INTERACT-Bio

We provide city-regions with nature-based solutions for urban challenges in the Global South and integrate these into city planning and draft Local Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans.

Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Moshi and Arusha in Tanzania are integrating biodiversity and bringing nature back into their cities. This uniquely biodiverse region faces challenges from rapid urbanisation, agricultural encroachment, timber extraction and charcoal production that results in land degradation, over-extraction of natural resources, pollution and habitat loss. This means that nature’s services to urban citizens are being diminished and they are disappearing. These challenges demand strategies that integrate biodiversity into urban planning, both conserving and reaping the benefits of natural resources.

INTERACT-Bio is an international project, active in Tanzania, India and Brazil and helps fast-growing cities to better manage and use nature. It aims to provide expanding urban communities in the Global South with nature-based solutions and associated long-term benefits.

In Tanzania, the project helps participating city-regions to integrate nature-based solutions into city planning and draft Local Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans. It also brings together national and subnational actors for integrated dialogue on the importance of biodiversity benefits.

Visit the project website for more information and activities in India and Brazil.

Project Location

Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Moshi and Arusha, Tanzania

Project Duration

Since 2017

INTERACT-Bio brochure

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Project Highlights

On World Cities Day, we launched the Thematic Atlas of Nature’s Benefits to Dar es Salaam. The Atlas highlights the social benefits of green open space and vegetated areas in the City.
The project together with NGOs Nipe Fagio and BORDA Tanzania brought together children from the Kimochi Primary and Secondary School, teachers, head masters, political and community leaders for a tree planting event. They learnt about the value of trees in urban environments.
We presented the city’s nature poster to the Lord Mayor of Dar es Salaam.
We are currently completing an academic paper for publication that addresses the potential of the Thematic Atlas as a transformative mechanism.

Project aims

INTERACT-Bio aims to:

Connect national and subnational government decision-makers to work together towards integrating biodiversity considerations into city-region planning and decisions.
Strengthen the capacity of city-regions to integrate biodiversity and nature-based solutions into land use, infrastructure and development planning, and to develop supporting policy instruments.
Mainstream biodiversity considerations across sectors at the subnational and national level.

In doing so, INTERACT-Bio will:

Promote nature-based solutions as economically sound and sustainable investment options.
Demonstrate the effectiveness of nature-based city-region development through pilot projects.
Multiply nature-based approaches by connecting city-regions with one another, and by building capacity and raising awareness that nature offers significant value in an urban context.

Partners Logos

Funded By

The project is supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) through the International Climate Initiative (IKI).

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Photo Gallery

A beautifully illustrated poster, developed through INTERACT-Bio, presents the value that nature offers to cities.

To create the Thematic Atlas of Nature’s Benefits to Dar es Salaam, many different stakeholders including government and universities came together to map the city’s natural assets.

A beautiful poster reveals the natural assets and ecosystem services available to Dar es Salaam.

Upgrading gardens to showcase urban nature and the value of plants in cities for pollination, food and shade in Dodoma, Tanzania. The garden is being fed with grey water from a local restaurant.

The Lord Mayor of Dar es Salaam holding the poster of Nature's Value to the city.

The kids from Sango village in Moshi, Tanzania planting trees.

School children in Dar es Salaam are learning how to make thermometers and learning about the value of trees in cities for urban cooling. They'll measure temperatures under trees in their schoolyard to compare with areas without trees.