TNRF was formed in 2001 as the Wildlife Working Group (WWG) by a small informal group of people wishing to promote a new rights-based approach for addressing critical natural resource management issues in Tanzania. This approach holds that natural resource management challenges should not be simply approached as technical and often isolated 'conservation' issues. Instead, resource management needs
to be achieved holistically taking into consideration the integrated management of different resource bases, such as forests, fisheries, wildlife and rangelands. Critically there is a great need to engage with the fundamentals upon which the management of natural resources is dependent - governance, democracy and livelihoods. These key factors are integral to Tanzania Natural Resources Forum’s (TNRF) promotion of a devolved 'rights-based' approach necessary for achieving its vision of equitable, sustainable and transparent management of Tanzania's natural resources. In October 2005, the Wildlife Working Group became Tanzania Natural Resource Forum, in recognition of the fact that many of the issues that the WWG was working on were common to all natural resources, and that a holistic and cross-sectoral approach was required. In February 2006, TNRF became an independently registered NGO, with its own membership and governing steering committee. In 2010, TNRF developed and implemented a new communications and advocacy strategy that links learning to the transformation of natural resource governance in Tanzania: The Learn, Know, Act! Program (LKA!). Through helping build citizen voice, demand and action, the program aims to bring about citizen-driven changes in policy and practice for achieving more effective, efficient and equitable sustainable resource management. LKA! is the core TNRF program, implementing the TNRF strategy (2009-2012).
