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While many East African governments have put in place policies to devolve governance and management of natural resources to rural communities, the capacity to implement and facilitate these processes are often lacking or inadequate. Tanzanias Village Land Act No. 5 1999 mandates that village governments form Village Land Councils (VLCs) and Village Land Use Planning Committees (VLUPCs) as the first step in establishing Participatory Village Land Use Plans (PVLUPs) which contain locally agreed upon by-laws governing the use of land and natural resources. However, as a consequence of lack of capacity to implement this policy, thousands of villages within Tanzania are without village land use plans.Lilian Pintea The presentation will focus on the implementation of this policy to a threatened landscape in western Tanzania and its potential to improve natural resource management, support conservation outcomes and build local capacity. Results from the implementation of this policy with and by local authorities, from village to national levels, will be shared as well as lessons learned. Additionally, the role of GIS, satellite imagery, and mobile mapping technologies using smartphones, tablets and cloud computing to facilitate this process and continuously monitor community lands for sustainable resource management will be shared.