The NEAP Department of Research and Environmental Affairs would like to express its profound gratitude to Felix N.D. Kaluma, NEAP Coordinator, Stephen K. Machira, Natural Resource Environmentalist and Patrick C. Kamwendo, Environmental Economist for their untiring efforts in drafting and editing the document.

The Department is also indebted to the Chairmen, Lead persons and members of all the eighteen task forces and all participants to the national and district consultative workshops for their valuable contributions.

Special thanks go to Erik Whist of Scanteam International AS for his technical assistance in the whole NEAP process; Prof. Nadaraja Shanmugaratnam and Dr.Stein Holden who assisted in the analysis of task force reports and critical review of the first three chapters; Leif Christoffersen, Peter Pohland and Dr. Emmauel Asibey for their critical comments on the draft; Dr Sergio Margulis far his technical assistance on the prioritisation of environmental issues.

Also, the Department is greatly indebted to Dr. Sosten Chiotha for proofreading and considerably improving some sections of the document and Mrs Sophie Msonthi for typing the manuscript.

Finally, the Department is grateful to the Norwegian Trust Fund and the World Bank for the financial and technical support without which this project would not have been successfully implemented.