Njombe

In February 1998, I was working in CDC's offices in Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, awaiting my transfer to Tanganyika Wattle Company (affectionately known as Tanwat) in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. I had taken a long lunch hour in order to do some shopping on Oxford Street. On returning to the office, I announced my realisation of the remoteness of CDC's offices from Central London, whereupon a colleague invited me to have a look at a map of East Africa.

"That's what I call remote" he said, pointing at Njombe.

A few weeks later, on the 720 km drive from Dar es Salaam to Njombe, I was in no doubt that he was right. Tanzania is a big country. The journey was a full day's drive through Morogoro and Mikumi national park and the Ruaha gorge with its forest of baobab trees, up the Iringa escarpment through the pine and eucalypt plantations of Sao Hill before a left turn at Makambako and the final 60 km to Njombe.



The visitor to Tanwat is greeted by a wall of black wattle trees (acacia mearnsii), first planted on a 10 year rotation in 1950s colonial Tanganyika. The bark of this Australian import to East & Southern Africa has a very high tannin content which, when extracted from the bark through a simple boiling process, coagulates into a black solid which is now primarily used in tanneries in South Asia. Next was the tea estate, Kibena Tea: a bright green monoculture of neat tea bushes (camellia sinensis) carefully pruned to waist height for ease of plucking. And then, a turn on to the management housing crescent, with its jacaranda trees and colonial-syle bungalows, complete with well-worn furniture and wood-burning stoves. Even Tanwat's address was redolent of step back in time: Private Bag, Njombe, Tanzania.

Since Tanwat's early days, the tea estate, pine and eucalypt plantations and, latterly, a wood-fired power station were added to the wattle estates to create an integrated agro-forestry business which, at its zenith, employed upwards of 2,000 people. Because of its relative remoteness, Tanwat also developed staff housing, a company infirmary, primary schools, mechanical and vehicle workshops. It was, as my first MD Tom Lupton said to CDC's then-Chairman during a short visit, an example of social best practice, an example of the positive power of business activities and investment to build economic communities, not simply through foreign exchange generation, employment and tax collection and payment, but also through the training and skills development of its employees - perhaps its greatest legacy of its almost 60-year life - along with the development of the tiny settlement of Njombe into an urban centre in the region. Tanwat is by no means unique in this regard: there are many plantation towns in East Africa - Mumias, Webuye and Kericho in Kenya all come to mind - but it is nevertheless a fine example in the best tradition of Saltaire, Bourneville and the industrial model villages of the early Victorian era.

There's always a "but" however, and Tanwat is no exception. Every silver lining has a cloud - and Tanwat's cloud was the importation of the Black Wattle tree acacia mearnsii to East Africa. Wattle is now categorised as among the worst Invasive Alien Species. Here's the wikipedia comment:

The invasiveness of this species is partly due to its ability to produce large numbers of long-lived seeds (which may be triggered to germinate en masse following bush fires), and the development of a large crown which shades other vegetation. A. mearnsii competes with and replaces indigenous vegetation. It may replace grass communities to the detriment of the grazing industry and grazing wildlife. By causing an increase in the height and biomass of vegetation A. mearnsii infestations increase rainfall interception and transpiration, which causes a decrease in streamflow. Soil under A. mearnsii becomes desiccated more quickly (than it does under grass). A. mearnsii stands also destabilise stream banks and support a lower diversity of species

So, like almost everything, Tanwat's legacy to Njombe is a mixed blessing.