Environmental loss: the cost to Tanzania’s economy

by Salvatory Macha

Much of Tanzania’s economic growth is dependent on the natural ecosystems that allow the harvesting of resources such as water, timber, and fish from the environment. However, society often regards these resources as infinite and free, which can lead to their overexploitation, resulting in the ecosystems becoming degraded and unhealthy. The ripple effect can be felt through the entire economy.

The EfD Tanzania Report 2017 gives you an excellent overview of the centres´ achievements during 2017 ranging from interesting policy stories on how economic research is put to use around the world to collaborative research programs, a wide range of publications, and our academic capacity efforts. 

Promotion and supporting the adoption of land management and conservation technologies (LMCTs) among poor farming households has been considered to improve crop yields as well as production technical efficiency (TE). This article compares production efficiency between adopters and nonadopters of LMCTs in Tanzania. Using national panel data, the study applied stochastic frontier model to estimate the TE of adopters and nonadopters. The findings show that adopters of LMCTs had a relatively significantly higher TE (0.73) than their nonadopter counterparts (0.69).

Concerns about food insecurity have grown in Sub-Saharan Africa due to rapidly growing population and food price volatility. Post-harvest Losses (PHL) reduction has been identified as a key component to complement efforts to address food security challenges and improve farm incomes, especially for the rural poor.

In sub-Saharan Africa, urban recreational ecosystem services are browning and disappearing despite the global recognition of their importance. We study the availability, preference, and determinants of visitations to urban recreational ecosystem services in Dar es Salaam. The results show that, amongst the functioning and publicly owned recreational ecosystem services, there are botanical gardens and other open green spaces with greenery (e.g., trees, grass, or gardens) and sometimes with basic facilities such as benches.

This multi-country analysis studies the food security implications of natural pollinator populations in sub-Saharan Africa, where smallholder farmers rely on wild pollinators in the absence of commercial pollination services. The study specifies daily intake of energy, macro-nutrients, minerals and vitamins per household member, and identify differences in pollinator dependence in male- and female-headed households. Four key observations emerge. First, smallholder farm households produce a menu of food crops.