Revitalizing Indigenous Knowledge to Support Sustainable Management of Ramsar Wetlands in Kilombero Valley, Tanzania

Abstract

The Kilombero Valley Ramsar Site supports 1.5 million livelihoods through wetland ecosystem services historically stewarded by Indigenous Peoples. This study documented Indigenous knowledge practices, identified continuity barriers, and assessed integration potential across 11 villages using 93 key informant interviews, 22 gender-disaggregated focus groups, 59 household interviews, and communication, education and public awareness programmes (n = 796 participants). Clan governance through escalating penalties (fishing bans, goat fines, grain confiscation) and sacred site protection sustained fisheries and forest cover pre-1990s. However, its 95 per cent abandonment over 30–50 years, driven by immigration of of many tribes including Sukuma people (~ 70 per cent), science-only curricula (~ 80 per cent youth scepticism), religion, globalisation and unenforceable village by-laws, have triggered pollution (~ 80 per cent waterbodies), destructive fishing, and forest conversion. CEPA training revealed strong support for hybrid governance: 85 per cent adult trainees favoured joint patrols of traditional healers (mbui) and rangers; and improved sacred site recognition among pupils (n = 490). Formal governance failures (remote enforcement gaps, absent legitimacy) underpin community demands for Indigenous knowledge systems reintegration. Kilombero Valley Ramsar site demonstrates the urgent need for hybrid conservation approaches that draw on surviving surviving clan authority to achieve Ramsar wise use principles where top-down approaches have failed.