Abstract:
In April 2003, the East Usambara Mountains ecosystem in northern Tanzania was invaded by small
scale individual illegal miners extracting gold, and this posed enormous threats to this high biodiversity
in the area. The government therefore started evicting these miners. Using the trade-off approach this
article examines the issues involved in evicting these miners and it further highlights the socio-
economic and governance factors at play and their influence at local, national and global scales.
Results show that the major challenge is absence of a process mechanism for good and equitable
decision making and that this is not made any better by the unequal and varied values and valuation
methods. The article concludes by recommending, among other things, empowering the local
communities and decision makers by providing them with relevant information pertaining to the issue
before a decision is made and to dramatically improve participatory processes for all the concerned
persons.
