Early September we started activities of our new Darwin Initiative funded project in the Lake Natron Basin in northern Tanzania. The project supports stakeholders from the national to the local level to implement the National Invasive Species Strategy and Action Plan (NISSAP), with special focus on Prosopis juliflora in the region stretching from the Kenyan border to Lake Manyara.

As part of two workshops to develop a draft spatial management plan for the Lake Natron basin, we visited the area heavily invaded by prosopis where we have worked before as part of the Woody Weeds project. Participants from the Lake Natron basin, where the invasions are just starting, got an opportunity to observe first hand the devastating effects of of dense invasions.

Seeing and hearing from local community members about the impacts made the participants recognise the urgency to prevent the spread of the species into their grazing lands and wildlife areas, and manage the relatively few trees that have already established.

This visit made the pastoralist community members realise how important it is to prevent invasions in pasturelands, since managing invasions in grazing lands is much more challenging than in agricultural fields that are continuously cultivated. Increasingly, biological control is equally generating interesting discussions and the communities are open to introduction of the agents as a safer option.