In the late 19th century when within the Usambara District of German East Africa, German colonialists came into the area bringing with them a mix of cash crops like lumber trees, coffee, tea, and quinine, and also designated forests as reserves for either water conservation or timber use.[7] They also brought many new Western concepts, which often were diametrically opposed to traditional beliefs, such as coexistence with the forest versus forest as a "separate wilderness".[8] The result of colonialism was a massive change in the way forests were perceived in the community, and conversion of traditional agriculture to cultivating cash crops such as quinine, pine trees, bananas, maize, tea, and coffee.
