director in 2020 after 10 years at UCRT and, among other roles, she works as a field facilitator to launch and support women's networks and women's rights advocacy. She also represented East Africa and Africa at the International Land Coalition and, if that's not all enough, holds a Master's in Climate Change and Sustainable Development. So, payne, thank you so much for talking to Damla and myself.
Speaker 4:You're very welcome and happy to join you.
Speaker 3:Amazing. So let's dive in. And first of all, we always love to hear somebody's story and where they've come to and where they're going to. So do you mind telling us how you came to dedicate your life to sustainable development? Do you mind telling us?
Speaker 4:how you came to dedicate your life to sustainable development. It's a long story but I hope I can make it short and precise. Masai and I come from a family of 36 siblings. Obviously, that means I have stepmothers and stepbrothers and stepsisters and stepbrothers and stepsisters, and only four of us were fortunate enough to go to school through the support of, you know, good people and personally I was sponsored by Catholic missionaries through to secondary school education and later on, my village through land investment money, supported part of my college fees and when in college I interned with with Jamaa Community Resource Team, ucrt, and that's how I connected with Jamaa and I stayed on to date because its work was so relevant to my personal life, my family's life, my community's lives and you know we worked with communities with Jama, worked with communities, and I felt personally it's a way of giving back, working with the community that had given so much to me and where else to work on or what else to work on other than, you know, land and environment.
Speaker 4:It was very relevant and because it's core and it touches on livelihoods, culture, identity of, you know, pastoralists and hunter-gatherers, communities. So I felt right at home and I felt I was contributing to something significant for so many people.
Speaker 2:We can say this was in your blood? I think so. Let's talk about a bit about your country. According to World Bank data, tanzania has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world. Quickly degrading land resources, dwindling water resources, threatening agriculture, hydropower and human consumption, increasing levels of environmental pollution I mean air, water and soil pollution altogether and high vulnerability to climate change impacts. Can you give us a picture of northern Tanzania's standing in the climate crisis?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I must say that northern Tanzania savannah rangelands comprise one of Africa's richest and most diverse ecosystems and it's where some of Africa's largest wildlife populations live, along with indigenous human cultures and communities. This includes, you know, the Maasai pastoralists, amongst other pastoralists in Tanzania, but also the hunter-gatherers communities, which includes the Hadzabe and the Akiye and roughly. Northern Tanzania is about 34,000 square kilometers. It's semi-arid, with annual rainfall ranging from 300 millimeters to 700 millimeters, and it's affected mainly livelihoods through severe droughts, which has led to massive livestock loss over the years. You know, for the case of hunter-gatherers, accessibility to wild fruits, wild tubers and, you know, wildlife to hunt also became an issue during severe droughts. But due to its richness, there are a lot of conflicting vested interests in this landscape. There are community interests which differ from government interests and differ from investors' interest. Large-scale farming is also another issue, but also conservation being. All these interest conflict with each other.
Speaker 3:So Ujamaa. What I'm going to ask next, payne, is about Ujamaa and the sort of core mission at UCRT, but could we get into land and governance a little bit and talk about the land laws in Tanzania? Because I think, unless we're wrong, the case is that all land in Tanzania is public land, I think, and the president is the kind of trustee of this land, and there's a community land tenure system in place. It sounds really fascinating. So we'd love to hear more about that and about how, for you, payne, it's at the core of the big idea at the centre of your work, which is community-led conservation. Tell us a bit more about land and governance and how all this works.
Speaker 4:Yeah, land is critical to all human beings, but mostly to communities that directly depend on this land for survival. And so, you're completely right, land is held in trustee of the people, but doesn't mean that the president owns the land. So there are three categories of land in Tanzania public land, village land and protected or conserved lands. And all these three categories are under their own laws. And I will focus on village land, which is over 60% of Tanzania's land, and it is where our focus lies, because it's where communities we work with reside, and so the laws that rule village land is the Land Act number five of 1995. And our work is based on this village land, which is, as I said, is over 60% of the total land in Tanzania. So, basically, what we do is secure tenure rights for hunter-gatherers and pastoralist communities. Why? The question is why these communities? These communities are communal in nature. They own, they manage, they govern land collectively, govern land collectively, and so, because of also their way of life, their mobile in nature, over time, when they move from place to place, they've lost a lot of land. Tech, the Hadzabe hunter-gatherers groups, over the years have lost 90% of their land to different interests, and so we came in to address that gap. You know, using the legal framework in Tanzania, where you could, you know, secure land using collective titles to ensure that pastoralists and hunter-gatherers, when they move from place to place, their land is intact because they have a title to their land.
Speaker 4:So this process, how does this process look like? So we start by demarcating the outer boundaries of a village to get what we call a village land certificate, and in doing that, you first have to bring neighboring communities together to agree on the boundaries so that you are able to demarcate the village boundaries and come up with the village land use planning. Once you've known the boundaries of a village, you do the internal land use planning, where communities segment their land based on their uses. So in most cases, what happens with pastoralists and hunter-gatherers? They will dedicate 80% of their land to collective use, which, in the case of pastoralists, would be grazing land. So 80% of the village land will go, maybe for grazing purposes, and and that means that the grazing land is vast, open land that is accessible to anyone living in that village to graze livestock, and in most cases, external people would look at this and see open, empty, unoccupied land. But communities have their own uses to this land, and so they think that, you know, anyone can come in, occupy, use their land the way they want, or maybe invest in that land, you know, know.
Speaker 4:And so this collective land, we pioneered the issuing of collective titles in Tanzania, which are called Communal Certificates of Customary Right of Occupancy. So we issued the first ever Communal of customary right of occupancy in 2011. And it took us like 10 years to push for this to happen, because there was little understanding of how this looks like, how this works. But you know, our government systems are the ones to approve these processes, so they had to understand why this has to happen that way. And so, after certification of village land, after land use planning process, then we titled the collective land with CCROs and to date, we've been able to secure over 3 million hectares of land using that process that I described, and this has benefited over 450,000 people, and this is across 150 villages. And this is across 150 villages, yeah, so if village land is not defined that way, it means that land can be converted for any other purpose.
Speaker 4:So that's why we do what we do.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Amazing because this also groundbreaks how we see land, how we see collective ownership and how we collaborate with the land as humans. So this is actually a very, very inspiring system of using our collective resources. Wow, I'm just speechless.
Speaker 3:Steve, I know. Well, do you know? I mean, in fact, I think, Payne, maybe you could come over to the UK and start fixing our land ownership issues. We have such a crazy system that we have big chunks of the UK, for example, that are owned by our king, would you believe, which is insane.
Speaker 2:But anyway, Damla, don't start me on that I have another question on that, because I know pain. You also work for women's empowerment and equal rights and please correct me if I I'm wrong, but the rights to own land came through a patrilineal system up until 2023 in tanzania, so only uh, the boys. Boys could own the land and women had no rights. So how the change is going on that part?
Speaker 4:So you're completely right. Our societies are still patrilineal, which means control of major resources, including land, is under the control of men, and even livestock, which is the key economy for communities we work in, is under the control of men, which means that women are left on the sidelines and their voices in terms of decision making are very low. And so many consequences when women don't have economic power. But you know, over time also, tanzanian laws and policies have been able to address these gaps in trying to bring equality amongst men and women, and not only in land ownership, but also property rights and leadership, decision-making processes and governance bodies, the role of women and the need for women to take up those spaces. Locally, here, as with Jamaa, we came up with what we call Women Rights and Leadership Forum platforms, which really are spaces in which women openly discuss different norms affecting them negatively and how they bring in the traditional male leadership system to have a dialogue on these issues. And you know debate and say you know we as women, we feel and see that this is oppressive to us in this way and we need to change this. So they work out solutions to their issues on their own through dialogue.
Speaker 4:So the idea of bringing in women or establishing Women and leadership forum, was really to first create a parallel system to one that traditionally existed, and the idea also was to train women to know that they have equal rights to men and to realize that they also have power in society that they can use to advance society or communities.
Speaker 4:And so extra training to women meant that women are able to hold these dialogues where men and women come together and debate on oppressive cultural norms and say what do we do about this? And you know there are common understandings of equal education to both boys and girls and that both men and women support this and try to reduce occurrences in communities where girls are forced to early marriages opposed to going to school, an opportunity to go to school, and you know property ownership and particularly in relation to widows and how their rights can be, you know promoted by men and women. And you know issues related to domestic violence, how they can handle this and you know develop possible solutions to. You know make communities spaces that men and women feel comfortable to live in.
Speaker 3:Hey, do you mind me following up on that a little bit, payne? We wanted to get into some of your practical work in a minute, but what you've just described to us is wonderful because you've described it in this incredibly logical, calm, strategic way. But you've just been describing an incredible process of cultural change, haven't you in your communities and I just wonder, just following up on that, could you tell us anything more around the culture change that's being brought about? What are the barriers to creating what seems like a very big shift in the cultural norms that you talked about right at the start there? How are you achieving that sort of culture shift?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we felt and we see that dialogue is the best way to go, because bringing men on board means that their spaces of long standing space in leadership role is not being threatened More of what are the benefits when men and women work together to achieve equality? I think that is opposed to maybe centering our attention to empowering women on their own. Men would feel threatened their roles, you know, maybe feel that women are overtaking, maybe feel that women are overtaking, but dialogue is the reasoning. Why do women feel this way, why do men feel this way and how do we come to an understanding? So there's sort of a balance and there's an equal decision-making process. So the process is long and it's time-consuming, resource-consuming, but at the end of the day it's more productive. And previously we've paid attention to women's voices as women. We've paid attention to women's voices as women and bringing men and women together seemed to work, you know, a little bit faster in terms of bringing the change that the community needs.
Speaker 3:Amazing Jamila over to you.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm really amazed and inspired with everything she says, and I also am inspired with their Ashton Winner projects too, so let's go a bit into that. Ujamaa focuses on community resource management, as well as nature-based livelihoods, and you have some good practices, such as your work in Yade Valley, and in your five-year strategic plan you say that you stand shoulder to shoulder with communities, offering support in resolving conflicts, advancing land rights and natural resource management, refining government structures and improving social and economic empowerment. Oh my God, that is actually bold and a lot of work to do. So how will this five-year strategy have real impact? How do you make it happen?
Speaker 4:so, um, I think that in the beginning, ujamaa was there to ensure that, in the long run, pastoralists and hunter-gatherers, communities, have access, control and even ownership of land, even if their way of life is communal. And you know, that is the basis of everything the fact that land is life, land is identity, land is culture. I think it touches on the core of being a human being in our, you know, local context. And so for us, titling and making sure that communities have control over access to land and other resources within the land I mean you're talking about water, we are talking about salt lake for livestock, we are talking about forest products, we are talking about medicine and so many other things and I mean having that right. You know, you can say this is my land, I have a right to it, even if it was taken away today, I can go to court and provide evidence that you know this belongs to me or this belongs to us, because there is no me in our communal context. It's us, this belongs to us, and you can fight that and win that in a just system. You can win that and continue to have access to that from one generation to another. That alone is what we live for as we Jamaa, and our strategy, the core of our strategy is secure tenure.
Speaker 4:The core of our strategy is secure tenure. What comes after secure tenure are a necessity to ensure that communities continue to have control over the land and the natural resources within that, within the landscape in which they live in. So, and you know, when we began in 2011, the land secured was very small in size, but over the years, we became experts in replicating the process from one village to another, from one district to another and from one region to another, and we've kept growing in terms of land secured. You know, going to three million hectares of land that is owned and controlled by communities is a big achievement, but having systems to manage, to govern this land is very critical, which is, then, our other core thematic area in our strategic plan area in our strategic plan, from ensuring that there are local governing structures in place, the local governing structures know their roles and responsibilities and implement their roles and responsibilities, ensures that land owned by communities is sustainable, is well taken care of, but also, because of climate change and the fact that there is more and more frequent droughts, that is affecting the economy of these communities, developing management plans. Developing management plans, for example, the grazing calendars for pastoralists to ensure that there is a sustainable way in which they use available pasture, is something that we work with our communities to develop and to ensure that these laws created by communities are followed and are implemented and that communities themselves put consequences to those who violate these laws and regulations set by them. And so everyone plays by the laws and regulations set by communities to protect land and natural resources. So those are some of the ways, but we are also looking at strengthening livelihoods and, particularly for women, developing women rights and leadership forums, very helpful for social networks. But also, you know, community village, community banks are something women organize themselves. We give trainings and you know they run those income generating activities, income generating activities. And you know if women on their own can generate $250,000 per year and learn to do different businesses, that's empowering women. The voice, the leadership in women will come out stronger with these efforts or activities done by women.
Speaker 4:But also, considering that we said, northern Tanzania is a very rich and diverse ecosystem. Wildlife is very common and diverse ecosystem. Wildlife is very common. Key wildlife areas the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, serengeti and many, many more national parks neighbor these community lands. It means that you know wildlife also move in and out of community land. Wildlife also move in and out of community land and how do we organize communities to benefit from? You know tourism revenue, for example, is something that we support communities to organize themselves to develop protocols and regulations on how to get income from tourism. It could be cultural tourism, which is very popular in the Aeda Valley, for example, and you know, in Aia those communities get up to $200,000 from organized cultural tourism. You know carbon is coming in. There is a lot of confusion on the ground when it comes to carbon, but there are communities receiving over $560,000 a year for carbon trade or forest carbon.
Speaker 3:So that's how we support uh, improving livelihoods in a nature friendly way wow, that's amazing pain and um, obviously I think it goes without saying we'd love to talk to you for hours and hours and hours and and get deep into the scale that you're working at. It's incredible you said it yourself a huge achievement. All those millions of hectares under stewardship is phenomenal, and all that work on empowerment. You talked about intergenerational equity that we've not really even touched on, but it's amazing. But we do have to wrap up, so we have one final question for you, if that's okay. Our network of agencies is ironically called Do Not Smile, because we know that we need to make sustainability something that brings happiness into the world. So what object, place or person always makes you smile?
Speaker 4:And not just smile but also energize me, because this work can be draining and exhausting. But when we reach a milestone of land secured within a community, there are always community celebrations and that is a purpose, a reason to smile. Know, as I said, this energizes me to push for more land secured and under the hands of communities at a faster rate. You know the joy, the smile, the laughter shared with communities during this celebration goes beyond words.
Speaker 3:Wow. Well, I think we should keep our words short after that beautiful ending from Payne there, and also, I should say we should say something Damla, a big thank you to the Ashton Awards, without which we wouldn't know about you and your amazing work and the amazing work that they do. So, damla, do you want to close us up?
Speaker 2:Well, thanks to everyone who has listened to our Good Guys podcast, brought to you by the Do Not Smile network of agencies.
Speaker 3:And make sure you listen to future episodes. We'll be talking to more amazing people like Payne about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future.
Speaker 1:So, payne Damla, see you soon. Brought to you by the DNS Network.
