04 June 2015, Rusumo, Tanzania - Pupils of the Magereza Elementary School in Rusumo use dry leaves to cover the grounds of a banana farm on the school premises during a class of the Farmafield School program. The technique called "mulching" consists in creating a buffer between the soil and the soacking rain allowing the water to drip into the ground creating a perfect moist and at the same time preventing soil erosion in areas where torrential rains often wash away layer upon layers of precious fertile soil. The projects implements several different techniques teaching the local farmers different land management options: mulching, boundaries and contours, fire lines and hay making contribute to the development of new instruments in farming resulting in an improvement to the livelihood of the communities. The natural resources of the Kagera river basin, which rises in Burundi and flows through Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania into Lake Victoria, are facing increasing pressures and degradation as a result of population pressures, the intensification of agricultural and livestock activities and unsustainable land use systems and management practices. The basin? land and freshwater resource base, its associated biodiversity and thereby human livelihoods and food security are threatened by declining productive capacity and resource value of the cropland, rangeland and forests and by wetland encroachment. The PDF-B grant aims to improve knowledge and strengthen capacities at local, technical and policy levels for the preparation of an integrated agro-ecosystems and biodiversity management framework - the Transboundary Agro-ecosystems Management Programme (TAMP).