Tanzania has a land of 94.5 million ha, and about 38% of the land is forest. In the forests outside the forest reserves areas, known as open areas, local residents are free to collect firewood and timber and cultivate farmland. In Lindi Region, where the Knowledge Project target area is located, growing sesame and cashew nuts are popular. In particular, the number of households engaged in sesame production has increased dramatically in recent years due to its price increase. Most of the income of the residents of Nanjirinji village, the target area of the project, comes from agriculture. Illegal logging in search of new land is occurring frequently, and the amount of cultivated land in open areas is chronically decreasing, and threatening to disrupt the balance between local industry and forest conservation.

There are FSC certified forests based on community forests in the southern part of the country, mainly in Kilwa District, Lindi Region. This is a sustainable forest management practice centered on African Blackwood (“ABW”) by a local NGO, and the wood there is traded as FSC-certified timber. This contributes to the establishment of a system in which the community generates public revenue. However, the cost for certification is high and maintaining it is an issue. ABW is the raw material for woodwind instruments such as clarinets, but its production is mainly limited to two countries, including Tanzania, and its continued availability in the future is a global issue. Furthermore, for the residents of the project area, it is difficult to generate income early after afforestation because it takes a long time for ABW trees to grow. Therefore, the challenge for the region is to change the profit structure centered on ABW or to introduce new useful tree species that can generate income in a short period of time. Therefore, this project considered introducing new tree species that could utilize Japanese knowledge.

Acoustic guitars have gained a large share of the market, especially in Asia, and Yamaha’s Indonesian plant ships approximately 1 million units annually. Guitar necks are made of thick mahogany plate wood that requires high dimensional stability in the finished product, and procuring this material has become an issue in recent years. Since neck parts require a large volume of material to be traded, it is essential to build a supply chain that can continuously supply the material. On the other hand, tropical fast growing trees (such as toona and Neem) are planted in many parts of the world, growing quickly and potentially providing a stable supply, but there are many unknowns as to whether they meet performance characteristics needed as musical instrument materials.

• By utilizing Japanese knowledge, various issues of tropical fast growing timber will be solved and can be used as a component of current musical instruments (acoustic guitars, etc.).
• By introducing new fast growing, useful tree species to AWB plantations in Tanzania, residents will improve their livelihoods by earning short- to medium-term income from fast growing timber, in addition to their existing long-term cycle revenue structure based on ABW.
• The stable income of the residents will lead to sustainable forest management and administration, and will also meet the global demand for woodwind instruments.

• The establishment of a new supply chain for tropical fast growing timber using Japanese knowledge will encourage residents in the target areas to introduce and grow fast growing trees, leading to an increase in forest area and resources.
• By using fast growing timber as instrumental materials, this provides a new source of cash income, and thereby stabilizes and improves livelihoods. It also lowers the pressure to cultivate agricultural land and contributes to the maintenance of forests.