How it started
When Goodall flew over the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania in 1991, home to the Chimpanzees she had been studying for decades, she was aghast at the rate of deforestation surrounding the edges of the forest. With limited economic opportunities and access to public services, it was clear to Goodall that communities have turned to the exploitation of the very environment they were living in due to overpopulation and the lack of food resources. Natural forests have been depleted as a result, leaving one last remaining natural forest in the region – the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee reserve. Goodall recognised how any further damage to the local environment would lead to the destruction of the habitats of the Chimpanzees she loved, and this eventually inspired her to initiate the Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education (TACARE) project in 1994.
As Goodall says, “How can we try to save Chimps when people are struggling to survive?” – Jane Goodall’s Talk at Singapore Botanical Gardens: A Message of Hope (August 3, 2009)
Approach
TACARE was designed as a pilot project to tackle the rampant poverty in villages surrounding Lake Tanganyika by helping them to generate alternative sources of sustainable livelihoods. In view of the interdependent relationship between the community and the environment, the program aims to put a stop to the degradation of natural resources that threaten the long-term survival of Chimpanzees. This is achieved by targeting human development issues in the community. By satisfying primary goals such as survival, community members can then focus on attaining higher priority goals like environmental protection. In other words, livelihood improvement would bring about the exercising of environmental concerns in the community. TACARE is a holistic program that supports local education in hopes of educating the community about the importance of conservation. At the same time, TACARE also aims to equip community members with the technical know-how of engaging in sustainable natural resource management. Today, TACARE has achieved tremendous success and is the leading project under the Jane Goodall Institute’s Population, Health and Environment (JGI PHE) program. Other programs under JGI PHE have since then modeled TACARE’s approach in hopes of attaining similar success.
TACARE’s provisions
- Restored fertility to the lands without the use of chemicals to increase yields of farmers
- Improved medical facilities and schools
- Initiated projects to provide clean eating
- Micro-credit program enables women to take out small loans to start their own environmentally sustainable development projects. Till date, 95 percent of all loans have returned. This allows the community to recognise the interdependent relationship between their local economy and the ecosystem.
- Taught villagers ways of controlling and preventing soil erosion, along with ways of reclaiming overused farmland so that village can be productive within 2 years.