Mountain Path Repair International

- Specialists in Erosion Control -

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Our Work in Tanzania: - An Overview

In the Langdale valley at the heart of the English Lake District National Park there is a Stone Age axe factory. Neolithic travelers exported these axes as far as France and Spain. Several thousand years later Stone Age technology has recently been exported to rural Africa.

FARM Africa, a British NGO with a project in Tanzania's Rift valley, is trying to reverse environmental degradation on the Dareda escarpment, some 200km SW of Arusha. During an extensive PRA, villagers voiced their concern about the condition of the footpaths connecting communities above and below the escarpment.

The paths were in a bad way. Since Tanzania's policy of 'villagisation' in the 70's the escarpment slopes have been heavily deforested as an increasing number of people scrambled for firewood and building materials. Overgrazing devastated the remaining vegetation and now the hillside is seriously degraded. Using the paths is too dangerous for many elderly folk as the ruts deepen and the path surface becomes unstable.

Village

Bermi village, at the foot of the escarpment, was very concerned about the situation. With assistance from FARM Africa they formed an Escarpment Committee to co-ordinate their response to the problem. Grazing was banned and stringent by-laws were facilitating regeneration, but, what about the paths?

The solution was found half way up Scafell Pike. I was working there as supervisor of a National Trust path repair team. The methods I use rely on traditional techniques over 2,000 years old. All I need are a pick, a spade and a crowbar. No cement, no plastic pipes, nothing expensive or hard to obtain.

Through the Escarpment Committees work parties were arranged. They decided to rotate work groups so a maximum number of villagers would receive training. And off we went. Three techniques were found to be particularly useful:

Stone drains, which outlive earth drains and provide a hard surface resistant to erosion. The design means that they are largely self-cleaning.

Stone path is created by burying stone to make a hard walking surface, and by stepping the stone gradients can be lessened.

Gully revetment walls protect the bottom of gullies from further erosion and, with sediment carrying water flow, act as a brake forcing the sediment to be dropped behind the wall and filling the gully.

Work in ProgressTraining was done by practical example on-site. The community were the fastest learners I have encountered for the simple reason that they are intelligent and practical in their thinking.

They were learning skills that they asked for rather than being told what they wanted, and having solutions imposed on them.

To evaluate the impact of the work we approached village leaders, the wider community and questioned people using the path.

No negative comments were received.

The work was described as good or very good. The methods were new to the area and were considered appropriate by all.

 

Residents in all nearby villages were unanimous in their view that the paths were now:

This approach is suitable for several reasons. It is low cost, easy to maintain and provides a long term solution to a variety of erosion problems. It can be adapted to almost any set of circumstances from National Parks to isolated villages. So, if you want to know more about Stone Age technology, use the latest technology and contact me at [email protected]

Healing the Rift

For a full report on our work in Tanzania, you can read the on-line version or download:

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