Tanzania is home to more than 1,750 native tree species — a remarkable natural wealth supporting biodiversity, culture, livelihoods, protecting water and strengthening climate resilience. Yet restoration efforts have often relied on a narrow range of species, while many native tree seeds and seedlings remain hard to find, costly to produce, or poorly understood. Through the Darwin Initiative Innovation project, Diversifying Tanzania’s Native Tree Species Portfolio for People and Biodiversity, BGCI and its partners helped shift this. Working with Tanzania Forest Service Agency, Tanzania Tree Growers Associations Union, ECHO East Africa Impact Centre, Migombani Botanic Garden of Zanzibar and others, the project established a Seed and Seedling Suppliers Consultation Group (SSCG): a national expert network from government, research, botanic gardens, NGOs, universities, nurseries and the private sector. The SSCG provided a platform for collaboration and sharing expertise, guiding gap assessments, species prioritisation, technical review and policy engagement to strengthen Tanzania’s native tree restoration sector.

The project prioritised 100 useful and ecologically important native tree species, linking conservation value with benefits for people, including timber, fruits, medicine, non-timber forest products, watershed protection and habitat restoration. It strengthened skills in phenology monitoring, seed collection, storage, propagation, nursery management, marketing and species-site matching. In total, 110 trainers were trained and cascaded knowledge to 310 practitioners.

To keep this knowledge accessible and useful beyond the project, BGCI and partners developed a free NTS web-based hub, which hosts NTS resources, propagation protocols, bilingual self-learning materials, videos, What to Plant Where tools and the Native Tree Species Nursery Directory. The directory helps practitioners identify nurseries producing native tree seedlings, while raising the profile and visibility of suppliers, connecting them with potential users. An interactive mapping platform further supports restoration planning, guiding decisions on priority species, seed sources, agroecological zones, floristic regions, potential vegetation and seed transfer zones.

Results are already visible: participating nurseries reported a 20–40% increase in native species availability while technical knowledge and capacity improved across the sector. At the policy level, Tanzania’s draft Tree Seed Regulations now include stronger attention to native tree species. For people, this means stronger skills, new market opportunities and more resilient nursery enterprises. For biodiversity, it means better-planned restoration using the right tree, in the right place, for the right purpose.

BGCI invites all nurseries in Tanzania producing native tree species to join the Nursery Directory and help grow Tanzania’s native tree future.