Ngorongoro conservation area is a multiple land-use system established in 1959 to provide for both wildlife conservation and economic development of resident Maasai pastoralists. A study was conducted by analyzing remote sensing images (Landsat MSS 1975, Landsat TM 1991, and Landsat TM 2000 in order to determine trends in vegetation cover changes between 1975 and 2000. The results indicates that major changes in the study area from 1970 to 2000 involved increase in woody vegetation cover types including forest (+ 48.7%), bush land (+42.7%); and loss of scrubland (-29.1%) and grasslands (-37.0%). Other changes involved invasion of highland grassland by unpalatable grass species (-34.4%). The period covered was associated with restrictive conservation policies that disrupted traditional pastoral mobility restricting large herds of livestock on highland areas that induced range deterioration. It is concluded that pastoral land use system has preserved the savanna landscape in Ngorongoro area whereas land-use policies that disrupts traditional pastoral land use systems threaten a breakdown of savanna ecosystem that supports a tourism industry in the area.

Since the 2000, Tanzania is striving to eliminate gender inequality in the education system. As such, the gender gap in enrolment is closing in primary education. Yet, gendered performance remains a challenge. Using data from Primary School Leaving Examination results for the period between 2007 and 2011, and from qualitative methods, this paper examined trends and factors for poor performance in Mathematics and Science subjects with a gender perspective. Two schools from rural and two from urban areas were involved in the study. The results did not show a clear trend in Mathematics performance in rural relative to urban schools, which showed a clear decreasing trend. On the other hand, performance in science was decreasing in rural schools and in one of the urban schools. There was also lower girls' performance in both subjects with some few unique cases. Secondly, the gender inequality was more prominent in rural relative to urban schools because of a number of overlapping factors including lack of female teachers role models and lack of an appropriate school environment for girls. Therefore, to tackle gender inequality in performance, rigorous efforts need to consider multiple, but interlocking factors with a gender lens, while considering rural-urban differences.

No abstract

This study sought to gain in-depth understanding into smallholder farmers' responses to production shocks in Tanzania. It involved identification of the strategies that smallholder farmers use to cope with production shocks. The study employed mixed research methodology, using primary data collected from six villages in Sumbawanga, Mbarali and Rufiji districts in Tanzania. The findings of the study revealed that there are various strategies that smallholder farmers use in response to production shocks. The strategies include agricultural intensification, diversification of livelihoods activities and migration. Policy implication of this study is that policy makers and other stakeholders should recognize important roles of smallholder farmers' response options in mitigating the adverse impacts of production shocks.

Anomic situations in societies are often brought about by social changes. Social anomie is a phenomenon that emerges when traditional norms are not sufficient enough to adequately respond to the new emerging situations, although this does not necessarily imply a state of normlessness in a society. These emerging new situations might result from society’s internal development processes or can be externally imposed. The process of globalisation has brought many major changes in the world political and social-cultural systems. The hitherto unprecedented flow of capital in the name of globalisation has led to a more stratified world than it was before. This process, mainly driven by economic rationalities, has led to social, cultural, environmental and political instabilities in many societies around the world. In a world that lacks a real-world social order, this article reflects on how globalisation impacts on social systems and proposes a spaceship ethic value orientation in charting out ways towards reaching the new world order, where every society can be an indispensable part of the world nomos.