Stieglers Gorge Dam Construction: Potential Impacts and Possible Mangrove Restoration Options in the Rufiji Delta, Tanzania

The varied importance of mangroves has long been recognized. And so have been the threats to their existence, leading to various actions taken locally by local communities, national governments, and through international agreements for the protection and integration of human livelihood needs in a manner that balances conservation goals and goals of socio-economic development. In Tanzania the mangrove conservation ethos began during the German colonization of Tanganyika and has been persistent in the age of high globalization. In an effort to deepen our understanding of the dynamics of global, national and local nature conservation, this chapter documents the various strategies and approaches used in mangrove restoration elsewhere in the world generally, and then specifically in the Rufiji Delta. The chapter further unpacks the contrasting socio-political interests behind the efforts to conserve mangroves worldwide and in Tanzania. It does so by looking at three competing narratives, i.e. the mainstream perspective, the neo-liberal perspective, and the local cultural perspective, acting at a number of nested scales from the local grassroots to the national and the global scales.