Miombo woodlands form the widespread ecosystem in Tanzania. The ecosystem of these woodlands
serves as a carbon sink and source containing majority of the above-ground terrestrial organic carbon.
The study assessed forest cover, stocking parameters and above-ground tree biomass dynamics in the
Miombo woodlands of Bereku and Duru Haitemba in Tanzania. The data were obtained from
conventional forest inventory and remote sensing and GIS techniques. Results show that forest cover
has increased for the two consecutive assessment period of 1988 to 2000 and 2000 to 2009, mostly by
higher canopy cover of 6.82 and 0.79%, respectively. Stocking parameters: stand density (N) stand
volume (V) and stand basal area (G) were found to be 1909.5 ± 9.4 stem/ha, 12.3 ± 0.6 m
2
ha-1
and 71.0 ±
6.8 m
3
ha-1
, respectively. Vegetation indices (NDVI, ARVI and ND54) were then combined with forest
inventory data for computation of average above ground biomass which was found to increase from 64
± 6.53, 67.8 ± 5.42 to 79.218 ± 2.75 t/ha for 1988, 2000 and 2009, respectively. The results suggest that,
the Miombo woodland resources have been consistently improving over the years of assessment. This
could be attributed to reduction in negative anthropogenic factors that are known to be the major cause
of resources degradation in Miombo woodlands. However, this improvement may be partial as plot level
information revealed higher exploitation of the dbh class of 4 to 5 cm. Increase of management
effectiveness through involvement of local people under participatory forest management,
strengthened bylaws and provision of other incentives might have contributed greatly to the
improvement of the forest resources.