Good practice

Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative (Tanzania)

Tanzania · Kilwa Masoko · See the Tanzania profile

Africa's first FSC community forest (2009): MCDI supports 40+ communities managing 410,000+ ha of Tanzanian miombo woodland, with 150,000 ha FSC-certified. REDD+ credits generated via community early-season burning that prevents destructive late-season wildfires.

40+

Communautés soutenues

410,000+ ha

Forêt sous gestion

150,000 ha

Superficie certifiée FSC

Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative (Tanzania)

Details

Maturity: Established
Promoter: Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative (MCDI)
Period: 2004-present
Keywords: Miombo woodland, fire resilience, community forestry, FSC

Context

La Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative (MCDI) a établi la première forêt communautaire certifiée FSC d'Afrique en 2009, aidant les communautés à gérer la forêt de miombo dans le sud de la Tanzanie et à générer des crédits REDD+ grâce à des brûlages communautaires en début de saison qui préviennent les feux de forêt destructeurs de fin de saison.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-06-20
Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative (MCDI) — accessed 2026-06-20
MCDI official impacts page — accessed 2026-06-20
Oryx (peer-reviewed) -- Fire is REDD+: early burning Tanzania — accessed 2026-06-20

Attachments

Source image

Quality score: 87/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported

Top 1% in this catalogue (335 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Carbon — sequestration / storage, evidenced2/3

REDD+ pilot covers 25,000 ha; early burning yields ~0.5 tC/ha/yr additional sequestration, with 500,000 tCO2 expected lifetime credits (Oryx 2015, peer-reviewed).

Biodiversity — conservation / improvement, evidenced3/3

Africa's first FSC community forest certificate (2009); 150,000+ ha of FSC-certified miombo woodland supporting one of Africa's highest mammal diversities (364 species).

Water & soil — retention, infiltration, erosion control2/3

FSC certification mandates watercourse protection and miombo woodland conservation reduces erosion, but no separate water-services payment is structured.

Fire resilience — risk reduction, evidenced3/3

Community early dry-season prescribed burning is the primary REDD+ mechanism, demonstrably reducing late-season wildfire in a landscape where ~80% burns annually without intervention (Oryx 2015).

Governance, certification & transferability3/3

Africa's first FSC community forest certificate (2009); REDD+ methodology peer-reviewed in Oryx and documented by CIFOR and IIED; 40+ communities with formalised management plans since 2004.

Cite this

Evidoria. Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative (Tanzania). Persistent ID: 57870691-af91-4df0-9297-d63c6966862d.

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