By Habitat Media Reporter
Zanzibar. Tanzania is stepping up efforts to strengthen oversight of carbon projects as the government seeks to expand climate action while protecting forests and other natural resources and ensuring local communities benefit from the emerging carbon economy.
The issue was at the centre of discussions between Hamad Yussuf Masauni, Minister of State in the Vice-President’s Office responsible for Union Affairs and Environment, and Ashatu Kijaji, Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, when they met in Zanzibar recently.
The two ministers discussed strategies to improve coordination between their ministries in the implementation and supervision of carbon trading projects across the country.
The discussions come as carbon markets gain global importance as a potential source of climate finance, particularly for countries such as Tanzania, which have extensive forests, wetlands and other ecosystems capable of storing carbon.
For Tanzania, these natural assets present both an environmental responsibility and an opportunity to mobilise additional resources for conservation and climate action.
However, the expansion of the carbon market also brings challenges. Without effective oversight, carbon projects can raise concerns over land rights, community participation, benefit-sharing, transparency and the environmental credibility of carbon credits.
The government is therefore seeking to ensure that carbon projects deliver genuine climate and conservation benefits while safeguarding Tanzania’s national interests.
Forests offer major opportunity
Tanzania’s forests are among the country’s most important natural defences against climate change.
They absorb and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while supporting biodiversity, regulating water systems, protecting soils and providing livelihoods for millions of people.
These functions also give forests economic value in carbon markets, where projects can generate carbon credits by preventing emissions or removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Carbon projects can involve forest conservation and restoration, sustainable land management, improved agricultural practices, clean-energy solutions and other activities designed to reduce or remove greenhouse-gas emissions.
When properly designed and independently verified, the resulting carbon credits can be traded in carbon markets, providing a potential source of financing for environmental projects.
For Tanzania, the opportunity lies in directing part of this financing towards protecting forests and restoring degraded ecosystems while improving the livelihoods of communities that depend on natural resources.
Protecting communities and ecosystems
As the carbon market expands, maintaining environmental integrity will be critical.
Carbon projects can cover large areas of land and operate for many years, making the participation of local communities particularly important.
People living in and around forests need to understand how projects operate, what rights they have and how revenues and other benefits will be shared.
The government’s emphasis on protecting national interests and ensuring community benefits therefore comes at a critical point in the development of Tanzania’s carbon market.
A successful carbon project should deliver more than a tradable credit. It should contribute to measurable emissions reductions or carbon removal while strengthening conservation and providing tangible benefits to the communities and ecosystems involved.
Linking carbon markets to climate action
Tanzania is a party to major international climate agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.
These agreements commit countries to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and strengthening resilience to the impacts of climate change.
Tanzania can pursue these objectives through nature-based solutions, including forest conservation, ecosystem restoration, sustainable agriculture and improved land management.
Clean energy and emerging technologies can also contribute to emissions reductions, including carbon capture, utilisation and storage in appropriate industrial applications.
Carbon finance can help provide resources for some of these interventions, particularly where conventional sources of environmental financing remain limited.
Building trust in the carbon market
The government’s next challenge will be to build confidence in Tanzania’s carbon market among communities, environmental organisations, project developers, buyers and investors.
That will require clear rules, effective monitoring, transparent transactions and credible measurement of the carbon benefits generated by projects.
Strong safeguards will also be essential to prevent projects from causing unintended environmental or social harm.
For Tanzania, the success of the carbon market should ultimately be measured not only by the number of credits generated or the amount of money attracted, but by whether forests are protected, ecosystems restored, emissions reduced and communities receive lasting benefits.
The latest discussions between the environment and natural resources authorities signal an attempt to strengthen that balance.
If effectively managed, carbon finance could become an important additional tool for Tanzania’s conservation efforts turning the protection of forests and other natural ecosystems into a source of climate finance while keeping environmental and community interests at the heart of the market.