Tenure systems and carbon market in Tanzania the case study of Lindi rural district

Climate change related phenomenon such as drought, floods and diseases affect many people in various ways, including loss of life. Anthropogenic activities such as deforestation have a contribution to climate change challenges through increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, which in turn causes global warming. Strategies to reduce emissions have been formulated whereby Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) by fostering conservation and sustainable management of forest is one of them. In this strategy forest conservation efforts are remunerated and hence provide some incentives for people to conserve the forest and in turn reduce the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. However, its implementation has been coupled with several challenges including the way carbon market can be implemented into different land tenure systems. The objective of this study was to study carbon market systems and identifying the existing tenure systems and the way through which the tenure systems were taken into consideration into REDD+ implementation. The study was done through interviews, focus group discussions and participant observations. It has been found that most of the community members own land but do not have legal means (title deeds) to verify their ownership. Some forests have unclear ownership status, hence this makes community members uncertain and hence people lose the sense of ownership of the forest which results to forest degradation. The study recommends proper observation of the existing rules and regulations, more capacity building of the community members and improvement of the REDD+ governance. Key words; Carbon market system, REDD+ and Tenure systems